Principles of marketing/PMKT102/Assessing customer behaviour/Organizational buyers

Organizational buyers

“	Those who supply goods and services to consumer markets are themselves in need of goods and services to run their business. These organizations - producers, resellers, and governments - make up vast marketing organizations that buy a large variety of products, including equipment, raw material, and labor and other services. Some organizations sell exclusively to other organizations and never come into contact with consumer buyers. Despite the importance of organizational markets, far less research has been conducted on factors that influence their behavior than on factors that influence consumers. However, we can identify characteristics that distinguish organizational buying from consumer buying and typical steps in the organizational buying process.	”
—John Burnett

Organizational buyer behaviour

The decision-making process that organizations follow to determine their needs for products and services is known as organizational buying.

1. Read Organizational buyer behaviour (p.116-123) (pdf) from Core Concepts of Marketing by John Burnett.
2. After reading this material think about the following questions:
   • What buying stages do organizational buyers typically go through?
   • Why should organizational / business buyers collaborate with the companies they buy products from?
   • How do a straight re-buy, new buy, and modified re-buy differ from one another?
3. Share your thoughts about the importance of buyer behaviour in WEnotes. Then look in the course feed to see what others have posted. For example:
   • "Compared to straight re-buy a new buy decision involves ..."

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