The Effect Of Socioeconomic Characteristics On Consumption Of Pharmaceutical Products In South-Eastern Nigeria.
Dr POLY I Emenike
Unizik Business School, Awka
Abstract
Globalization has presented many consumers, especially those in the Less Developed Countries (LDCs), with the dilemma of choosing between domestic and foreign made products. Other factors which include price of pharmaceutical products, income of consumers, family size, and age of consumers among others also play important roles in the consumption of pharmaceutical products. In Nigeria, research on consumers' attitudes to and perceptions of foreign and domestic goods shows that country of origin (COO) is a significant factor in consumers’ product preferences. The broad objective of this study is to investigate the effect of socioeconomic characteristics on consumption of pharmaceutical products in South-Eastern Nigeria. . The specific objectives are: to understand the socio-economic factors that drive Nigerian consumers' buying decisions in the context of locally and foreign manufactured pharmaceutical products; to evaluate the bias for and against foreign pharmaceutical products, by comparing the relative importance of Country Of Origin (COO) with other extrinsic factors, such as brand name, product attributes, quality, and price. The key finding is that socio-economic factor that drive Nigerian consumers’ buying decisions in the context of locally and foreign manufactured pharmaceutical products are income of consumers, age brackets (experience), brand, price of the products among others and that the Nigerian consumer of pharmaceutical products prefers foreign made products to local ones seems to corroborate the results of earlier empirical studies conducted using product categories that are not related to pharmaceuticals. Conclusively, consumers’ income and country of origin of a pharmaceutical products play key roles in the determination of pharmaceutical products in Nigeria. The following recommendations were made based on the findings of the study: Socioeconomic characteristics most especially income of the consumers, price of the pharmaceutical products, has important roles to play in the consumption of pharmaceutical products and Country Of Origin was an important [deciding] factor for consumers when purchasing Non-Prescription Drugs NPD”. Furthermore, “country brand attitudes [(country image)] influenced the purchase intention of NPD products from favourable countries.