Volume 20 No 9 (2022)
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The Effect of Online Consumers’ Risk Perception, Perceived Usefulness and Subjective Norms on Online Purchase Intention: Cross-Sectional Study on Online Pharmacy in the Context of COVID 19
Varghese Assin T J, Dr. Nimmy A. George, Dr. P Sivakumar
Abstract
Over the last decade, India has witnessed an exponential rise in the sales through e-commerce platforms.
With the pandemic-related lockdowns and social distancing norms being the new normal, individuals are
forced to shop online, for their day-to-day requirements. The trend has become increasingly pronounced
in the last year. One such domain that has come to the fore in our fight against the epidemic is e-Pharmacy.
Increasing internet penetration, e-commerce adoption, and changing consumer preferences are some of
the growth drivers of e-pharmacy and the market is expected to grow at a compounded rate of 44 per
cent to reach $ 4.5B by 2025 in India. However, the sector also faces several challenges like lack of trust,
privacy issues, legal concerns and limited geographical presence. In the context of the lack of studies
examining consumer attitude towards e-pharmacy in India, this study investigates the effects of risk
perception, perceived usefulness and subjective norms on customers’ online purchase intention towards
e-pharmacy. The data is collected from 490 customers across different parts of India through online and
offline data collection modes, out of which 423 was the final sample size, after deleted the incomplete
questionnaires. Purposive sampling was employed to select the sample respondents, and data analysis
have done using statistical tool IBM SPSS. The study revealed the significant relation between risk
perception and perceived usefulness towards online purchase intention while the influence of subjective
norms on online purchase intention is found insignificant. Online pharmacies have shown a lot of promise
in terms of enhancing pharma retail. Their continued expansion would improve the digital healthcare
ecosystem and help the government to achieve its goals of providing efficient and cheap health coverage.
The insights gained from this study will significantly help health marketing professionals and other
stakeholders to formulate their strategies more effectively
Keywords
Risk Perception, Online Pharmacy, Online Purchase Intention, Social Influence, TAM
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