Heyao Cloud: Empowering Pharmacy New Retail with AI-Driven SaaS Solutions

“Spend xx yuan on medications and receive xx free eggs”—this uniquely Chinese pharmacy marketing tactic is surely familiar to everyone. As chain pharmacies proliferate across the country, enhancing consumer service has become essential for pharmacies seeking to boost their competitiveness, with increasing customer stickiness being a prerequisite.

“HeYao Cloud,” powered by AI and big data, helps pharmacies build intelligent pharmaceutical care and marketing platforms through a SaaS model. It provides customers with thoughtful medication and health services, including pre-purchase medication guidance, post-purchase scenario-based medication instructions, and daily wellness tips, thereby enhancing the professionalism of pharmacies and their member service capabilities. In practice, the platform delivers these services to consumers via the “HeYao Cloud Screen.”

HeYao Cloud Screen integrates with pharmacy POS systems. At the point of payment, HeYao Cloud Screen automatically provides medication guidance to customers and encourages them to scan a QR code to follow the pharmacy’s official account, offering further medication advice and health care services. Additionally, pharmacies can enhance customer loyalty through interactions with consumers.

VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) has learned that since its launch in September, Heyao Yunping has signed contracts with over 1,000 pharmacies. These pharmacies are currently located in four cities: Beijing, Qingdao, Taiyuan, and Xi’an. The platform’s daily member conversion rate has reached as high as 70%.

After graduating with a master’s degree from Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Wang Jianhui dedicated himself to the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry. He founded the “Self-Test Medication” app platform, which achieved over 10 million downloads. However, he soon discovered that customer acquisition costs in the consumer-facing (C-end) market were high, customer churn was significant, and it was difficult to establish a closed-loop transaction system.

Consequently, Wang Jianhui shifted his strategy and established Beijing Heyao Health Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Heyao Health”) in June 2017. Targeting business-to-business (B2B) clients, the company acquired customers through offline pharmacies to drive the growth of its online operations, with the integration of online and offline channels being key to forming a closed-loop ecosystem.

Heyao Health’s business model underwent several adjustments. Initially, it established an online-to-offline (O2O) marketing platform; however, significant operational obstacles soon emerged. First, there were data integration issues: pharmacy systems are typically provided by ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) vendors, making direct integration difficult for pharmacies. Second, pharmacies had a very weak existing base of online users, hindering large-scale expansion. Wang Jianhui quickly pivoted the strategy and launched the “Heyao Cloud Box” in December of the same year, printing QR codes on receipts. Nevertheless, post-departure conversion rates among consumers remained insufficient.

After reflecting on the underlying causes, Wang Jianhui officially launched the “Heyao Cloud Screen,” which supports on-site viewing, in September this year. Tailored to customer needs, the Heyao Cloud Screen offers the following features:

During Medication Purchase: When the customer makes a payment, the Heyao Cloud Screen automatically provides medication guidance, encourages the customer to scan the QR code to follow the pharmacy’s official WeChat account, intelligently activates secondary marketing opportunities, and delivers comprehensive medication and healthcare support.

Scenario-Based Medication Guidance After Purchase: A service solution for scenario-based medication guidance after purchase, providing customers with comprehensive medication support including pharmacist reminders, contraindications, administration instructions, advice on managing missed or excessive doses, and guidance on combination therapy. Additionally, it offers users comprehensive health solutions and intelligent health education throughout the medication course.

Pre-purchase Self-test Medication: Provides comprehensive medication and health solutions based on specific disease symptoms, currently covering over 40 common diseases and more than 1,000 medications. Supports integration with chain store product databases, automatically hiding out-of-stock items.

Daily Wellness TCM Health Checkup: A research achievement awarded the Second Prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award, this service conducts a systematic and comprehensive TCM constitution identification assessment via questionnaires, and formulates personalized health management plans based on daily lifestyle and health products.

Wang Jianhui stated that small and medium-sized pharmacy chains are currently under significant survival pressure. Firstly, these pharmacies are very weak in terms of membership services and professional services. Heyao Health aims to help pharmacies enhance their professional pharmaceutical care, thereby boosting their competitiveness.

Second, once the member base reaches a certain scale, Heyao Health’s online team will integrate with the SaaS platform to assist pharmacies in member marketing and operations. Furthermore, when data accumulates to a significant volume, it will be fed back to pharmaceutical companies, enabling them to gain insights into consumers’ precise needs through data analysis. In addition, addressing specific consumer issues, Heyao Health will also conduct targeted advertising campaigns to promote products for pharmaceutical companies.

Furthermore, as the number of online consumers grows, Heyao Health will gradually develop its O2O e-commerce operating platform to help pharmacies expand their store coverage radius and enhance conversion rates through improved services.

Wang Jianhui told VCBeat that before accumulating a substantial amount of data, Heyao Health must remain humble and promote its products gradually. Although the current revenue model is relatively singular (charging service fees to pharmacies), e-commerce services and pharmaceutical company services will gradually roll out once data accumulation reaches a certain level, while the company will continue to delve deeper into market demands. Wang Jianhui predicts that the Heyao Cloud Screen will cover nearly 30,000 stores by next year.