Factors Contributing to Customer?s Buying Behaviour at Pharmacy? Does The Brand Image Mediate the Customer?s Buying Behaviour in Thailand

Abstract

Napasri Suwarnajote, Witthaya Mekhum.

The present exploratory research was induced on the basis of analyzing the commonly identified factors that influence customer’s buying behaviour at the pharmacy located in highly populated urban areas of Thailand. The dependent variable was customer buying behaviour while the independent variables were customer care, customer service, sales promotional tools and qualification and experience of pharmacist. A total number of 1000 questionnaires were sent to different household consumers residing in urban areas of Thailand out of which 914 questionnaires were responded back with full accuracy of responses which indicates a response rate of 91% approximately. The pharmacy branding was the mediating variable. The analysis of the includes the estimations of the outer model, outer loadings, construct validity and reliability analysis, discriminant validity analysis, inner model and estimation of Structural equation modelling. For this purpose, SmartPLS 3.0 software was used to analyze the structural equation modelling using the variance-based approach. It is found that only customer care enhances the customer buying at the pharmacy shops in the major cities of Thailand while the remaining factors like customer service, sales & promotional tools, pharmacist qualification and experience showing insignificant and negative effects on customer buying behaviour of pharmacy. The branding insignificantly enhances the buying at pharmacy in terms of customer care, customer service and pharmacist qualification and experience. It concludes that most of the pharmacy consumer make their pharmacy buying decision on the basis of customer care of pharmacy shops in Thailand rather than other factors. The policymakers in the pharmacy sector of Thailand should focus more on customer care in order to enhance buying at the pharmacy shops in Thailand. Future research may include other factors that may enhance customer’s buying behaviour.