Consumer Goods and Industrial Goods

Consumer Products:

  • Bought by final consumers for personal consumption

  • Differ in the way consumers buy them

Industrial Products:

  • Bought for further processing or for use in conducting a business

  • Bough by other businesses, not consumers

Three main categories of consumer products:

Convenience product:

  • Bought frequently

  • Little planning or shopping effort

  • Low customer involvement

Shopping Products:

  • Bought less frequently

  • Customers are careful about suitability, quality, price, brand, style etc

Speciality Products:

  • Unique characteristics or brand

  • Buyers make a special effort when buying

Convenience products: Emphasis of Marketing Mix:

  • Price: Tends to be low

  • Place: Widespread distribution

  • Promotion: Mass promotion

Shopping products: Emphasis of Marketing Mix:

  • Price: Tends to be higher

  • Place: Selective distribution (fewer outlets)

  • Promotion: Advertising by producers and resellers

Speciality products: Emphasis of Marketing Mix:

  • Price: High

  • Place: Exclusive distribution or limited outlets

  • Promotion: More carefully targeted

Three main kinds of industrial products:

  • Materials and Parts:

    • Raw materials, components etc

    • Mostly sold to other industrial users

    • Price and service key issues

  • Capital Items:

    • Industrial products used in production or operations

    • E.g. IT systems, building infrastructure

  • Supplies and services:

    • Operating supplies (e.g. energy) and business services (e.g. maintenance, security)

Key features of Marketing industrial products:

  • Specialist buyers and sellers: Buyers are business- Will have specialist requirements and more experience. Often dealing with professional ‘Buyers’

  • Buyer-seller relationship: Strong emphasis on customer relationship management and repeat business

  • Transaction value: Purchase value is often substantial in a single transaction (e.g. bulk purchase contract)

  • Quality and Price: Greater emphasis on product quality and price (where there are acceptable alternative products). Price is often negotiated by the buyers

  • Support: Greater requirement for after-sales support