Know-How Exchange : Customer Behavior

I'm going to point you towards our website description of the difference between business and consumer marketing: https://www.dobney.com/Strategies/business_markets.htm but in short, consumers are buying for themselves, organisations are generally buying to resell and so to generate profit. Typically business relationships are therefore more long term and strategic.

This tends to mean that organisational buyers are more rational whereas consumers are more affiliative in their buying processes. Typically in an organisation buying is done by more than one person with influencers, specifiers, decision makers and budget holders.

For sales this means that that the sale has to consider not just the immediate reward to the customer but the potential for long term profit for the customer in supplying their customer. It also has to consider the political landscape and the overall strategic direction of the the company you are supplying. More often than not the purchase is a negotiated purchase and involves elements of customised product or service.


Saul

Don't be overly simplistic in the approach. Organisations buy for some of the same reasons as consumers, and not always for resale - many things are bought by organisations for use internally, or in the course of delivering a product or service.

For a start, you need to specify what type of product or service you are selling.

Is it a product that has high levels of involvement, or low levels?

Is it a frequently repeated sale, or once every several years, or longer?

Let me give you a couple of examples:

Toilet paper. Frequent purchase, bought by consumers and by organisations. The consumer buys what makes them feel safe and comfortable. Organisations buy what is cheapest so long as their employees don't riot over it, if it's too rough or insufficiently absorbent.

Motor car. Once every n years. Organisations buy what will get their people around to wherever they need to go cost-effectively, and with due regard to safety. For consumers, the purchase is much more emotional than that. Often it's a blend of functionality, form and ego-massage (i.e. this car makes me feel great).

In summary, you need to develop a comparative framework which takes into account the type of product or service you are selling, and the key motivators for purchase. It's important to understand the product/service value proposition PER SEGMENT to know what that framework should look like.

Hope that helps.

ChrisB


PS my-twilight, when you have time, please add a bit more detail to your profile, you'll find respondents are able to help you much more accurately.