Drug quality has a positive relationship with consumer’s choice of purchasing
private label drugs.
Drug is a special product that differs significantly from other merchandises (Gore et al.,
1994). Drugs are taken in vivo and are directly related to the consumer’s health.
Medication errors could lead to side effects and even death. Therefore, patients will pay
close attention to quality when purchasing drugs. To a certain degree, consumers can
evaluate drug quality based on external cues (e.g. advertisements, packaging, etc.),
past experiences, or social influences (from family members, peer, or healthcare
professionals). Such information helps consumers develop a cognitive perception of
drug quality. In this research, the perception of drug quality refers to the extent to
which private label drugs exceed national brand counterparts in terms of efficacy and
safety. We hypothesize that drug quality will be an important factor that motivates
consumers to purchase private label drugs.
Given that personal characteristics could influence consumers’ purchase choices
between private label and national brand drugs, we control for the effects of four
demographic variables: age, gender, education level, and income.