The primary goal of this marketing research was to determine the opinions and practices of pharmacists in several distinct pharmacy markets. The first aspect of the study was aimed at identifying the factors that led to the acquisition of drugs by pharmaists, including the additional, expected by them, incentives to make such a purchase in the future. In order to research the problem in depth, the subject scope of the measure was extended to include the pharmaceutical sale of so-called "Parallel import" drugs, and to include comparative analysis techniques, and the recognizability of the leading importers of parallel brands. The last of the research questions was about the marketing of dietary supplemetns – the ways of promoting them, and the willingness of pharmacies to have their own lines of products of this type.

The end result of this marketing study was a comprehensive final report - it includes a summary of the quantitative and qualitative analyzes of the research material obtained, with a separate chapter devoted to each issue.

The whole of the document was done with special care for aesthetics, to ensure the succinctness and clarity of the descriptive form and to maintain a detailed graphic and tabular layer - colorful charts, diagrams, tables were used to illustrate the most important issues.

The conclusions and recommendations developed in the report have made it possible to refine the trade offer in terms of more competetive sales on the Polish market of drugs imported under parallel import.

Due to the extensive scope of the subject, marketing research was carried out in two complementary and successive phases - qualitative and quantitative. Within the exploratory character of the qualitative component, one focus group interview (FGI) was conducted with managers of 7 pharmacies as well as 5 individual in-depth interviews (IDIs) with owners of individual pharmacies.

When recruiting respondents for focus interviews, we focused on the long-term management experience of the respondents and the high daily turnover of the managed centers.

The data collected during the course of the interviews is used to develop a questionnaire that was used as part of a subsequent quantitative measurement - this part of the study was conducted with representatives of the pharmacies who are responsible for the final selection of contractors when purchasing drugs. Finally, 374 pharmacists were interviewed by way of computer-assisted questionnaire interviews (CATI).