BUS602: Marketing Management

Consumers are really buying packages of benefits that deliver value, which always includes some tangible aspects and some intangible aspects. The person who buys a plane ride on United Airlines is looking for a quick way to get from one city to another (the benefit). Providing this benefit requires a tangible part of the product (a plane) and an intangible part of the product (ticketing, maintenance, and piloting services). A person who purchases accounting services buys the benefit of having taxes completed on the correct tax form (tangible part of the service) and having the taxes prepared correctly by a trusted person (intangible part of the service).

Marketers must know how consumers view the types of products their companies sell so that they can design the marketing mix to appeal to the selected target market. To help them define target markets, marketers have devised product categories. Products that are bought by the end user are called consumer products. They include electric razors, sandwiches, cars, stereos, magazines, and houses. Consumer products that get used up, such as Nexxus shampoo and Lay's potato chips, are called consumer nondurables. Those that last for a long time, such as Whirlpool washing machines and Apple computers, are  consumer durables.

Another way to classify consumer products is by the amount of effort consumers are willing to make to acquire them. The four major categories of consumer products are unsought products, convenience products, shopping products, and specialty products, as summarized in (Figure). Unsought products are products unplanned by the potential buyer or known products that the buyer does not actively seek.

Convenience products are relatively inexpensive items that require little shopping effort. Soft drinks, candy bars, milk, bread, and small hardware items are examples. Consumers buy them routinely without much planning. This does not mean that such products are unimportant or obscure. Many, in fact, are well known by their brand names - such as Pepsi-Cola, Pepperidge Farm breads, Domino's pizza, Sure deodorant, and UPS shipping.

In contrast to convenience products, shopping products are bought only after a brand-to-brand and store-to-store comparison of price, suitability, and style. Examples are furniture, automobiles, a vacation in Europe, and some items of clothing. Convenience products are bought with little planning, but shopping products may be purchased after months or even years of search and evaluation.

Specialty products are products for which consumers search long and hard and for which they refuse to accept substitutes. Expensive jewelry, designer clothing, state-of-the-art stereo equipment, limited-production automobiles, and gourmet restaurants fall into this category. Because consumers are willing to spend much time and effort to find specialty products, distribution is often limited to one or two sellers in a given region, such as Neiman-Marcus,  Gucci, or a Porsche dealer.