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Title:
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TRENDS AND ISSUES OF ONLINE PHARMACIES IN SAUDI ARABIA |
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Author(s):
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Ramlah Hussein, Afnan Abdulqader Almohammadi, Wed Muhammad Alweldi, Abrar Mohammad Alshik, Saadia Malik and Arwa Mashat |
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ISBN:
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978-989-8533-74-6 |
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Editors:
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Miguel Baptista Nunes, Pedro Isaías and Philip Powell |
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Year:
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2018 |
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Edition:
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Single |
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Keywords:
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Online Pharmacy, E-pharmacy, Saudi Arabia |
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Type:
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Short Paper |
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First Page:
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260 |
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Last Page:
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264 |
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Language:
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English |
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Cover:
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Full Contents:
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click to dowload 
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Paper Abstract:
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Online pharmacies are companies that sell medicines over the internet and deliver them by mail. The objective of the study is to look into the current and future trends and issues of online pharmacies in Saudi Arabia. Questionnaires were distributed through Google forms to obtain the perception of online pharmacy in Saudi Arabia. A total of 331 respondents filled up the questionnaire. Questions pertaining to awareness of existence of online pharmacy, type of services and type of medical products were captured. The results showed interesting findings, 31.4% are aware of the existence of online pharmacy, while 84.9% found online pharmacy is useful, and 71.3% will consider buying the medical and healthcare products online. For the question on preferred services to be offered by online pharmacy, in order of preference, 60.4% would like to have quality assurance of products, 54.7% would like fast and reliable of product delivery, 50.5% would like to have the service of consultant pharmacist in the online pharmacy, 33.8% preferred the pharmacy to show customer review for each product, 21.5% would like tracking of delivery of products and 15.7% preferred online payment. Looking at the growing interest of online pharmacy in Saudi Arabia, concerns on regulations and policies of online drug and medication use need to be addressed. The limitation of this study only focus percentages of responses. Further study could look into other perspective of data collection and data analysis tools. Further analysis on customers preference according to age and gender could also be further investigated. |
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