Abstract:

Dietary supplements is a category of products that has been very promising and innovative in Poland and around the world for years, showing dynamic growth in production and sales. Currently, the global market of dietary supplements is worth about $ 100 billion. Unit packages are an inseparable element of products such as dietary supplements. Packaging is an inherent element of the equipment of these products, without which it would be impossible to market supplements. Packaging of dietary supplements should fulfill numerous, interlocking functions, which include: protective, transport, information as well as functional, ecological and marketing. One of the priority functions of dietary supplement packaging is the information function. In the era of the development of online stores and stores with self-service sales (including pharmacies), packaging is one of the key sources of information about the features and properties of a dietary supplement, and - through its image - becomes a brand image creator and a carrier of promotional information. In view of the above, it is reasonable to identify whether and to what extent the unit packaging of the dietary supplement influences the purchasing decisions of consumers, what features and elements of packaging are crucial for consumers in the purchasing process, what is the significance of the packaging of the supplement in the purchasing process against the background of other purchasing determinants. The article presents selected results of an own study conducted on a purposely selected sample of 468 dietary supplement consumers in Poland in 2017-2018, whose main purpose was to identify the role and significance of packaging as a determinant of purchase in relation to three selected categories of dietary supplements.