Dear Kyra offers online pharmacist consultations and home delivery. Orders came in through their online store, then a person had to place each one with a pharmacy by hand.
I first sat down with the team to map the whole order journey, from checkout to the parcel arriving.
Who does what, where time is lost, and which steps a computer can safely take over.
New store orders are picked up automatically, no copying.
Nearby pharmacies are notified, and the best one is chosen when several accept.
Delivery status is tracked and customers are updated without anyone checking.
For technical readers: the moving parts, and the mechanism that makes it reliable.
A new order goes to partner pharmacies near the customer first, and wider only if none can take it. The first to accept gets the order, and the others are told at once.
Each order moves through clear states (new, matched, out for delivery, delivered), so tracking and messages are driven by the same record.
Staff only step in on exceptions, instead of touching every order.
For engineers: the order lifecycle, how a pharmacy is found, and how the system stays safe when messages and deliveries fail.
Every step is driven by the order's status, so the next action is always clear.
More than 20 states in total. Exceptions go to a manual queue instead of getting stuck.
async handlePharmacyResponse(orderId, pharmacyId, isAccept) { const order = await OrderService.getOrderById(orderId); // only orders still waiting for a pharmacy can be taken if (!AWAITING_PHARMACY.includes(order.status)) throw new AppError('Order closed', 400); if (order.pharmacyId) throw new AppError('Taken by another pharmacy', 409); if (!isAccept) return recordDecline(order, pharmacyId); const pharmacy = await PharmacyService.getPharmacyById(pharmacyId); const quote = await fetchLalamoveQuotation(order, pharmacy); // never throws await OrderService.updateById(orderId, { pharmacyId, lalamoveQuotation: quote, // partners work on credit, others pay first status: pharmacy.creditAllowed ? AWAITING_DELIVERY_METHOD_CHOICE : NON_PARTNER_PHARMACY_CONFIRMED, }); await notifyOtherPharmacies(orderId, '003_partner_store_order_expired'); }
The tricky part was finding the right pharmacy, fast.
Partner pharmacies are cheaper, but they do not cover every area. The system asks nearby partners first and widens only when needed, so the customer gets their medicine fast and the business keeps its costs down.
