ePharmacies are lagging behind other forms of retail and most consumers in Europe are only using the internet to gather healthcare information with little purchasing products online. This is a current trend for the EU whereby the Internet is more of a search tool than a business. Business to Consumer transactions are still quite low, yet this may improve. Perogianni forecasts that web trained consumers may bridge the gap between healthcare and consumers but this may take some time.
There is the potential for growth as has happened in the US however as in 1999, less than 1% of US prescription only medicines (PoM) and over the counter (OTC) were sold over the Internet yet it is predicted that by 2006, 1% to 5% of EU PoM, OTC and vitamins will be sold through online pharmacies. The EU pharmacies are expected to capitalise on OTC medicines initially as there are far less regulatory restrictions.
