Characteristics and Marketing Strategies for Consumer and Industrial Products
The higher the demand for the final item, the higher the need for industrial goods, and vice versa. The demand for industrial goods is inelastic. The amount of items bought for an industrial product remains essentially the same regardless of the price. It is because most goods aren’t made of one single product, but a combination of products.
For example, a car is made of the body, tires, radio, air conditioners, and lights. If the price of the items advanced, they will still need the same number for each car. Although if the price falls, they may buy more stock in anticipation of a rise in prospect price.
Most industrial goods have joint demands with other industrial items. Many finished goods are a combination of many products with an increase in the need for one object will lead to an advance in the demand for the other product. Government, parastatals, and other institutions that use industrial goods are mostly concentrated in a few locations.
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The typical industrial buyer is very well informed about what they want to buy. They also know the alternative sources of these items. The industrial buying process is usually more rational or the decisions to buy them are more economically based than in the consumer buying process.
Industrial products are generally subject to greater standardization, as against certain consumer products that need frequent changes in fashion and style. Advertising is a useful promotional tool for products, but not so in the case of industrial products. Personal selling and after-sales service are generally more important for industrial products.
Industrial products generally involve high-value purchases and entail competitive bidding based on price competition. Selling is based on quality or tangible attributes. Consumer products can be sold for psychological satisfaction. For example, in the case of soaps, Lux soap is said to offer you a complexion like that of a film star!
Consumer products require elaborate ways of distribution, but industrial products are sold through fewer outlets and are often directed by the organization itself. These are the salient features of marketing consumer products as against industrial products.
In summary, a product is the core marketing mix variable on which all the other marketing mix variables revolve. It cannot be diverted from other marketing mix variables, because all of them contribute to forming the images of the product from the point of view of the buyers.
These images determine the values and satisfaction expected from a given product and how much the buyers will offer. Manufacturers and marketers must understand what a product means to consumers and their expectations of that product.
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