Abstract
The study intends to explore the consumer perception towards over-the-counter (OTC) medicines and factors that influence consumer buying behavior for OTC brand medicines marketed by pharmaceutical companies. It also aims to study the impact of marketing mix factors on consumer perception and OTC brand loyalty. The research is descriptive in nature. It is based on primary data which is collected via structured questionnaire. The hundred respondents were participated in pilot study to understand and validate the questionnaire. The primary data obtained are analysed to identify the consumer perception and OTC brand loyalty promoted by the pharmaceutical companies. The study was conducted in period of 1 December 2016 to 31 March 2017. The respondents are from different districts of Rajasthan. 411 respondents participated on simple convenient non-probability sampling basis. In the study the dependent variables like consumer perception and brand loyalty with independent variables like consumer self-medication and OTC marketing mix factors are considered. It is observed in present study that OTC marketing mix factors like Place, Price and Promotion has positive impact on consumer perception and OTC brand loyalty whereas self-medication practices have negative impact. The study also revealed that Place (Product availability), Price and Promotions are the major influencing factor in considering consumer OTC medicine buying behavior.
Highlights
Earlier several traditional systems of medicine exist in India out of which Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Unani, and Siddha are the most popular among the Indian communities
To study the consumer perception about Over the Counter (OTC) marketing strategies and brand loyalty the cross-sectional study was conducted under this various demographical variable such as gender, age, occupation, family type, family income and education qualification of the consumer were included in questionnaire design
The respondents were asked how effective they found OTC medicine in different common ailments if they use it in last 6 months. 8 major common ailments were determined and respondents were asked to rank each factor on Likert scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree
Summary
Earlier several traditional systems of medicine exist in India out of which Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Unani, and Siddha are the most popular among the Indian communities. While in today modern era, self-medication with allopathic Over the Counter (OTC) drug product in minor ailments is the major system in India due to cost effective form of health care and it . Amongst several reasons the major growth factors which is responsible for OTC medicine popularity is consumer convenience and savings in time and money with effective treatment cost and avoid lengthy treatment of prescribers. Which they are trying to manage with the use of Over the Counter (OTC) medicines. These leading factors steady increase in self-medication practices for the past many years. Selfmedication using OTC medicines represents the growing movement toward medical self-care and Pharmaceutical companies need to focus on their marketing and strategic planning segment
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