MONOPOLY

Last month, on my visit to Mahabalipuram I came across a shop ‘Arafat Medical Store’.  This store has four more medical stores in the vicinity, but it’s maintaining monopoly in that area with majority of the market share held by it. I interacted with one of the chemists at the store. As per him, there are certain key features of the store, in addition to good quality stock, which are central to it being the leader. There are listed below.

1)   Arafat Medical Store is the biggest among four other medical shops. It’s easier for customers to wait there for their turn to being serviced by the chemists there.

2)   It’s the only air-conditioned shop among other four. Experiencing the weather of Chennai, Air- Conditioner is an added advantage to customers as they could wait comfortably and thus get better user experience.

3)   This medical store is oldest in that area with a history of 20 years. With that long period, it has maintained a good number of loyal customers who return to the shop. The customer satisfaction level is high as the shop maintains a good inventory of all allopathic medicines.

4)   The store maintains 70% stock of medicines and 30% of that of FMCG such as toothpaste, milk powder, toiletry items etc.  People tend to buy these goods whenever they come to purchase medicines.

Monopoly is considered to be bad as it hinders perfect competition in the market. In many cases, the shops or firms abuse monopoly. But since health sector is quite well regulated, this case of monopoly is proving beneficial to the customers as it’s giving them quality service at normal prices.  ‘Arafat Medical Store’ has maintained a image of a ‘Quality Leader’ in its area.