CHAPTER 1

AN OVER VIEW OF MARKETING AND MARKETING

MANAGEMENT
1.1 Meaning and Scope of Marketing
What image comes to mind when you hear the word “marketing”? Some people think of
advertisements or brochures, while others think of public relations (for instance, arranging for
clients to appear on TV talk shows). The truth is, all of these—and many more things—make up
the field of marketing. Marketing is not only restricted to selling and advertising as is perceived
but is More than it advertising it identifies and satisfies customers’ needs. Its functions revolve
around wide variety and range of tasks and activities mostly termed as functions related to 4ps
i.e. Product, price, place, and promotion.
More than any other business function, marketing deals with customers. Creating customer value
and satisfaction are at the very heart of modern marketing thinking and practice. Sound
marketing is critical to the success of every organization —large or small, for-profit, or not-for-
profit, domestic, or global. Large for-profit firms such as McDonald’s, Sony, Wal-Mart, and
Marriott use marketing. But so do not-for-profit organizations such as colleges, hospitals,
museums, and even churches.
According to American Marketing Association (AMA) “Marketing is an organizational function
and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for
managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.”
The Knowledge Exchange Business Encyclopedia also defines marketing as “planning and
executing the strategy involved in moving a good or service from producer to consumer.”
Marketing is a social and managerial process by which individuals and groups obtain what they
need and want through creating, offering, and exchanging products of value with others (Philip
Kotler).
There are varying perceptions and viewpoints on the meaning and content of marketing. Some
important definitions are:

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 ❖ Marketing is the process by which an organization relates creatively, productively and
profitably to the marketplace.
❖ Marketing: It is the process of creating consumer value in the form of goods, services, or
ideas that can improve the consumer’s life.
❖ Marketing is the art of creating and satisfying customers at a profit.
❖ Marketing is getting the right goods and services to the right people at the right places at
the right time at the right price with the right communication and promotion.
❖ Marketing is the performance of business activities that direct the flow of goods and
services from the producer to the customer.
❖ Marketing is the economic process by which goods and services are exchanged between
the maker and the user and their values determined in terms of money prices.
❖ Marketing is designed to bring about desired exchanges with target audiences for the
purpose of mutual gain.
❖ Marketing activities are concerned with the demand stimulating and demand fulfilling
efforts of the enterprise.
❖ Marketing is the function that adjusts an organization’s offering to the changing needs of
the marketplace.
The scope of marketing
Marketing is typically seen as the task of creating, promoting, and delivering goods and services
to consumers and businesses. In fact, marketing people are involved in marketing through 10
types of entities: goods, services, events, persons, places, properties, organizations, information,
and ideas.
❖ Goods/ products- any tangible offerings, which provide functional value/ benefit to
customers/ consumers.
❖ Services- are intangible products. As economies advance, growing proportions of the
activities are focused on the production of services. E.g. work of airlines, hotels,
car rentals firms, beauticians, maintenance, and repair people.
❖ Events- are happenings or usually something important. Marketers must promote time-
based events such as Olympics, major trade shows, sport events and artistic events.
❖ Persons- Celebrity marketing has become a major business. Celebrity is fame and
honor. E.g., someone seeking fame would hire a press agent to plant stories in

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 newspapers and magazines. Today every film star has an agent, personal manager
and ties to a public relations agency.
❖ Places- cities, states, regions, and whole nations compete actively to attract
tourists, factories, company headquarters, and new residents. Nowadays, Far-East
Asia is attracting huge multinational companies, as there is cheap resource for their
business.
❖ Properties- properties are intangible rights of ownership of either real property
(real estate) or financial property (stocks and bonds).
❖ Organization- organized body of persons or organized system. Organizations actually
work together to build a strong favorable image in the minds of their publics.
❖ Information - information can be produced and marketed as a product. In today's
modern markets, marketing cannot take place without reliable information.
Marketers have to know about the users of product, and customers or consumers have
to know the quality of product through information.
❖ Ideas- every market offering includes a basic idea at its core. Producers manufacture
the product in the factories and they sell HOPE in the stores. The buyer of
drill is really buying a hole. Products and services are platforms for delivering some
idea or benefits.

1.2 Marketing Management Philosophies

There are several alternative philosophies that can guide organizations in their efforts to carry out
their marketing goal(s). Marketing efforts should be guided by a marketing philosophy. Firms
vary in their perceptions about business, and their orientations to the market place. This has led
to the emergence of many different concepts of marketing. Marketing activities should be carried
out under some well-thought out philosophy of efficient, effective, and responsible marketing.
Decisions about the weight, given the interests of the organization, customers, and society need
to be made by marketing managers. There are five alternative concepts under which
organizations conduct their marketing activities.
A. Production concept
The production concept holds that consumers will favor products that are available ad highly
affordable and that management should, therefore, focus on improving production and

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distribution efficiency. This is one of the oldest philosophies that guide sellers. The assumption
that consumers are primarily interested in product availability and low price holds in at least two
types of situations.
1). Demand for a product exceeds the supply. Here consumers are more interested in obtaining
the product than in its fine points. The suppliers will concentrate on finding ways to increase
production.
2). The product’s cost is too high and improved productivity is needed to bring it down. The
second situation is where the product’s cost is high and has to be brought down through
increased productivity to expand the market. The risk with this concept is in focusing too
narrowly company operations. The production concept holds that consumers will favor products
that are affordable and available, and therefore management’s major task is to improve
production and distribution efficiency and bring down prices.
B. The product concept
The product concept holds that consumers favor quality products that are reasonably priced, and
therefore little promotional effort is required. The product concept states that consumers will
favor products that offer the most quality, performance, and features. Therefore, managers in
these product-oriented organizations focus their energy on making good products and improving
them over time. These managers assume that buyers admire well-made product and can appraise
product quality and performance.. The product concept can also lead to “marketing myopia,”
the failure to see the challenges being presented by other products.
C. The selling concept
Many organizations follow the selling concept. The selling concept is the idea that consumers
will not buy enough of the organization’s products unless the organization undertakes a large-
scale selling and promotion effort.
i. This concept is typically practiced with unsought goods (those that buyers do not
normally think of buying e.g. insurance policies).
ii. To be successful with this concept, the organization must be good at tracking down the
interested buyer and selling them on product benefits.
iii. Industries that use this concept usually have overcapacity. Their aim is to sell what they
make rather than make what will sell in the market.
iv. There are not only high risks with this approach but low satisfaction by customers.

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 D. The marketing concept
The marketing concept holds that achieving organizational goals depends on determining the
needs and wants of target markets and delivering the desired satisfactions more effectively and
efficiently than competitors do. The marketing and selling concepts are often confused. The
primary differences are:
1). The selling concept takes an “inside-out” perspective (focuses on existing products and uses
heavy promotion and selling efforts).
2). The marketing concept takes an “outside-in” perspective (focuses on needs, values, and
satisfactions). Many companies claim to adopt the marketing concept but really do not unless
they commit to market-focused and customer-driven philosophies:
i. Customer-driven companies research current customers to learn about their desires,
gather new product and service ideas, and test proposed product improvements.
ii. Such customer-driven marketing usually works well when there exists a clear need and
when customers know what they want.
iii. When customers do not know what they want, marketers can try customer driving
marketing-understanding customer needs even better than customers themselves do,
and creating products and services that will meet existing and latent needs now and in
the future.
There is some difference b/n marketing and selling concept. These two concepts are sometimes
confused. The Selling concept takes an inside out perspective. It starts with the factory, focuses
on the company’s existing product and calls for heavy selling and promotion to obtain
profitable sales. In contrast, the marketing concept takes an outside in perspective. It starts
with a well-defined market, focuses on customer needs, coordinates all marketing
activities affecting customers and makes profit by creating long-term customer r/ships
based on customer value and satisfaction. Under the marketing concepts, companies produce
what consumers’ want thereby satisfying consumers and making profits.
Starting point Focus Means Ends
Selling factory Existing Selling and Profit through sales
concept product promoting volume

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Marketing market Customer Integrated Profit through
concept needs marketing customer satisfaction

E. The societal marketing concept

In recent years, some people have questioned whether the marketing concept is appropriate
organizational philosophy in an age of environmental deterioration, resource shortages, explosive
population growth, world hunger and poverty, and neglected social services. The question is
whether companies that do an excellent job of sensing, serving, and satisfying individual
consumer wants are necessarily acting in the best long-run interests of consumers and society.
The societal marketing concept holds that the organization should determine the needs, wants,
and interests of target markets. It should then deliver the desired satisfactions more effectively
and efficiently than competitors in a way that maintains or improves the consumer’s and the
society’s wellbeing.
1). The societal marketing concept is the newest of the marketing philosophies.
2). It questions whether the pure marketing concept is adequate given the wide variety of societal
problems and ills.
3). According to the societal marketing concept, the pure marketing concept overlooks
possible conflicts between short-run consumer wants and long- run consumer welfare.
4). The societal concept calls upon marketers to balance three considerations in setting their
marketing policies:
a) Company profits.
b) Customer wants.
c) Society’s interests.
5). It has become good business to consider and think of society’s interests when the
organization makes marketing decisions.
1.3 Core Marketing Concepts, Trends, and Tasks
1.3.1 Core Concepts in Marketing
It is obvious from the above definitions of marketing that marketing has been viewed from
different perspective. Now it is imperative to discuss the important terms on which definition of
marketing rests: needs, wants, and demands; products; value and satisfaction; exchange,

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transactions and relationships and markets. These terms are also known as the core concepts in
marketing.
1. Needs, Wants and Demands
The most basic concept underlying marketing is that of human needs. A human need is a state of
deprivation/lack of some basic satisfaction. They include basic physical needs for food, clothing,
warmth, and safety; social needs for belonging and affection; and individual needs for
knowledge and self-expression. These needs were not invented by marketers; they are a basic
part of the human makeup.
Wants are the form human needs take as they are shaped by culture and individual personality.
Wants are desires for specific satisfiers of needs. An American needs food and wants a
hamburger, French fries and a coke. In different society, wants can be satisfied in different ways.
For example, as an American satisfies his wants by hamburger, an Ethiopian can satisfy
his wants by eating Injera. Human wants are shaped and reshaped by social forces and
institutions including churches, schools, families and business corporations.

Demands are Human wants that are backed by an ability and willingness to buy them. Wants
become demands when supported by purchasing power. People have almost unlimited wants but
limited resources. Therefore, they want to choose products that provide the most
satisfaction for their money. When backed by buying power (ability), a want becomes a
demand.
Understanding customer needs, wants, and demands in detail provides important input for
designing marketing strategies.
2. Products and services
People satisfy their needs and wants with products and services. A product is anything that can
be offered to a market to satisfy a need or want. People satisfy their needs and wants with
products. Though the word suggests a physical object, the concept of product is not limited to
physical objects. Service is any activity or benefit that one party can offer to another that is
essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership of anything.
Marketers often use the expressions goods and services to distinguish between physical products
and intangible ones. These goods and services can represent cars, groceries, computers, places,
persons and even ideas. Customers decide which entertainers to watch on television, which

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places to visit for a holiday, which ideas to adopt for their problems and so on. Thus the term
‘product’ covers physical goods, services and a variety of other vehicles that can satisfy
customers’ needs and wants. If at times the term ‘product’ does not seem to be
appropriate, other terms such as market offering, satisfier are used.
3. Value, Satisfaction and quality
Customer value is the difference between the values the customer gains from owning and using
a product and the costs of obtaining the product. When the customers have so many choices to
choose from to satisfy a particular need, how do they choose from among these many products?
They make their buying choices based on their perceptions of a product’s value. The guiding
concept is customer value. A customer will estimate the capacity of each product to satisfy his
need. He/She might rank the products from the most need-satisfying to the least need-
satisfying.
Customer satisfaction: The extent to which a product’s perceived performance matches a
buyer’s expectations. Customer satisfaction depends on a product’s perceived performance in
delivering value relative to a buyer’s expectations. If the product’s performance falls short of the
customer’s expectations, the buyer is dissatisfied. If performance matches expectations, the
buyer is satisfied. If performance exceeds expectations, the buyer is delighted. Outstanding
marketing companies go out of their way to keep their customers satisfied. Satisfied customers
make repeat purchases, and they tell others about their good experiences with the product.
Quality: Quality has a direct impact on product or service performance. Thus, it is closely linked
to customer value and satisfaction. In the narrowest sense, quality can be defined as “freedom
from defects.” But most customer-centered companies go beyond this narrow definition of
quality. Instead, they define quality in terms of customer satisfaction. For example, the vice-
president of quality at Motorola, a company that pioneered total quality efforts in the United
States, says that “quality has to do something for the customer.
Our definition of a defect is ‘if the customer doesn’t like it, it’s a defect.’ Similarly, the
American Society for Quality Control defines quality as the totality of features and
characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy customer needs. These
customer-focused definitions suggest that quality begins with customer needs and ends with
customer satisfaction. The fundamental aim of today’s total quality movement has become total
customer satisfaction.

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 4. Exchange, Transactions and Relationships
Marketing occurs when people decide to satisfy needs and wants through exchange.
Exchange is the act of obtaining a desired object from someone by offering something in
return. Thought it is only one of the many ways people can obtain a desired object, it allows a
society to produce much more than it would with any alternative system. For an exchange
to take place, several conditions must be satisfied. Of course, at least two parties must
participate, and each must have something of value to the other. Each party also must want to
deal with the other party and each must be free to accept or reject the other’s offer. Finally, each
party must be able to communicate and deliver. These conditions simply make exchange
possible. Whether the exchange actually takes place depends on the parties’ coming to an
agreement. If they agree, we must conclude that the act of exchange has left both of them better
off or at least not worse off. After all, each was free to reject or accept the offer. In this sense,
exchange creates value just as production creates value. It gives customers more consumption
possibilities.
A transaction is marketing’s unit of measurement. It consists of a trade of values between two
parties. A monetary transaction involves trading goods and services in return for money
whereas a barter transaction involves trading goods and services for other goods and
services. Transaction marketing is part of the larger idea of relationship marketing. Marketing is
shifting from trying to maximize the profit on each individual transaction to maximizing
mutually beneficial relationships with consumers and other parties. This is based on the
assumption that if good relationships are built, profitable transactions will simply follow.
Relationship marketing is the process of creating, maintaining, and enhancing strong, value-
laden relationships with customers and other stakeholders.
Transaction marketing is a part of larger idea called r/ship marketing. R/ship marketing is the
practice of building long term satisfying relations with key parties - customers, suppliers
and distributors in order to retain their long term preference and business. Smart marketers try
to build up long-term trusting, win-win r/ships with valued customers, distributors, dealers
and suppliers. They accomplish these r/ships by promising and delivering high quality,
good service and fair prices to other parties over time. R/ship marketing results in strong
economic, technical and social ties among the parties. In most successful cases, transactions
move from being negotiated each time to being a matter of routine.

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The ultimate outcome of r/ship marketing is the building of a unique company asset
called a marketing network.
A marketing Network: A marketing network consists of its supporting stakeholders:
customers, employees, distributors, retailers, ad agencies, university scientists, and others with
whom it has built mutually profitable business r/ships..
5. Markets
The concept of exchange leads to the concept of market. A market consists of all the potential
customers sharing a particular need or want who might be willing and able to engage in
exchange to satisfy that need or want. The size of market depends upon the number of persons
who exhibit the need, have resources that interest others, and are willing to offer these resources
in exchange for what they want. Originally the term market stood for the place where buyers and
sellers gathered to exchange their goods, such as a village square.
Economists use the term market to refer to a collection of buyers and sellers who transact over a
particular product or product class; i.e. the housing market, the grain market, and so on.
Marketers, however, see the sellers as constituting the industry and the buyers as constituting the
market.
Business people use the term markets cover various groupings of customers. They talk need
markets (such as diet-seeking market); product markets (such as the shoe market); demographic
markets (such as the youth market); and geographic markets (such as the Indian market). The
concept is extended to cover non-customer groupings as well, such as voter markets, labour
markets, and donor markets.

1.3.2 New Trends in Marketing

Marketing operates within a dynamic global environment. Every decade calls upon marketing
managers to think freshly about their marketing objectives and practices. Rapid changes can
quickly make yesterday’s winning strategies out of date. As management thought-leader Peter
Drucker once observed, a company’s winning formula for the last decade will probably be its
undoing in the next decade.
What are the marketing challenges as we move into the twenty-first century? Today’s companies
are wrestling with changing customer values and orientations; economic stagnation;
environmental decline; increased global competition; and a host of other economic, political, and

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social problems. However, these problems also provide marketing opportunities. We now look
more deeply into several key trends and forces that are changing the marketing landscape and
challenging marketing strategy: the growth of nonprofit marketing, the information technology
boom, rapid globalization, the changing world economy, and the call for more socially
responsible actions.
1. Growth of Nonprofit Marketing
In the past, marketing has been most widely applied in the business sector. In recent years,
however, marketing also has become a major component in the strategies of many nonprofit
organizations, such as colleges, hospitals, museums, symphony orchestras, and even churches.
Consider the following examples:
✧ As hospital costs and room rates soar, many hospitals face underutilization, especially in their
maternity and pediatrics sections. Many have taken steps toward marketing.
✧ Even before opening its doors, one church hired a research firm to find out what its customers
would want. The research showed that the “un churched” —people with no current church
connection —found church boring and church services irrelevant to their everyday lives. They
complained churches were always hitting them up for money. So the church added contemporary
music and skits, loosened its dress codes, and presented sermons on topics such as money
management and parenting. Its direct-mail piece read: “Given up on the church? We don’t blame
you. Lots of people have. They’re fed up with boring sermons, ritual that doesn’t mean anything
. . . music that nobody likes...[and] preachers who seem to be more interested in your wallet than
you....Church can be different. Give us a shot.” The results have been impressive. Within a year
of opening, the church had attracted nearly 400 members, 80 percent of whom were not
previously attending church.
✧ Similarly, many private colleges, facing declining enrollments and rising costs, are using
marketing to compete for students and funds. They are defining target markets, improving their
communication and promotion, and responding better to student needs and wants.
Even government agencies have shown an increased interest in marketing. The continued growth
of nonprofit and public-sector marketing presents new and exciting challenges for marketing
managers.

2. The Information Technology Boom

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The explosive growth in computer, telecommunications, and information technology has had a
major impact on the way companies bring value to their customers. The technology boom has
created exciting new ways to learn about and track customers, create products and services
tailored to meet customer needs, distribute products more efficiently and effectively, and
communicate with customers in large groups or one-to-one. For example, through
videoconferencing, marketing researchers at a company’s headquarters in New York can look in
on focus groups in Chicago or Paris without ever stepping onto a plane. With only a few clicks
of a mouse button, a direct marketer can tap into on-line data services to learn anything from
what car you drive to what you read to what flavor of ice cream you prefer.
3. Rapid Globalization
The world economy has undergone radical change during the past two decades. Geographical
and cultural distances have shrunk with the advent of jet planes, fax machines, global computer
and telephone hookups, world television satellite broadcasts, and other technical advances. This
has allowed companies to greatly expand their geographical market coverage, purchasing, and
manufacturing. The result is a vastly more complex marketing environment for both companies
and consumers. Today, almost every company, large or small, is touched in some way by global
competition —from the neighborhood florist that buys its flowers from Mexican nurseries, to the
small New York clothing retailer that imports its merchandise from Asia, to the U.S. electronics
manufacturer that competes in its home markets with giant Japanese rivals, to the large American
consumer goods producer that introduces new products into emerging markets abroad.
4. The Changing World Economy

A large part of the world has grown poorer during the past few decades. A sluggish world
economy has resulted in more difficult times for both consumers and marketers. Around the
world, people’s needs are greater than ever, but in many areas, people lack the means to pay for
needed goods. Markets, after all, consist of people with needs and purchasing power. In many
cases, the latter is currently lacking. In the United States, although wages have risen, real buying
power has declined, especially for the less-skilled members of the workforce. Many U.S.
households have managed to maintain their buying power only because both spouses work.
Furthermore, many workers have lost their jobs as manufacturers have “downsized” to cut costs.
Current economic conditions create both problems and opportunities for marketers.
Some companies are facing declining demand and see few opportunities for growth.
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Others, however, are developing new solutions to changing consumer problems. Many are
finding ways to offer consumers “more for less.” Wal-Mart rose to market leadership on two
principles, emblazoned on every Wal-Mart store: “Satisfaction Guaranteed” and “We Sell for
Less —Always.” When consumers enter a Wal-Mart store, they are welcomed by a friendly
greeter and find a huge assortment of good-quality merchandise at everyday low prices. The
same principle explains the explosive growth of factory outlet malls and discount chains —these
days, customers want value. This even applies to luxury products: Toyota introduced its
successful Lexus luxury automobile with the headline, “Perhaps the First Time in History that
Trading a $72,000 Car for a $36,000 Car Could Be Considered Trading Up.”

5. The Call for More Ethics and Social Responsibility

Today’s marketers must also take responsibility for the social and environmental impact of their
actions. Corporate ethics has become a hot topic in almost every business arena, from the
corporate boardroom to the business school classroom. And few companies can ignore the
renewed and very demanding environmental movement.
The ethics and environmental movements will place even stricter demands on companies in the
future. Consider recent environmental developments. After the fall of communism, the West was
shocked to find out about the massive environmental negligence of the former Eastern bloc
governments. In many Eastern European countries, the air is fouled, the water is polluted, and
the soil is poisoned by chemical dumping. In June1992, representatives from more than 100
countries attended the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro to consider how to handle problems such
as the destruction of rain forests, global warming, endangered species, and other environmental
threats. Clearly, in the future companies will be held to an increasingly higher standard of
environmental responsibility in their marketing and manufacturing activities.

1.3.3 Marketing Management Tasks

Customers always have some kind of unsatisfied needs and wants. The task of marketing is to
search, sense, and satisfy unsatisfied needs and wants in a more superior way. It has to create
more satisfying solutions to the customers' needs and wants.
There are eight different states of demands and the corresponding tasks facing marketing
managers. They are:

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 ❖ Negative demand- A market is said in a state of negative demand if a major part of the
market dislikes the product and even pays a price to avoid it. E.g. Christian meat in
Muslim countries or meat generally among the vegetarians as in India. The marketing
task is to analyze why the market dislikes the product and whether a marketing
program consisting of product redesign, lower prices and more positive promotion
can change beliefs and attitudes.
❖ No demand - When there is no demand, the target consumers may be unaware
of, or uninterested in the product. The marketing task is to find ways to connect benefits
of the product with the person's natural needs and interest. E.g., Farmers may not
be interested in new way of farming or in the package of extension. The marketing
task is to demonstrate benefits that will be driven by the members who have been
encompassed in the package.
❖ Latent demand - Many consumers may share a strong need that cannot be satisfied by an
existing product. There might be a strong latent demand for completely a new product,
which was not available in the market until then. For example, harmless cigarettes,
or fuel-efficient cars, or cars that use water for their fuel. The marketing task is to
measure the size of the potential market and then develop goods and services to
satisfy the latent demand.
❖ Declining demand-, every organization eventually faces declining demand for one
or more of its products. For example, churches have seen membership decline, private
colleges have seen application fall. When such is the case, the marketer must analyze the
causes of decline and determine whether the demand can be re stimulated by new target
markets, by changing product features, or by more communication that is effective. The
marketing task is to reverse declining demand through creative remarketing.
❖ Irregular demand- Many organizations may face demand that varies on a seasonal,
daily, or even hourly basis, causing problems of idle or overworked capacity. For
example, much mass transit equipment is idle during off peak hours and insufficient
during peak travel hours. Museums are under visited on weekdays and overcrowded on
weekends. The marketing task, called synchro-marketing, is to find ways to alter
the pattern of demand through flexible pricing, promotion and incentives.

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 ❖ Full Demand - organizations face full demand when they are pleased with their volume of
business. The marketing task is to maintain the existing level of demand in the face of
changing consumer preferences and increasing competition. The organization must
maintain or improve its quality and continually measure consumer satisfaction.
❖ Over-full demand- Some organizations face a demand level that is higher than they can
handle. When demand level is higher and overcrowded, the marketing task called
de-marketing requires finding ways to reduce demand temporarily or permanently to the
level it can be handled. De-marketing can be classified into two:
1) General de-marketing and
2) Selective de-marketing.
✓ General De-marketing - seeks to discourage overall demand and
takes such steps as raising prices and reducing promotion and service.
✓ Selective de-marketing consists of trying to reduce demand from those
parts of the market that are less profitable or less in need of the product.
❖ Unwholesome demand- some products are dangerous to society as a whole. Such
products will attract organized effort to discourage their consumption. Unselling
campaigns have been conducted against cigarettes, alcohol, hard drugs, handguns,
Xrated moves, large families and environmental pollution. The marketing task is to get
people who like some something to give it up, using such tools as fear message, price
hikes and reduced availability.

1.3.4 Marketing Functions

There are eight Universal functions that are performed in marketing these are as shown in fig
these are Buying, selling, transporting, storing, standardizing and grading, financing and finally
risk taking now lets discuss these one by one:
1. Buying & Assembling:

✓ Buying is first step in the process of marketing. It involves what to buy, what
quality, how much, from whom, when and at, what price. People in business buy to
increase sales or to decrease costs. Purchasing agents are much influenced by
quality, service and price. The products that the retailers buy for resale are
determined by the need and preferences of their customers.

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 ✓ Assembling: After buying all the materials purchased it should be collected
at a central place, it is called assembling. Assembling is required for all kinds of
products whether they are agriculture product, consumer product of Industrial
product.
2. Transporting: Function related to create the availability of product or services. It is
used for moving products from their points of production to location convenient for
purchases
3. Storing: Warehouses are used to store the products for further distribution.
4. Standardizing and grading: To provide more quality products and services without
variation in the quality. Ensuring that product offerings meet established and grading
quality and quantity control standards of size, weight, and other product variables
5. Financing: Providing the financial resources to carryout different function e.g.
promotion of product and providing credit for channel members (wholesalers retailers)
or consumers
6. Risk taking: Marketer takes a risk specifically when any new product is introduced in
a market because there are equal chances of success and failure. Dealing with
uncertainty about consumer purchases resulting from creation and marketing of goods
and services that consumers may purchase in the future
7. Securing Marketing Information: Collecting information about consumers,
competitors, information and channel members (wholesalers, and retailers) for use in
making marketing decisions Almost all marketing functions are based on information
acquired from external environment and information distributed out of organization.
Marketer seeks information to find out customer needs and wants which are to be
satisfied than after producing goods and services awareness about the availability is
required so that consumer can purchase the available goods and services.

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