Digital marketing of nutraceutical and pharmaceutical supplements: marketing ethics and consumer comfort

Abstract

The article provides the primary material for scholarly discourse in digital marketing science related to online consumer behavior analysis for pharmaceutical and nutraceutical supplements during crises like the current pandemic of COVID-19. We examine the relationship between digital marketing ethics and consumer comfort, focusing on consumers’ perceptions of privacy information concerns and the digital marketing ethics of nutraceutical and pharmaceutical supplements based on a survey method and the answers of a convenience sample. We gathered 370 responses from a structured questionnaire, where 274 participants stated that they purchase nutraceutical and pharmaceutical supplements online, and their answers are considered valid. We test seven research hypotheses concerning the consumers’ marketing comfort, the current digital marketing ethics, communication privacy management, and consumer comfort in online commerce of pharmaceutical and nutraceutical supplements. The most critical research results are that Digital Marketing Ethics and Consumer comfort directly and positively affect a high-significance level of marketing comfort. We examine the impact of information privacy concerns regarding the gathering, unauthorized access, and secondary use on consumer comfort concerns of digital marketing practices for nutraceutical and pharmaceutical supplements, and the impact of digital marketing ethics concerns regarding digital marketers’ responsibility for the first time in the body of literature on digital marketing.