Identification and Classification of Herbal Medicine Marketing Problems from the Perspective of Manufacturers, Pharmaceutical Distribution Companies, Pharmacies, and Consumers in Iran
Authors: Abedini Ali , Irani Hamid Reza , Yazdani Hamid Reza , Torabi Raheleh 
Published: June 2024

Background: Despite the increase in the desire to consume herbal medicines and the growing concern of people about their health, as well as the increase in the number of specialized herbal medicine manufacturing companies and pharmacies, these products still have a small market share in the domestic market. Therefore, this research seeks to identify and categorize the marketing problems of herbal medicines with a systemic approach from the perspectives of actors active in this chain (companies producing herbal medicines, pharmaceutical distribution companies, pharmacies and consumers) and provide practical solutions to improve these problems.
Methods: The current research is exploratory in nature and qualitative in type. To better identify the marketing problems of herbal medicines, semi-structured interviews were used, and using purposive and snowball sampling methods, interviews were conducted with knowledgeable people in 14 manufacturing companies, 13 pharmaceutical distribution companies, 22 pharmacies and 40 consumers of herbal medicines in 2022. Quantitative content analysis was also used to analyze the text of the interviews.
Results: The identified problems are in three short-term, medium-term and long-term time frames, and from another perspective, these problems are located at the three organizational, industrial and macro level. About half of the marketing problems of herbal medicines are located in the three houses of the matrix, i.e. in the houses of organization-mid-term (16 %), industry-short-term (15 %) and organization-short-term (14 %). Also, based on the normalized data, about half of the marketing problems of herbal medicines are related to the non-availability of these medicines (7.7 %), lack of scientific visits by doctors (6.8 %), lack of appropriate and sufficient advertising (6.2 %), returns due to expiration dates (5 %), lack of confidence in the effectiveness (4.8 %), low offers and discounts (4.4 %), high prices (4.1 %), difficulty in collecting claims (3.6 %), low variety of products (2.9 %) and long production time (2.8 %).
Conclusion: The government managers of the country can address macro-level issues by controlling the inflation rate, accelerating the settlement time of insurance and government organizations with distribution companies, reducing the time of collecting claims, and raising public awareness regarding herbal medicines. In the industry sector, there is a need to establish national distribution companies for herbal medicines and enhance the research, supply, production, and distribution processes. It is also important to improve the collaboration between manufacturers and pharmacies, as well as facilitate communication with international scientific societies. At the organizational level, managers can boost productivity by enhancing the quality of products and packaging, conducting scientific visits, and publishing credible scientific articles to convince doctors and consumers about the benefits of herbal medicines