Exploring the customer orientation of Spanish pharmacy websites

Abstract

The strong regulation of the Spanish pharmaceutical sector encourages pharmacies to modify their business model, giving the customer a more relevant role by integrating 2.0 tools. However, the study of the implementation of these tools is still quite limited, especially in terms of a customer-oriented web page design. This paper aims to analyze the online presence of Spanish community pharmacies by studying the profile of their web pages to classify them by their degree of customer orientation. Design/methodology/approach: In total, 710 community pharmacies were analyzed, of which 160 had Web pages. Using items drawn from the literature, content analysis was performed to evaluate the presence of these items on the web pages. Then, after analyzing the scores on the items, a cluster analysis was conducted to classify the pharmacies according to the degree of development of their online customer orientation strategy. Findings: The number of pharmacies with a web page is quite low. The development of these websites is limited, and they have a more informational than relational role. The statistical analysis allows to classify the pharmacies in four groups according to their level of development Practical implications: Pharmacists should make incremental use of their websites to facilitate real two-way communication with customers and other stakeholders to maintain a relationship with them by having incorporated the Web 2.0 and social media (SM) platforms. Originality/value: This study analyses, from a marketing perspective, the degree of Web 2.0 adoption and the characteristics of the websites, in terms of aiding communication and interaction with customers in the Spanish pharmaceutical sector.