How did Mercury Drugstore Started?A Concept PaperPresented to the English Subject TeacherMs. Hanna Katrine Razonable of Language DepartmentLyceum of the Philippines UniversitySenior High School DepartmentGulod Campus, Batangas CityBy:Asilo, Kate Leslie A.Cariño, Daniela M.De Leon, Monique B.Ildefonso, Lara Jaen A.
Jantar, Andrew T.Magtaca, AngeleneMcintosh, Kyra Paner, Patricia M.Tatlonghari, Regin Ian A.Uppal, GurmeenNovember 2018How did Mercury Drug Started?IntroductionMercury Drug Corporation is the Philippines’ dominant pharmacy group. The Quezon City-based company operates a national chain of more than 450 drugstores, including company-owned and franchised stores. Mercury Drug is estimated to sell as much as 60 percent of all medicines sold each year in the Philippines (the country’s hospitals sell about 12 percent of medicine.
Mercury Drug’s pharmacies follow the American model, combining drug and medical equipment sales with over-the-counter medicines, personal care items, basic household needs, cosmetic sand other beauty products, and the like. Most of the company’s stores also are equipped to store and sell serums, blood plasma, albumin, and similar biologically active medical products. In addition to its drugstores, Mercury operates a chain of Mercury Drug Superstores. Generally attached to the company’s pharmacies, the Mercury Drug Superstores extend the group’s assortment to include convenience store and fast-food items. By the mid-2000s, Mercury Drug Corporation operated more than 150 Mercury Drug Superstores.
Founded by Mariano Que, who first sold pills from a pushcart in the 1940s, Mercury Drug Corporation remains a privately held company. Leadership of the company also remains in the family: The company’s president is Mariano Que’s daughter, Vivian Que-Ascoma. Mercury Drug subsidiary the Mercury Group of Companies, which governs other Que family interests, including the 10*Q convenience store chain and the Tropical Hut fast-food group. In 2003, Mercury Drug’s revenues amounted to nearly PHP 43 billion ($8.8 billion).
Mariano Que started his career working in a Manila drugstore in prewar Philippines. There he encountered many medications, including the newly discovered class of sulfa drugs, including sulfathiazole. These new drugs, developed by German scientists in the early 1930s, were quickly hailed as new “miracle” drugs. Indeed, the sulfa drugs enabled the treatment of many illnesses, such as pneumonia, gonorrhea, and other bacterial infections, that previously had been difficult, if impossible, to treat. Even though the sulfa drugs later were shown to have several undesirable side effects (they formed deposits in the kidneys, and bacteria quickly became resistant), they were credited with saving millions of lives around the world through World War Ianthe end of the war and the liberation of the Philippines by U.S.
forces brought new business opportunities in the country. During the occupation, supplies of medicines had become scarce, and the immediate postwar period saw a surge in demand for sulfa drugs, and sulfathiazole, considered by many to be a virtual cure-all. With most of the country’s businesses, including its pharmacies, destroyed during the war, much of the country’s trade shifted to its busy marketplaces. Mariano Que, inspired by the new entrepreneurial spirit, used his drugstore experience to launch his own business. This concept paper includes the Mercury Drug mission statement, stores success and innovations.Theoretical Framework393192024765Mercury Drug Mission Statement00Mercury Drug Mission Statement194119511674200-22630320270How did the Mercury Drug Started?How did the Mercury Drug Started?38969951771015Mercury Drug Innovations00Mercury Drug Innovations3931920763270Mercury Drug Stores Success00Mercury Drug Stores Success194575885072300194564085391300How did Mercury Drug Started?From its humble beginnings, Mercury Drug has gone beyond expectations.
Shortly after the liberation of Manila from Japanese occupation, Mariano Que, realizing the need of the people for medicines, bought with his hard-earned savings of P100 a bottle of 1000 tablets of Sulfathiazole and sold it “patingi-tingi” for P1.00 per tablet in the sidewalks of Bambang, Manila. Sulfathiazole is a wonder drug that cures all during that time.From pushcart – peddling and with his previous working experience in a drugstore before the war, he eventually opened his first small drugstore in Bambang Street.
Mercury Drug has today grown into a vast network of every 700 company-owned and franchised stores nationwide. (Mercury Drug Research, (2016, April 05) Retrieved from https://studymoose.com)Mercury Drug Mission Statement”Continuously be the leading, trusted and caring drugstore”.
In the years to come, Mercury Drug will keep on looking for opportunities to further enable customers to have more access to quality, safe and life-saving medicines, thus enabling them to have more meaningful, healthier and longer lives. It will always pursue its commitment to better and further serve its customers whose trust and loyal patronage has allowed Mercury Drug to be of continued service to the nation. (Retrieved from www.prezi.com/fz-ic8x3kkvq/mercury-drug-store/)Mercury Drug Stores SuccessMercury Drug believes that it owes its success to the millions of customers who have trusted and patronized the drugstore chain all throughout these years. Its feat could also not have been possible without its pool of professional and dedicated staff numbering close to 9,000 today.Aside from bringing its chain of stores closer to the homes of the people, Mercury Drug has constantly endeavored to reach the hearts of the customers.
To achieve this, Mercury Drug has taken pride in the introduction of many firsts in the drug retailing business – all to satisfy, please and further serve the people.Mercury Drug InnovationsIn 1945, it opened a drugstore and one of its innovations is to sell “tingi-tingi” or piece by piece to those who could not afford to buy a whole bottle of medicine. Realizing that not everyone could go to the drugstore, Mercury Drug introduced the first motorized customer delivery service in 1948. Four years later, it commenced the 17 hour, 7 days a week drugstore service; in 1963, the country’s first self-service drugstore; in 1965, the 24-hour, 7 days a week service; in 1967, the first computerized temperature-controlled central warehouse; in 1969, the first drugstore chain to use biological refrigerators to preserve life-saving medicine and in 1976, the first drugstore chain to expand throughout Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.Mercury Drug believes that quality and life-saving medicines made affordable and accessible are as important today as it was then. Now more than ever, it is committed to introducing enhanced services to better serve the customers farther and wider, whoever and wherever they may be.
Aside from pharmaceutical products, it now carries basic household necessities such as food, health and personal care products and others for the buying convenience of its customers. It has also incorporated value added facilities and services in many of its drugstores. More and more branches are open 24-hour service all days of the week. Aside from consistently complying with the 20% discounts to senior citizens, Mercury Drugs has also launched its “Suki” card, a customer program as a way of expressing gratitude to its loyal customers.
As a drugstore with a heart, Mercury Drug has been conducting “Operation Bigay Lunas” every March 1, on their anniversary day together with its business associates. (Retrieved from www.mercurydrug.com/corporate-information.html)ConclusionReferenceshttps://www.mercurydrug.com/corporate-information.htmlMercury Drug Research, (2016, April 05) Retrieved from https://studymoose.comhttps://prezi.com/fz-ic8x3kkvq/mercury-drug-store/https://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history/Lo-Me/Mercury-Drug-Corporation.
