The Concept Business market

The business market consists of
organizations that buy goods and services to produce other goods and
services, to resell to other business users or consumers, or to conduct the
organization’s operations. It is an extremely large and complex market spanning a wide variety of business
users that buy a board array of business goods and services. Besides manufacturing, the
business market includes the agriculture, reseller, government, services,
nonprofit, and international markets.

Business
market demand generally is derived, inelastic, and widely fluctuating. Business
buyers usually are well informed about what they are buying. Business market
demand is analyzed by evaluating the number and kinds of business users and
their purchasing power.

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Business
buying, or purchasing, has taken on greater strategic importance because
organizations are buying more and making less, under intense time and quality
pressures, and developing long-term partnering relationships with suppliers.

Business
buying motives are focused on achieving a firm’s objectives but the business buying self-interest must
also be considered.

The buying-decision process in
business markets may involve as many as five stages: need recognition,
identification of alternatives, evaluation of alternatives, purchase
decision, and post purchase behaviour. The actual number of stages in a given
purchase decision depends largely on the buying situation, whether new-task buy, straight re-buy, or
modified re-buy.

The concept of a buying centre reflects the multiple buying influences in business purchasing decisions. In a
typical buying centre are people playing the roles of users, influences,
deciders, gatekeepers and buyers.

Buying patterns (habits ) of business
users often are quite different from patterns in the consumer market. In the
business market, direct purchases (without middlemen) are more common,
purchases are made less frequently, and orders are larger. The negotiation
period usually is longer, and reciprocity arrangements are more common. The
demand for services is greater, and the dependability of supply is more
critical. Finally, leasing (rather than product ownership) is quite common in business marketing.