H-E-B Ranks #1 in First-Ever Pharmacy Digital Experience Study

A new JD Power study set out to measure something pharmacies have mostly ignored until now: how satisfying it actually feels to manage a prescription online. The inaugural results turned up a wide gap between the pharmacies getting digital right and the ones treating it as an afterthought, and the difference showed up directly in whether customers said they’d return. One retailer separated itself from every other brick-and-mortar competitor in the country.

The Study Graded Pharmacies on Four Specific Digital Factors

JD Power’s inaugural U.S. Pharmacy Digital Experience Study scored pharmacies on design, performance, information, and tools and capabilities across desktop websites, mobile websites, and mobile apps. Rather than asking customers for a general impression, the study measured how well digital tools actually handled common pharmacy tasks, from refilling a prescription to checking for drug interactions. Combining those channel scores produced a single overall satisfaction rating on a 1,000-point scale for each retailer.

Overall Satisfaction Sits at 677 for Stores, 707 for Mail Order

Across the industry as a whole, brick-and-mortar pharmacy digital channels landed at an average satisfaction score of 677 out of 1,000, while mail order pharmacies scored somewhat higher at 707. Neither number suggests customers are particularly impressed with pharmacy websites and apps right now. The gap between the best and worst mail order mobile app in the study measured just 73 points, meaning even the leaders aren’t pulling dramatically far ahead of the pack.

A Bad Digital Experience Can Cost a Pharmacy More Than Half Its Customers

The study tied satisfaction scores directly to whether customers said they’d come back. Among those who rated their digital experience 500 or below, less than half said they’d return to that pharmacy. Customers who scored their experience above 801 told a different story, with more than 90% saying they planned to stick around. JD Power’s Eric McCready said the finding shows “the digital experience is no longer a secondary channel” for pharmacies trying to hold onto customers.

Customers Are More Satisfied With Pharmacy Websites Than With Their Apps

One of the study’s more specific findings involves which digital channel customers actually prefer. Across the board, people who used a pharmacy’s desktop or mobile website reported higher satisfaction than those who relied on the retailer’s mobile app for the same tasks. That gap suggests a lot of pharmacy apps still lag behind their web counterparts in basic usability, even as more prescription management shifts toward mobile-first experiences overall.

H-E-B Tops Every Brick-and-Mortar Pharmacy With a Score of 724

Among brick-and-mortar retailers, H-E-B ranked highest of any pharmacy in the country, posting an overall digital satisfaction score of 724 out of 1,000. That places the Texas-based grocery chain ahead of every national drugstore and mass merchandiser included in the inaugural study, a notable result for a regional supermarket pharmacy competing against chains with far larger national footprints.

Publix and Costco Round Out the Brick-and-Mortar Top Three

Publix landed in second place among brick-and-mortar pharmacies with a score of 713, trailing H-E-B by 11 points. Costco rounded out the top three at 709, edging out the rest of the field by a narrower margin. All three of the top performers scored well above the industry’s 677 average, suggesting a real, measurable gap between the leaders and the rest of the brick-and-mortar pharmacy landscape.

Kaiser Permanente Leads Mail Order Pharmacies, With Amazon Close Behind

In the mail order segment, Kaiser Permanente scored highest at 746, edging out Amazon Pharmacy at 741 and CVS Caremark at 720. All three landed comfortably above the mail order category’s 707 average. The tight five-point gap between Kaiser Permanente and Amazon Pharmacy suggests the competition at the very top of mail order pharmacy is far closer than the spread seen among brick-and-mortar retailers.

JD Power Says Pharmacies Still Treat Digital as an Afterthought

JD Power’s Meaghan Hafner said the data points to a real disconnect between what pharmacies currently build and what customers actually want from a digital experience, noting that many chains still treat their websites and apps as secondary tools rather than core parts of the business. She pointed to prescription management, medication reminders, and integration with in-store services as the features customers say matter most when deciding whether to keep using a pharmacy’s digital tools.

The Message for Pharmacies Is Simple: Fix the App or Lose the Customer

Taken together, the study’s numbers make a direct case: pharmacies that get their websites and apps right keep the overwhelming majority of their customers, and pharmacies that don’t lose more than half. With the industry average still sitting well below the top performers, there’s a wide gap left for competitors to close. For now, H-E-B, Publix, and Ka