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9.Marketing Mix -
Place
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Place refers to the means by which your customer
acquires your product. This includes the actual place it is purchased (the
shop, the telephone, the web page, the warehouse) as well as the actual route
of distribution. |
The distribution chain
Most consumer goods are purchased from a
retailer, who purchase them from a wholesaler/distributor, who purchase them
from the manufacture. If the goods were imported there might be more merchants
in this distribution chain. Sometimes, this distribution chain can be bypassed
or leapt over. In the security industry, some manufacturers of security systems
sell their product directly to end users at the same time as selling them to
security installation companies at the same time as selling them to national
distributors. The point is that these different distribution channels can
provide different levels of profitability and they can quite happily run
alongside each other provided a well thought through pricing strategy has been
decided upon.
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For example a consumer is likely to want only
one variant of your product and expect to purchase it immediately. A retailer
is likely to want limited stock of a number of variants and not expect to pay
for 60 days. A distributor is looking at large volumes of product in all its
variants at greatly discounted rates. Your ditribution policy needs to take
account of these variables. If it does not, then you will find yourself in a
very embarassing position with a customer sooner or later which would result in
the loss of a sale. |
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The complication to this approach however is that you need to
consider the fact that your 'customer' might be a consumer, a retailer or a
distributor and that each of these customers will be looking for perhaps
different features or different levels of service.
The Internet.
Needles to say the internet offers a new "Place" to
many business sectors. It has enabled many middlemen to be bypassed resulting
in a price advantage to be offered to the customer followed by the inevitable
increase in volume for the seller.
This could be selling direct to your
consumer and missing out the retailer, or it could be direct to your retailer,
missing out the wholesaler. |
Business growth for you?
Is there any way you could generate extra volume on
the internet? |
Given the relatively low set-up costs, you should be seriously
looking at this avenue! You do not need to set up a complex site, we may be
able to set up a simple income-generating site for only a few hundred pounds. I
personally favour this approach because it gives you enormous flexibilty in
developing your commercial site - especially useful for small businesses with
little experience in this medium. You literally develop the site over a few
months as you uncover the secrets to success for your market sector. Costs are
minimal. |
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How many small business-owners would like to take
on a new business-building strategy that offered almost no risk? |
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