Can Personality Traits Have an Impact on Consumer Behaviour Concerning OTC Allopathic Medicines? an Introspective Study

Research shows that purchase intention for a product or service is not restricted to attitude, normative beliefs, motivation, behavioral, psychographic or socioeconomic variables. The issue is critical in pharmaceutical marketing because consumer behaviour toward pharmaceutical products for over-the-counter medicines (OTC) is far more complex. Personality traits play a decisive role in psychographic factors. In India, very few studies have been conducted to confirm the role of personality traits in the purchase intention of OTC allopathic medicine. So, the researchers conducted a study to identify the impact of personality traits on purchase intention for OTC allopathic medicine. Emphasis has been placed on developing a framework to understand the relationship between purchase intentions and personality traits for OTC medicine purchases. Data was collected through convenience sampling using a modified scale developed from the short-scale EPQ-R. Statistical techniques, such as descriptive statistics, regression analysis, ANOVA, and the Chi-Square test, were used. The study shows that personality traits behave differently in male and female consumers’ decision-making processes. For male, personality traits directly impact the consumer decision-making process. That means OTC marketing companies must develop their promotional strategies by considering personality traits as a factor in the decision-making process for male consumers. Female consumer personality traits have no role, even in the presence or absence of moderators such as age, income, education, and locality. So, it can be concluded that OTC marketing companies must be careful in segmentation, targeting, and positioning strategies while developing marketing campaigns for OTC medicines in which different genders behave differently.