Energy Booster Survey: Herbal Medicine VS Vitamin C Supplement

Along with the greater demands in people’s daily social life nowadays such as fast-paced of workplace and school, energy booster has become a necessity. At times, people do consume certain energy booster in order to maintain their health, or just to prevent their body from any kinds of illness. Vitamin C supplement is one of the most popular energy boosters in all over the countries. However, in Indonesia, not only vitamin C supplement, but also herbal medicine is quite popular among the people. Regarding to this, recently Jakpat has conducted a survey in order to see Indonesian people preferences toward energy booster, particularly between herbal medicine and vitamin C supplement. This survey involved 402 respondents among people in their teens to 40s from all over the country. Apparently, only more than half (55%) of them admitted that they consume herbal medicine and/or vitamin C supplement. Interestingly, we found that there are more men than women who consume energy booster for their daily routine (64% VS 46%). Furthermore, they prefer vitamin C supplement to herbal medicine when it comes to energy booster they consume (50% VS 9%).

About the frequency of how often people consume energy booster, as for herbal medicine consumers, most of them (48%) admitted that they are not regularly consume it. So are the vitamin C supplement consumers (56%). They choose to consume herbal medicine and/or vitamin C supplement only when they feel that they need to. However, we also found some people who routinely consume energy booster in their daily life. Some of them said that they consume herbal medicine in every day (21%) or from 2 until 3 times in a week (20%), while several of them consume it once in 2 to 3 days (11%). As for vitamin C supplement consumers, several of them consume it in every day (18%), once in 2 to 3 days (15%), or 2 to 3 times in a week (11%). For herbal medicine consumers, apparently we found that men are more likely to consume it in every day than women (33% VS 7%).

About the regular place or store people tend to go when they buy energy booster, as for herbal medicine consumers, apparently pharmacy is still the most popular choice (64%). Less popular choices for herbal medicine consumers include minimarket (33%), supermarket (20%), and nearby grocery store (12%). On the other hand, pharmacy is only the second most popular choice among vitamin C supplement consumers (37%), while minimarket is their top choice (47%). Less popular choices for vitamin C supplement consumers include supermarket (12%) and nearby grocery store (5%). Apparently, we also found that for vitamin C supplement consumers, men tend to go to minimarket than women (55% VS 38%). On the other hand, women tend to go to pharmacy than men (44% VS 30%) in order to buy vitamin C supplement.

Both of herbal medicine and vitamin C supplement have many kinds of packaging style. About the packaging that people choose to buy, for the herbal medicine consumers, the most popular choice is the mini sachet pack (36%). Henceforth, less popular choices are including single sachet (27%) and carton sachet pack (23%). Meanwhile, for the vitamin C supplement consumers, sachet of capsule or tablet is their top choice (49%). Less popular choices of vitamin C supplement packaging are including bottle of capsule or tablet (30%), effervescent drink (18%), and syrup (3%). Interestingly, we found that women are more likely than men to consume vitamin C supplement in form of effervescent drink (22% VS 13%).

As we begin with the assumption that people consume energy booster in order to maintain their health, or just to prevent their body from any kinds of illness, we would like to confirm about the aftermath that people find after consuming energy booster. Are those energy boosters really effective to be consumed? More than half of herbal medicine consumers (53%) admitted that consuming herbal medicine makes them becoming fitter and refresher than before. Some of them stated that it strengthens their body endurance (44%), and accelerate the recovery process when they got an illness (33%). Meanwhile, most of the vitamin C supplement consumers admitted that consuming it makes their body endurance stronger (49%) and their bodies feel fitter and refresher (47%), while some of them stated that their body recovers faster when they got an illness by consuming vitamin C supplement (26%). Only a few of both energy boosters consumers admitted that there is no essential effect they feel after consuming herbal medicine and /or vitamin C supplement. From this, we can conclude that indeed consuming energy boosters, particularly herbal medicine and vitamin C supplement, is indeed giving benefits toward people’s health condition.

Lastly, we asked about the top-of-mind energy booster brands. In the herbal medicine category, apparently Tolak Angin is the most popular choice (56%), with its one and only competitor, Antangin, is the second most popular choice (20%). As in the vitamin C supplements, which there are many more brands circulating on the market than herbal medicine, people’s choices are quite divided well without any certain brand that dominates the popularity. However, we found that there are three top brands people choose: Enervon C (34%), Ester C (23%), and Redoxon (19%).

For more detail you can download XLS report at the button below. JAKPAT report consists of 3 parts which are 1) Respondent Profile, 2) Crosstabulation for each question and 3) Raw Data. Respondent profile shows you demographic profiles ( gender,age range, location by province, and monthly spending). Cross tabulation enables you to define different demographic segment preference on each answer.