Objective: As supermarkets continue to expand their healthcare categories, consumers now have more choice and access to unscheduled medicines. This current research empirically examines the drivers and barriers of consumer purchase intentions, namely trust and perceived risk, of unscheduled medicines in both supermarkets and community pharmacies.
Method: Data were collected using an in-store intercept survey of 402 supermarket shoppers and 310 community pharmacy shoppers. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) including a measurement and structural model test were employed using AMOS software package to identify variances in the drivers and barriers of purchase intentions through these channels.
Key findings: This study found consumers considered community pharmacies to be competent, demonstrated benevolence and able to provide accurate information. Other than time risk, no other elements of risk were considered barriers to purchase within this channel. In contrast, consumers indicated higher perceptions of risk associated with the purchase of unscheduled medicines within the supermarkets channel – specifically physical and social risk. However, consumers felt supermarkets were competent in providing access to safe unscheduled medicines and had the ability to handle purchase transactions.
Conclusions: This is the first study to examine the psychological drivers and barriers of purchase intentions of unscheduled medicines in supermarkets and community pharmacies, finding very different results across both channels. The study presents a comprehensive model of purchase intentions of unscheduled medicines and recommends directions for pharmacy practitioners and supermarket channels.

Key words: unscheduled medicines, community pharmacies, supermarkets, purchase intentions, trust, perceived risk

Mortimer, G., Grimmer, L., & Fazal-e-Hasan, S.M. (2018). Examining consumer purchase intentions of non-prescription medicines in supermarkets and community pharmacies. International Journal of Pharmacy Practice, (in print).