The pharmaceutical industry is highly competitive an thus must be very sensitive to consumer behavior trends in order to sell their product. There has been a subtle drift towards generic brands of pharmaceuticals, but "perscription drugs are less sensitive to consumer income variations" because people would still need their medicine. Yet they are very meticulous of certain aspects of purchasing their drugs. The ease of convenience is very important in order to remain competitive in the pharmaceutical industry, customers are requiring additional services in order to remain loyal to what they purchase. That should lead companies to think about their marketing mix, focusing on place. The channels of distribution have grown increasingly important as people now require the additional ease of acquiring their own medicine, and have lately preferred to get their medicine from twenty four hour pharmacies and those that provide a drive threw service. Technically, if companies can perfect the place factor of the marketing mix then they would increase their sales tremendously. By targeting mail-order pharmacies the business could cut costs that could be redirected towards research and development which would give the company a competitive advantage in the market. Also the recently aging population would suggest that more people need more medicine and therefore targeting to sell drugs that they would need would increase sales, as the baby boomers grow in age. With this shift in the demographic pie, companies would better target this market segment to increase revenue. To facilitate this looking into distribution channels would be effective, yet with the increase in demand for generic drugs this could affect sales. Except for the increase in third-party purchasers which would lower their revenues, so perhaps the companies should not completely follow this trend and continue to focus on research and development while still catering to their other market segments.
References
IBUS WORLD (2012). Industry at a glance: Pharmacies and Drug Stores. Retrieved from:
http://clients1.ibisworld.com.proxyau.wrlc.org/reports/us/industry/ataglance.aspx?indid=1054
References
IBUS WORLD (2012). Industry at a glance: Pharmacies and Drug Stores. Retrieved from:
http://clients1.ibisworld.com.proxyau.wrlc.org/reports/us/industry/ataglance.aspx?indid=1054
I found it really interesting that companies have to bring in a service aspect when selling their products, but it does make sense when they want to keep consumer loyalty. I agree convenience is definitely very important for every company to make their products around.
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