Antecedents of Purchase Decision of Over-The-Counter (OTC) Medicine from Pharmaceutical Distribution Channels in Jordan

Antecedents of Purchase Decision of Over-The-Counter (OTC) Medicine from Pharmaceutical Distribution Channels in Jordan

Purpose: The primary purpose of this research is to understand the potential influence of various factors, namely, pharmacies’ recommendations, families’ and friend recommendations, price, country of origin, and past experience, on the purchasing decision of nonprescription medicines in the Jordanian context. Research design, data, and methodology: A survey was conducted among 220 Jordanian consumers through a self-administered questionnaire. Further, the authors utilized the mall intercept method as a convenience sampling technique to recruit the respondents who shop at different pharmacies. The data were analyzed using various statistical techniques, such as frequency and percentage for describing the demographics of the sample, Cronbach’s alpha for testing the reliability of the data, skewness and kurtosis to check the normality of data, and further, multiple regression using SPSS version 25 was performed for examining the hypotheses. Results: The findings revealed that pharmacists’ recommendation, recommendations from friends and family, and price positively influenced consumers’ purchase decisions of OTC medicines in Jordan, whereas consumers’ past experience and country of origin had no influence on consumers’ purchasing decisions of OTC medicines. Conclusions: The paper examines the influence of various factors on customers’ purchase decisions of OTC medicines, draws conclusions, and makes recommendations. Also, research limitations are mentioned.