What is it about?
Marketing Mix is a powerful tool that enables the marketers to concentrate on specific marketing tasks as specialisation wise (4Ps) and allocate the resources like money, time and efforts to these tasks to be successful in marketing of products. On the other hand, retailing is the task of selling the product to the final customer who will be influenced by the marketer or by the retailer to make a purchase. If the marketer influence is working, the job of the retailer made easy. If the marketer influence is not working, then the retailer job is difficult. In this situation, an attempt has been made to gauge the efficiency of the marketer by the retailers. The Case study mainly focuses on Retailers’ Perception on Marketing Mix strategies adopted by major players of Indian soft drink market i.e. Coca-cola and Pepsi. The study was organised in an Indian city of Visakhapatnam with an objective of a comparative analysis on perceptions of retailers towards the marketing mix strategies adopted by these organisations. The primary data was collected from 100 retailers in Visakhapatnam city who are selling both Coca-cola and Pepsi products in their outlets. This case study enables the readers to practically analyse how the marketing mix strategies are implemented in the soft drink market and how well the strategies are received by the retailers.
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Why is it important?
Among all strategies of marketing management, Marketing Mix Strategies are considered to be important and superior to other strategies of marketing. The Study of Marketing mix strategies enable the marketers to be successful in marketing of products. Marketing Mix is a powerful tool that enables the marketers to concentrate on specific marketing tasks as specialization wise (4Ps) and allocate the resources like money, time and efforts to these tasks to be successful in the market. For that purpose, the Marketers have to control their marketing activities by comparing the marketing results with marketing objectives. On the other hand, retailing is the task of selling the product to the final customer who will be influenced by the marketer or by the retailer to make a purchase. If the marketer influence is working, the job of the retailer made easy. If the marketer influence is not working, then the retailer job is difficult. Retailers have direct contact with customers to get the response or satisfaction levels which can evaluate the product as well as marketing strategies of the firm. One of the ways of evaluating the efficiency marketing activities is to analyse the perception of retailers towards marketing mix strategies of firm. The efficiency of marketers can be measured by measuring the perception of the retailers whether it is good or average or poor. In this situation, an attempt has been made to gauge the efficiency of the marketer by the retailers. This study concentrates on analyzing the perceptions of the retailers and thereby helping the organizations and practitioners to design effective marketing strategies for better market performance.
Perspectives
1. Branding strategies of companies need to be improved, because - huge product choice offered to the consumers, the consumers are showing variety seeking buying behaviour, there is less loyalty shown by consumer towards any soft drink brand. The branding strategies should aim at converting variety seeking buying behaviour into habitual buying behaviour. 2. Packaging strategies of soft drink products seems good, because - consumers are able to identify the packages/bottles with its label pasted/printed on it. But Packing strategies of products need to be improved. For any reason, the pack of soft drinks products get damaged, the companies’ should try to see that the damaged products need to be replaced without any delay after proper inquiry and it is found in the study that the retailers are showing their dissatisfaction towards product replacement policy. 3. Services to retailers by manufacturer should be evaluated from time to time and must be redesigned and offered according to the needs of the retailers. Retail Services play major role in recommending the product to customer by the retailer and can increase retail sales. 4. Order delivery from manufacturer/middlemen to consumer should be as promised – transportation duration, cost and availability must be as per prior discussions, terms and conditions. If manufacturer/middlemen is not able to make it on time, that must be communicated to retailer in advance.
Dr V V DEVI PRASAD KOTNI
GITAM University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Perception of the Retailers Towards Marketing Mix Strategies: An Empirical Case Study on the Soft Drink Market in Visakhapatnam, Indian Journal of Marketing, June 2014, Associated Management Consultants, PVT., Ltd.,
DOI: 10.17010/ijom/2014/v44/i6/80369.
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