Il merchandising farmaceutico tra innovazione e tradizione: il caso dei corner salute Coop

A recent law decree, the so-called Bersani decree, did a breakthrough in Italian distribution of drugs providing for liberalize the sell of this products. The main change the Bersani decree has effected consists of the extension of self – service channel to drugs. Innovative chemist’s shops have originated: parafarmacie, corner inside superstore and others. Since this kind of conceptual and marketing revolution was done, in Italy customers could buy drugs only in chemist’s. Now competition is wider and enlarge: some variables like merchandising, prices, consultancy service get new importance. The first comer in this new commercial business in Italy was Coop that opened Corner Salute within its superstore. The Corner Salute Coop are chemist’s shop where costumers can find drugs and other similar or affine products. The aim of our study is to investigate marketing actions developed by both Corner Salute Coop and traditional chemist’s downstream of the liberalization process in drugs market in order to understand how marketing actions such as merchandising are different between the two and how much they are important for customers. The paper reports main findings of an exploratory study we carried out both through case study method and quantitative research.