AI agents
Field notes
Field notes
PMS
Pharmacies lose ₹40,000 a year to expired stock. Here's why.
We pulled twelve months of stock-write-off data from forty independent pharmacies running ElySpace PMS. Median expiry loss came out to ₹42,800 per shop per year, enough to wipe out two months of net profit for a small chemist.
The interesting part is not the number. It is that the same three patterns produce most of it.
1. Buying on instinct, not on velocity
Most pharmacies still order the way they did fifteen years ago, by glancing at the shelf and asking the rep what is new. A velocity report that shows what actually sold last month, ranked by SKU, changes the conversation. You stop trusting the rep and start trusting the till.
2. Ignoring batch and expiry at the point of sale
Older batches do not sell themselves. If the system does not prompt the counter staff to dispense the nearest-expiry strip first, the newest stock walks out the door and the old stock dies on the shelf. FIFO is a software problem, not a discipline problem.
3. No early-warning window
By the time a strip is expired it is already a loss. The window where you can still return-to-distributor or discount-and-clear is roughly 90 to 120 days before expiry. A weekly report of every SKU entering that window, with quantity, batch, and supplier, is the single highest-ROI report a pharmacy can run.
What we ship in ElySpace PMS
FIFO-enforced dispensing, weekly expiry-alert email to the owner, and a one-screen velocity report on the dashboard. Shops that act on the alerts cut expiry loss to under ₹15,000 a year within six months.
Related reading
More from the field notes stack.
Playbook
School ERP