September 8th, 2023, Lesley Simeon
Online pharmacies made for a convenient option for global consumers looking to have their medicine needs met during all the pandemic-time restrictions. But nearly two years since most restrictions were lifted, has consumer preference changed again?
Trended data from YouGov reveals how likely consumers from across 18 international markets say they are to get their medicine online rather than in person today compared to a year ago.
Polling data shows that global consumers are more likely to prefer buying most products from physical establishments. Groceries top the list with nearly two-thirds of global respondents (64%) saying they would prefer buying groceries offline in 2023, followed by clothes (54%) and vehicles (53%).
Further, nearly half of the global consumers (48%) would prefer buying medicines offline in 2023, an improvement from 46% reported in 2022.
Asian markets are more likely to say they prefer buying medicines offline in 2023 than they did last year while Europe shows mixed preferences.
At more than three in five consumers (62%), Spain leads the chart accounting for the largest share of global consumers who would prefer buying medicines offline. The figure is up by three points (59%) since 2022. In France, a little over three in five consumers (61%) say they prefer buying medicines offline in 2023. Compared to 2022 there’s a dip in the share of French consumers who say they prefer physically going to buy medicines.
Germany, on the other hand, sees the highest increase in the share of consumers who say they prefer to buy medicine offline in 2023 (42% vs. 37% in 2022).
Sweden accounts for the smallest share (31%) of consumers who would prefer buying medicines offline in 2023. Nonetheless, the number marks an improvement from the previous figure (29%) reported in 2022. A greater proportion of consumers (44%) in fellow Nordic market, Denmark, prefer buying medicines offline than online in 2023.
In the US, more than two in five consumers (42%) would prefer buying medicines offline. Nearly half of all consumers (48%) in Great Britain would do so as well. In Canada, more than half (56%) of its customers would rather buy medicines offline than online.
In Asia, figures across all the markets surveyed have gone up by at least one percentage point, with Indonesia leading the lot - more than half of the consumers here (51%) say they would prefer purchasing medicines at a physical establishment rather than online. In Singapore, a little over two in five (41%) consumers said they would prefer buying medicines offline in 2022. In 2023, the proportion of consumers saying so has increased to nearly half (47%). Finally, nearly half (49%) of all consumers in India prefer buying medicines offline, marginally up from the 48% reported in 2022.
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Methodology: YouGov Surveys: Serviced provides quick survey results from nationally representative or targeted audiences in multiple markets. The data is based on surveys of adults aged 18+ years in 18 markets with sample sizes varying between 437 and 2045 for each market. All surveys were conducted online in July 2022 and June 2023. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples. Learn more about YouGov Surveys: Serviced.
Photo by JOSHUA COLEMAN on Unsplash