Get 20% off Eligible purchases Over £40
Ends: 16th Jul 2025
Terms & conditions, exclusions may apply.
It’s a curious time to shop for healthcare essentials online. On the one hand, everything from eye drops to erectile dysfunction gel is just a click away. On the other, the digital health aisle now reads like a mash-up between a pharmacy, a lifestyle blog, and a last-minute festival survival…It’s a curious time to shop for healthcare essentials online. On the one hand, everything from eye drops to erectile…
Ends: 16th Jul 2025
Terms & conditions, exclusions may apply.
Ends: 1+ month
Terms & conditions, exclusions may apply.
These may still work, so give them a try if you're still looking for a working promo code.
× Expired on: 30th June
× Expired on: 8th April
× Expired on: 14th April
× Expired on: 28th April
It’s a curious time to shop for healthcare essentials online. On the one hand, everything from eye drops to erectile dysfunction gel is just a click away. On the other, the digital health aisle now reads like a mash-up between a pharmacy, a lifestyle blog, and a last-minute festival survival kit. Somewhere in the middle sits Chemist Direct - a UK-based operation that’s quietly cornered the market on convenience, without pitching you kale smoothies or asking for your star sign. With 85,000 Trustpilot reviews and a rating that hovers around 4.7 out of 5, they’ve clearly built some trust. Or at the very least, delivered a lot of paracetamol on time.
Let’s start at the supermarket end of the spectrum. For 99p, Chemist Direct will sell you a box of 500mg paracetamol tablets. That’s cheap, even by UK high street standards. It’s perfectly serviceable, effective for mild to moderate pain and fevers, and - blessedly - free of lavender oil or goji berries. "It’s paracetamol," says Dr. Helen Shepherd, a GP based in South London. "You don’t need a TED Talk. It does what it’s supposed to." If only more products were so untroubled by branding.
Optrex Infected Eye Drops (£8.99) might not be glamorous, but they do contain chloramphenicol, a prescription-grade antibiotic that’s now available over-the-counter for bacterial conjunctivitis. That’s basically pink eye, only less American-sounding. It’s a useful addition to your medicine cabinet - if only because the alternative is explaining your inflamed eyeball to a pharmacist who assumes it’s allergies. The bottle’s plastic and the label looks like it was designed in a rush, but the ingredients do the heavy lifting.
At £26.99, Nicorette's 4mg Freshmint gum isn’t cheap. Then again, neither is smoking. Despite the freshmint branding, it still tastes like what it is: a psychological crutch and a chemical stimulant rolled into a chewy square. "It’s not a magic bullet, but for the right person, it can turn the tide," says addiction specialist Dr. Leigh Ramsey. The gum delivers a controlled nicotine dose and satisfies the oral fixation most patches ignore. The asterisk on the "fights cravings for hours" claim does a lot of work. Still, it’s a clinically backed tool, not wishful thinking.
Two products stand out here for very different reasons. Eroxon StimGel (£24.99) positions itself as the modern, topical solution for erectile issues - "accessible," "fast," and without the faff of a GP appointment. Effectiveness varies: clinical trials show it works for some, but it’s not quite the pharmaceutical hammer of sildenafil. "Eroxon is great for men who want control without pills," says urologist Dr. Aamir Malik, "but expectations need to be managed."
If you don’t mind going traditional, Viagra Connect 50mg (£38.99) delivers the textbook response. It’s legally available in the UK without a prescription, though efficacy depends on sexual stimulation - which, oddly, some users seem to miss in the instructions. The price is high, but you’re paying for confidence (and arguably, marketing). As one reviewer put it: "It works. Bit expensive. But so is divorce."
SlimFast’s Café Latte Milkshake Multipack (Was £10.49, now £8.39) attempts to bridge the gap between breakfast and a personality. Each bottle offers 204 kcal, plus vitamins and minerals, in a flavour that resembles a milky coffee left in a gym bag. It’s functional, not gourmet. Still, for people juggling childcare, meetings, and a lingering existential crisis, it gets the job done. Just maybe have a banana as well.
Chemist Direct is less about glossy user interfaces and more about quiet reliability. NHS and student discounts are offered (though not always prominently), and free UK delivery kicks in over £30. There’s click-and-collect now as well, and a mildly ironic £5 off for signing up to marketing emails - provided you spend £30 and promise not to unsubscribe immediately.
The site’s not immune to repetition - Nicorette shows up more than once, as do the paracetamol tablets - but that’s more oversight than algorithm. The real appeal is in utility: real products, real conditions, real people. No influencer quotes. No lifestyle promises. Just paracetamol for under a quid, and eye drops that do more than soothe your aura.
Chemist Direct offers a familiar matrix of UK delivery options that, while not revolutionary, get the job done. Standard delivery via Royal Mail or Evri comes in at £3.49—unless you spend over £35, in which case it’s free. The packages arrive within two to three working days from dispatch, assuming weekends and bank holidays don’t get in the way (they usually do).
Click & Collect is the slightly more sociable alternative. For £3 (or free over £35), your order arrives at a designated pickup point within two working days. You have ten days to retrieve it before it’s returned and refunded with minimal drama.
Those in a hurry can opt for tracked 24-hour delivery (Evri or Royal Mail) at £5.09. This is technically next working day delivery, though the fine print reveals a bit of calendar Tetris depending on when you click “buy.” Orders placed before 8pm are generally dispatched the same day, barring pharmacy-approved items, which require an extra layer of oversight—because medicine, understandably, isn’t Amazon Prime.
Express delivery is free if you spend over £100, though details on how fast it actually is remain elusive. One assumes it’s faster than standard, but not so fast as to warrant bold claims.
Returns are barely mentioned, except in the context of uncollected Click & Collect orders. If you forget to pick up your parcel within 10 days, it returns to base and your money returns to you. Beyond that, the silence is either efficient minimalism—or an invitation to read the fine print elsewhere.
Last updated:
⭐ Rating: 4 / 5 (53 votes)