Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Are consumers losing?
Market segmentation is a crucial tool for marketers and businesses, they partition their market according to these segments and it has been working so far. But my main concern is not the marketers and their strategies but rather on us the consumers. Research has only focused on the marketers and how beneficial the internet has widened the market for sellers from their local location to world. In the practical sense, the internet has also helped the consumers, giving us the option of comparing prices, but are we really getting the best deal? We go through different sites, call different companies just to make we are not being cheated. Its clear to me that companies are aware of this process and are doing everything possible to beat us the consumers. They claim to have deals such as "buy 1 get 50% off the 2nd purchase or asking whether we want a combo meal instead of just what we ordered,it all seems as a catch, a means for us to spend more. Or even acquire so many companies to take over the market, so in the real sense you are still dealing with one seller and one price. What can be done is the question or do we just surrender to this rip off?
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As I read this blog it seems to me Dami is exposing a "conspiracy theory" which I have to admit it seems pretty possible. Are we the consumers losing? I don't know the answer but I think we might be facing this path. For example, if you want to order anything from the internet, I think most of us would go straight to the most famous retailers websites because of the security and reliability of these providers. But what about the others retailers? Are they good enough? Do they offer a better deal? Paradoxically these are questions that most of the times don't have any answer because we follow a vicious circle that customers encourage by purchasing in the same websites. It's not surprising Amazon offers the best deals because of the economies of scale that reaches because of the same customer purchases. It is all related.
ReplyDeleteAnyway I think there's a light at the end of the tunnel. We are living and dealing in free markets. I think there always will be some dealer willing to face the bigger competitors in order to become itself a big company. As much I would like ti think customers will change behavior paths, it seems to me that it is faster than other providers "help us" to see other choices. At least I hope so!
Dami, I beg to differ with you on this one. I think you are having several different arguments within the same idea in itself. First of all, market segmentation is basically a company dividing a given market into sub categories so that they can focus in on the particular product they want to sell. For example, a niche product, nail clippers for a cat. In order to penetrate that market and increase their revenues, this is the approach a company would take to increase their chances of success.
ReplyDeleteThe second point you mention is using the internet to help you get better pricing on certain goods. Personally, I think its the greatest tools consumers have to ensure that we are in fact getting the best price out there. If you really know what you're doing, and if you have the time obviously, you can get the best price in the market. For example, the iPhone has an application that allows you to take a picture of a barcode and the program automatically detects where you are and provides you with the best prices in your area.
Finally, you mention that companies are out to get every penny they can out of you. This is entirely correct. I've seen this for nearly all of my life. Companies that offer you a corporate account are just merely jacking up the prices and giving you a better service. If you're smart enough to look around for a better price, i'm sure you can get just as good quality for a much better price.