Product
planner needs to think about products and service on three levels. The most
basic level is the core products, which addresses the questions: what is the
buyer really buying? The core product stands at the centre of the total
product. It consist of the core, problems-solving benefits that consumers seek
when they by a product or service.
The product planner must next build an
actual product around the core product. Actual product may have as many as five
characteristics: a quality level, features, designs, a brand name and
packaging.
Finally the product planners must build an
augmented product around the core and actual product by offering additional
consumer service and benefits.
Product and service fall into two broad
classes based on the type of consumers that use them consumer product and
industrial products. Broadly defined, a product also includes other marketable
entity such as organisations, persons, places and ideas.
Consumer products:
Consumer products are those bought by
final consumer for personal consumption. Marketers usually classify these goods
further based on how consumers go about buying them. Consumer products include
convenience products, shopping products, speciality products, and unsought
products. These products differ in the ways consumer buy them, and therefore in
how they are marketed.
a) Convenience Product:
Convenience products are consumer products
and services that the consumer usually buys frequently, immediately, and with a
minimum of comparison and buying efforts. Example includes soap, candy,
newspapers and fast-foods. Such types of products can be divided further into
staples products, impulse products and emergency products. Staples
products are the products that consumers by on a regular basis, such
as ketchup, tooth-past etc. Impulse products are purchased
with little planning or search effort, such as candy bars, biscuit, and
magazines. Emergency products, are purchased when their need is
urgent such as umbrellas during a rains, boots and shovels during the year’s
first snowstorm.
b) Shopping Products:
Shopping Products are less frequently
purchased consumer products and service that customer compare carefully on
suitability, quality, price and style. When buying shopping products and
service, consumers spend much time and effort in gathering information and
marketing comparisons. Examples, includes furniture, clothing and hotel
services. Shopping products marketers usually distribute their products through
fewer outlets but provide deeper sales support to help customers in their
comparison effort.
c) Speciality Products:
Speciality Products are consumer products
and service with unique characteristics or brand identification for which a
significant group of buyers is willing to make a special purchase effort.
Example, include specific brands and types of cars, high-priced photographic
equipments, designer cloths, and the service of medical or legal specialists.
d) Unsought products:
Unsought products are consumer products
that the consumer either does not know about or knows about but does not normally
think of buying. Most major new innovations are unsought until the consumer
becomes aware of them through advertising. Classic example known but unsought
product and service are life insurance and blood donation to the Red-Cross. By
their vary nature, unsought products require a lot of advertising, personal
selling and marketing effort.
