FACTORS INFLUENCING CONSUMER’S PURCHASE INTENTION IN CHOOSING RETAIL PHARMACY IN MALAYSIA

Abstract

Retail pharmacy industry in Malaysia is expanding rapidly. The growth is driven by the rising income, lifestyle changes and increased need for medicines. The strong competition in this industry had posed threat on the survival of Malaysian pharmacy business milieu. The study of purchase intention is important because a positive intention allows retailers to gain increased sales and revenues as purchase intention is strong correlate with consumer’s actual purchase behaviour. Consumer’s purchase intention in choosing retail pharmacy in Malaysia can be influenced by several factors. It is observed that consumer’s purchase intention has been discussed in multiples researches in Malaysia. However, there is limited studies undertaken on consumer’s purchase in choosing retail pharmacy in Malaysia. Therefore, this study reduced the literature gap by ascertain the factors influencing consumer’s purchase intention in choosing retail pharmacy in Malaysia. Social media marketing, store environment, sales promotion, perceived value and CSR were identified as the independent variables of this study. The objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between the factors and consumer’s purchase intention in choosing retail pharmacy in Malaysia. This study reviewed on relevant past literatures to determine the appropriate measurement methods of the studied variables. This study adopted correlation analysis as the major statistical method and a total of 385 subjects recruited in this study were selected conveniently through the distribution of self-administered questionnaire in Malaysia. This study reported that social media marketing, store environment, sales promotion, perceived value and CSR were found to have significant relationship with consumer’s purchase intention in choosing retail pharmacy in Malaysia. Store environment had shown to influence more on consumer’s purchase intention followed by perceived value.