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marketing channel
individuals and firms involved in the process of making a product or service available for use or consumption by consumers or industrial users
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Functions Performed by Intermediaries
- transactional function: involves buying, selling, and risk taking; stock merchandise in anticipation of sales
- logistical function: gathering, storing, and dispersing of products
- facilitating functions: assist producers in making goods and services more attractive to buyers
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Transactional Function
- Buying: purchasing products for resale or as an agent for supply of a product
- Selling: contacting potential customers, promoting products, and seeking orders
- Risk taking: assuming business risks in the ownership of inventory that can become obsolete or deteriorate
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Logistical Function
- Assorting: creating product assortments from several sources to serve customers
- Storing: assembling and protecting products at a convenient location to offer better customer service
- Sorting: purchasing in large quantities and breaking into smaller amounts desired by customers
- Transporting: physically moving a product to customers
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Facilitating Function
- Financing: extending credit to customers
- Grading: inspecting, testing, or judging products, and assigning them quality grades
- Marketing information and research: providing information to customers and suppliers, including competitive conditions and trends
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consumer benefit from intermediaries
- having the g/s you want, when you want them, where you want them, and in the form you want them
- Four Utilities:
- Time: having a product or service when you want it
- Place: having a product or service available where consumers want it
- Form: enhancing a product or service to make it more appealing to buyers
- Possession: efforts by intermediaries to help buyers take possession of a product or service
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Marketing Channels for Consumer Goods and Services
- Direct Channel: producer and ultimate consumers deal directly with each other
- Indirect Channel:
- retailer: retailer is large and can buy in large quantities from a producer; cost of inventory too expensive to use wholesaler
- wholesaler: low-cost, low-unit value items that are frequently purchased by consumers (ie: candy, confectionery items, magazines)
- agent: many small manufacturers and many small retailers; coordinate a large supply of the product
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electronic marketing channels
employ the Internet to make goods and services available for consumption or use by consumers or business buyers
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