THE CUSTOMER

Any exhaustive account of the marketing procedure must instigate with a discussion of the customer or shopper. For the reason of this chapter, these words will be used interchangeably. A consumer refers to any person or domestic that purchases or acquire goods or armed forces for personal use. Similarly, the population of all consumers is referred to as the consumer market or mass market.  A purchaser market has four key characteristics:

1. A huge number of buyers and seller

2. A broad geographic circulation

3. Small personage purchases (as opposed to business to business at a volume reduction, for example)

4. A broad range of products to prefer from.

A most common example of a customer market is the market for laundry detergent.  Most populace buys some sort of laundry detergent, and thus they consist of a large number of buyers. Since there are various manufacturers of laundry detergent, ranging from major companies like Procter & Gamble to generic brand, there are also a large number of sellers. People all over the world buy laundry detergent, thus it has extensive geographic allocation.  Consumers buy the detergent in personality containers, not by the truckload, so that principle is also met. Finally, an extensive variety of products exist, ranging from Tide to Woolite to white-labeled brands.  Thus, marketers vie to influence shopper markets' purchases.  Marketers view acquire not as a single-step decision, but as a process, known as the import development.