Week 4 EOC Consumer vs. Business Marketing

Consumer marketing and business marketing are similar in ways but also very different in many ways as well. The consumer market is many people and/or households that buy services for personal use. The business market is organizations of buying goods and reselling them to others as a profit. One difference between consumer and business marketing is what influences the purchases. "Often, consumers themselves don’t know exactly what influences their purchases," and "Consumer purchases are influenced strongly by cultural, social, personal, and psychological characteristics, shown in Figure 5.2. For the most part, marketers cannot control such factors, but they must take them into account." (Marketing: An Introduction for Education Management Corporation 10th Edition, Armstrong and Kotler, page 6). As for the business market make their decisions by many different people or sources such as the economy. "Business buyers are subject to many influences when they make their buying decisions. Some marketers assume that the major influences are economic. They think buyers will favor the supplier who offers the lowest price or the best product or the most service. They concentrate on offering strong economic benefits to buyers. However, business buyers actually respond to both economic and personal factors." (Marketing: An Introduction for Education Management Corporation 10th Edition, Armstrong and Kotler, page 48). Other ways that consumer marketing is different from business marketing is done by more people who are professionally good at buying purchases. "Compared with consumer purchases, a business purchase usually involves more decision participants and a more professional purchasing effort. Often, business buying is done by trained purchasing agents who spend their working lives learning how to buy better." (Marketing: An Introduction for Education Management Corporation 10th Edition, Armstrong and Kotler, page 41). Also the business market have have many different things to consider when making a decision. "Business buyers usually face more complex buying decisions than do consumer buyers. Business purchases often involve large sums of money, complex technical and economic considerations, and interactions among many people at many levels of the buyer’s organization. Because the purchases are more complex, business buyers may take longer to make their decisions." (Marketing: An Introduction for Education Management Corporation 10th Edition, Armstrong and Kotler, page 41).Consumer market doesn't really look for specifics or other things when purchasing. Unlike the business market they look for detail information on the purchases that they are making for making the purchase. "The business buying process also tends to be more formalized than the consumer buying process. Large business purchases usually call for detailed product specifications, written purchase orders, careful supplier searches, and formal approval." (Marketing: An Introduction for Education Management Corporation 10th Edition, Armstrong and Kotler, page 41).