Marketing and Sales Questions

a.Understanding the customer profile : the tastes,preferences, habits of the customers may differ from person to person.

b.Determining the objective as to who would be the target market, whether the company wants to go for cost minimisation or not etc.

c.Type of channel members :Who all would be involved? Wholesalers, retailers?

d.The criteria on which the channel members would be evaluated and selected.

e.How many intermediaries will be involved in the overall distribution?

We can say that sales promotion is a cost effective technique by which an organisation can achieve its sales volume or the marketing objectives by providing value added product and not just an ordinary product to the end user or even the intermediaries. It is short term by nature and is suitable enough for generating sales within a short span of time. Sales promotion techniques are being increasingly used by retailing organisations some of which include advertising, providing discounts and allowances or a 'buy one get one free offer' etc.

In contrast to investment, consumption is relatively stable.

a.Direct interaction with customers: The retailer acts as the final link between the organisation and its customer. The retailer knows his customer better than anyone. He even suggests the customer what to purchase and allows him credit facilities to encourage frequent buying behaviour in the customer.

b.Small purchases: The customer purchases goods in small lots from the retail stores. So there are frequent visits to the retail store by the customer.

c.Instrument of marketing communication: via which information about the product is disseminated to the needy customers

In the light of competition, it may be seen that competitors may initiate price changes. If the cutting off on prices does not affect the company, then the current pricing strategy itself can be continued to maintain the profitability of the company. However if the price change on one firm is affecting the other, then it can:

a.reduce the product price at par with competitors’ price or below competitors’ price

or

b. Provide added advantage to the existing product like better quality, or ‘a buy one get one free’ offer.

or

c.Provide better quality of the product at a higher price thereby not being at par with the competitors.

The annual plan control is one of the four types of marketing control system. Annual plan control is essential in order to determine whether all the marketing efforts undertaken by the organisation has been really worthwhile or not. It aims to achieve sales volume,profits and all those objectives which have been set up in the beginning of the year. In an organisation,the top management and middle level management are responsible for the annual plan control. They have to keep a check on the activities undertaken to implement the plans.

It refers to the possibility for an investor to experience  losses due to  factors that affect the overall performance of the financial markets. Market risk cannot be eliminated through diversification, though it can be hedged against. The sources of market risk include natural disasters, recessions, political turmoil, changes in interest rates and terrorist attacks.