Online Pharmacy: Customer Personas and User Paths
By: Grigory Kogan
Tags: Medtech, Online Pharmacy, Online Business, UX Research, Website Development

Knowing the audience and behavior of online pharmacy buyers is key to usability engineering. Before improving the service’s interface, it is important to collect data on those who place orders, how they behave on the website, and what motivates their decisions.

Picom analysts use CJM (Customer Journey Map), a modern UX research method. It makes it possible to see users’ motives: to understand their goals, expectations, and emotions when using the site. We then create a customer journey map, where we mark the points and the nature of the interaction. This allows us to save the budget as well as to understand why customers are leaving and how to increase sales.

We analyzed the consumer behavior of one of the most popular online pharmacies. We present the results of two research stages and show you how to use these data to raise conversions.

When analyzing, we took into account the socio-demographic characteristics of users, region, online shopping experience, device type as well as motivation, goals, and behavior scenarios. Based on this data, we created 5 portraits of typical online pharmacy customers with characteristic emotions, actions, and barriers.

Anna, saves time and money

Gender and age: female, 35

Who she buys for: herself and family

Product familiarity level: medium to high

What she buys: medicines, vitamins

Experience with online pharmacies: high, ordering goods is not a problem

What she dislikes: calling pharmacies when looking for a medicine

What she wants: quickly place an order and save money

Device: smartphone, often visits the site on the way over or during work breaks

Marion, has chronic diseases

Gender and age: female, 40

Who she buys for: herself

Product familiarity level: high, well versed in the names of drugs

What she buys: the same drugs on a regular basis

Experience with online pharmacies: high

Goal: savings

Device: PC

Alex, buys for others

Gender and age: male, 35

Who he buys for: relatives, e.g. parents who do not know how to use the Internet and are afraid to order medicines themselves or according to a list from his wife

Product familiarity level: low, if the required drug is not available, he will not be able to find analogs

What he buys: medicines, baby products

Experience with online pharmacies: high

What he dislikes: calling the information desk, visiting several pharmacies in search of medicines, consulting with the pharmacist over the drug choice, looking for analogs

What he wants: to quickly and without queuing receive the ready order at a pharmacy nearby

Device: smartphone

Kate, a young mother

Gender and age: female, 25

Who she buys for: herself and the child

Product familiarity level: medium

What she buys: medicines for the baby, baby care and hygiene products, baby food, vitamins

Experience with online pharmacies: high

Goal: saving time and money

What she dislikes: visiting several pharmacies with a stroller

What she wants: select everything via a smartphone, be able to use the site at night

Device: smartphone

Sarah, an inexperienced user

Gender and age: female, 50–55

Who she buys for: herself

Product familiarity level: high, regularly buys medicines as a part of continued treatment

Experience with online pharmacies: low, faces occasional difficulties when navigating through the website

Goal: buy infrequent or expensive medicine as cheap as possible

What she dislikes: ordering via the Internet as she finds it difficult. The site should be of a familiar brand and inspire trust

What she wants: check the availability of a medicine

Device: tablet or PC

How to build a customer’s profile

There are several ways to find data about typical users:

Explore the web analytics tools of the online pharmacy. Study the socio-demographic characteristics and interests of visitors as well as their behavior on the site — movements, the number of pages viewed, the visit depth, etc. Examine the structure and functionality of the service. Try to recreate the buyer’s journey and note what questions arise before placing an order. Use your own experience of communicating with the audience: request information from the sales department or listen to the calls if there is a hotline. Conduct in-depth interviews with the target audience representatives. With the basic information gathered, segment your audience and create typical characters.

Two user scenarios

How do customers look for the needed products in an online pharmacy? The analytics identified two main user paths.

1. If it is a drug, most often the visitor knows the name and uses the search form on the site. Therefore, it is important what exactly the potential buyer will see in the search results and on the product card. To facilitate the selection process, pay attention to the following details:

The product must have a photo. It is the image that most quickly convinces the user of having found the right drug.

The package size, the dosage form, the concentration of the active ingredient, and other features of the drug should immediately be displayed in the list of products.

If the drug is sold only on prescription, the buyer must see a notification of this as early as at the preview step.

If the product is usually purchased once, you need to add supporting information, methods of administration as well as indications and contraindications to the description.

Personal recommendations and discounts work well for upselling regular goods. Besides, the buyer may be interested in cheaper analogs or more economical packaging. If the drug needs to be taken continuously, 50 tablets will cost less than 20.

When the buyer has found the right medicine, the main motivating factors for ordering are:

Price. Users compare the cost of the drug both in offline and online pharmacies as well as in several ones. Then, if a customer becomes loyal and regularly orders goods from one pharmacy, they may stop checking prices with other services

Users compare the cost of the drug both in offline and online pharmacies as well as in several ones. Then, if a customer becomes loyal and regularly orders goods from one pharmacy, they may stop checking prices with other services Order picking speed. The longer you have to wait for drugs, the lower the purchase percentage is. If a buyer can collect an order at the pharmacy only in 2–3 days, he/she can simply forget about it. And no one will wait long for medicines that are to relieve acute conditions. Therefore, it is important to build a system of reminders, especially if the order is not picked on the same day: calls from the call center, SMS-notifications like ‘the goods are waiting for you, the storage time is 48 hours’. Products that are infrequent or not urgent to take (such as vitamins) may wait longer if they are cheaper than in retail.

The longer you have to wait for drugs, the lower the purchase percentage is. If a buyer can collect an order at the pharmacy only in 2–3 days, he/she can simply forget about it. And no one will wait long for medicines that are to relieve acute conditions. Therefore, it is important to build a system of reminders, especially if the order is not picked on the same day: calls from the call center, SMS-notifications like ‘the goods are waiting for you, the storage time is 48 hours’. Products that are infrequent or not urgent to take (such as vitamins) may wait longer if they are cheaper than in retail. The simplicity of registration and authorization. The number of steps a customer has to take when placing an order directly affects the conversion.

2. Cosmetic and hygiene products of irregular use are often searched through the catalog. In this case, you need:

Clear categories. The user should immediately see in which section the product of interest is located.

Convenient filters help reduce bounce rates.

Detailed descriptions of the goods as well as ingredients and photos.

Feedback from other buyers.

Barriers

Most often, visitors of an online pharmacy refuse to buy medicines when: