{"id":87,"date":"2015-03-11T19:36:20","date_gmt":"2015-03-11T23:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/principlesofmarketingh5p\/chapter\/4-2-types-of-b2b-buyers\/"},"modified":"2021-07-22T19:19:21","modified_gmt":"2021-07-22T23:19:21","slug":"4-2-types-of-b2b-buyers","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/principlesofmarketingh5p\/chapter\/4-2-types-of-b2b-buyers\/","title":{"raw":"4.2 Types of B2B Buyers","rendered":"4.2 Types of B2B Buyers"},"content":{"raw":"
\r\n

Learning Objectives<\/h3>\r\n
    \r\n \t
  1. Describe the major categories of business buyers.<\/li>\r\n \t
  2. Explain why finding decision makers in business markets is challenging for sellers.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    Business buyers can be either nonprofit or for-profit businesses. To help you get a better idea of the different types of business customers in B2B markets, we\u2019ve put them into four basic categories: producers, resellers, governments, and institutions.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \r\n

    Producers<\/h1>\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_83\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"1024\"]\"A<\/a> Figure 4.1: Your local tattoo parlour is a producer.
    romana klee -     apartment tattoo<\/a> - CC BY-SA 2.0.[\/caption]\r\n\r\n
    \r\n
    <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    Producers are companies that purchase goods and services that they transform into other products. They include both manufacturers and service providers. Procter & Gamble, General Motors, McDonald\u2019s, Dell, and Delta Airlines are examples. So are the restaurants around your campus, your dentist, your doctor, and the local tattoo parlour. All these businesses have to buy certain products to produce the goods and services they create. General Motors needs steel and hundreds of thousands of other products to produce cars. McDonald\u2019s needs beef and potatoes. Delta Airlines needs fuel and planes. Your dentist needs drugs such as Novocain, oral tools, and X-ray machines. Your local tattoo parlour needs special inks and needles and a bright neon sign that flashes \u201copen\u201d in the middle of the night.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    \r\n

    Resellers<\/h1>\r\n

    Resellers are companies that sell goods and services produced by other firms without materially changing them. They include wholesalers, brokers, and retailers. Walmart and Target are two big retailers you are familiar with. Large wholesalers, brokers, and retailers have a great deal of market power. If you can get them to buy your products, your sales can exponentially increase.<\/p>\r\n

    Every day, retailers flock to Walmart\u2019s corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, to try to hawk their products. But would it surprise you that not everybody wants to do business with a powerhouse like Walmart? Jim Wier, the one-time CEO of the company that produces Snapper-brand mowers and snowblowers, actually took a trip to Walmart\u2019s headquarters to stop<\/em> doing business with the company. Why? Snapper products are high-end, heavy-duty products. Wier knew that Walmart had been selling his company\u2019s products for lower and lower prices and wanted deeper and deeper discounts from Snapper. He believed Snapper products were too expensive for Walmart\u2019s customers and always would be, unless the company started making cheaper-quality products or outsourced their manufacturing overseas, which is something he didn\u2019t want to do.<\/p>\r\n

    \u201cThe whole visit to Wal-Mart\u2019s headquarters is a great experience,\u201d said Wier about his trip. \u201cIt\u2019s so crowded, you have to drive around, waiting for a parking space. You have to follow someone who is leaving, walking back to their car, and get their spot. Then you go inside this building, you register for your appointment, they give you a badge, and then you wait in the pews with the rest of the peddlers, the guy with the bras draped over his shoulder.\u201d Eventually, would-be suppliers were taken into small cubicles where they had thirty minutes to make their case (Fishman, 2007). \u201cIt\u2019s a little like going to see the principal, really,\u201d he said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    \r\n

    Governments<\/h1>\r\n

    Can you guess the biggest purchaser of goods and services in the world? It is the U.S. government. It purchases everything you can imagine, from paper and fax machines to tanks and weapons, buildings, toilets for NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration), highway construction services, and medical and security services. State and local governments buy enormous amounts of products, too. They contract with companies that provide citizens with all kinds of services from transportation to garbage collection. (So do foreign governments, provinces, and localities, of course.) Business-to-government (B2G) markets, or when companies sell to local, state, and federal governments, represent a major selling opportunity, even for smaller sellers. In fact, many government entities specify that their agencies must award a certain amount of business to small businesses, minority- and women-owned businesses, and businesses owned by disabled veterans.<\/p>\r\n

    There is no one central department or place in which all these products are bought and sold. Companies that want to sell to the U.S. government should first register with the System for Award Management (SAM) at SAM.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

    The existence of the SAM doesn\u2019t mean the agencies it works with don\u2019t have any say over what is purchased for them. It\u2019s not unusual for each agency or department to have its own procurement policies that must be followed. Would-be sellers are often asked to submit sealed bids that contain the details of what they are willing to provide the government and at what price. But contrary to popular belief, it\u2019s not always the lowest bid that\u2019s accepted. Would the United States want to send its soldiers to war in the cheapest planes and tanks, bearing the lowest-cost armour? Probably not. Like other buyers, government buyers look for the best value.<\/p>\r\n

    Yet selling to the government is not always easy. The SAM has its own red tape, as does each government division, and many purchases come with additional regulations or specifications written into the legislation that funded them. Because many purchases can be rather large, decision cycles can be very long and involve large buying centers. Some businesses avoid selling to the government because the perceived hassle is too great to warrant the effort. Other businesses, though, realize that learning the ins and outs of government purchases can become a sustainable competitive advantage.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_85\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"1024\"]\"F-22<\/a> Figure 4.3: Politics can come into play when it comes to large government purchases: Although the F-22 is the most sophisticated fighter jet in the world, it has never been used in battle. But when the Pentagon wanted to stop production on seven of the jets so it could spend the money on other conventional weapons being used in the wars the United States is currently fighting, it had a fight on its hands from the members of Congress. They didn\u2019t want the companies in their states that helped produce the plane to lose business.
    Airwolfhound -     F22 Raptor - RIAT 2010<\/a> - CC BY-SA 2.0.[\/caption]\r\n\r\n

    \r\n

    Institutions<\/h1>\r\n

    Institutional markets include nonprofit organizations such as the American Red Cross, churches, hospitals, charitable organizations, private colleges, civic clubs, and so on. Like government and for-profit organizations, they buy a huge quantity of products and services. Holding costs down is especially important to them. The lower their costs are, the more people they can provide their services to.<\/p>\r\n

    The businesses and products we have mentioned so far are broad generalizations to help you think about the various markets in which products can be sold. In addition, not all products a company buys are high dollar or complex. Businesses buy huge quantities of inexpensive products, too. McDonald\u2019s, for example, buys a lot of toilet paper, napkins, bags, employee uniforms, and so forth. Pretty much any product you and I use is probably used for one or more business purposes (cell phones and cell phone services, various types of food products, office supplies, and so on). Some of us own real estate, and so do many businesses. But very few of us own many of the other products businesses sell to one another: cranes, raw materials such as steel, fibre-optic cables, and so forth.<\/p>\r\n

    That said, a smart B2B marketer will look at all the markets we have mentioned to see if they represent potential opportunities. The Red Cross will have no use for a fighter jet, of course. However, a company that manufactures toilet paper might be able to market it to both the Red Cross and the U.S. government. B2B opportunities abroad and online B2B markets can also be successfully pursued. We will discuss these topics later in the chapter.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    \r\n

    Who Makes the Purchasing Decisions in Business Markets?<\/h1>\r\n

    Figuring out who exactly in B2B markets is responsible for what gets purchased and when often requires some detective work for marketing professionals and the salespeople they work with. Think about the college textbooks you buy. Who decides which ones ultimately are purchased by the students at your school? Do publishers send you e-mails about certain books they want you to buy? Do you see ads for different types of chemistry or marketing books in your school newspaper or on TV? Generally, you do not. The reason is that even though you buy the books, the publishers know that professors ultimately decide which textbooks are going to be used in the classroom. Consequently, B2B sellers largely concentrate their efforts on those people.<\/p>\r\n

    That\u2019s not to say that to some extent the publishers don\u2019t target you. They may offer you a good deal by packaging a study guide with your textbook or some sort of learning supplement online you can purchase. They might also offer your bookstore manager a discount for buying a certain number of textbooks. However, a publishing company that focused on selling its textbooks directly to you or to a bookstore manager would go out of business. They know the true revenue generators are professors.<\/p>\r\n

    The question is, which professors? Some professors choose their own books. Adjunct professors often don\u2019t have a choice\u2014their books are chosen by a course coordinator or the dean or chair of the department. Still other decisions are made by groups of professors, some of whom have more say over the final decision than others. Are you getting the picture? Figuring out where to start in B2B sales can be a little bit like a scavenger hunt.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

    \r\n\r\nRemember the keywords and topics from this chapter? Find them all in the word jumble!\r\n\r\n[h5p id=\"25\"]\r\n
    \r\n

    Key Takeaway<\/h3>\r\n

    Business buyers can be either nonprofit or for-profit businesses. There are four basic categories of business buyers: producers, resellers, governments, and institutions. Producers are companies that purchase goods and services that they transform into other products. They include both manufacturers and service providers. Resellers are companies that sell goods and services produced by other firms without materially changing them. They include wholesalers, brokers, and retailers. Local, state, and national governments purchase large quantities of goods and services. Institutional markets include nonprofit organizations such as the American Red Cross, churches, hospitals, charitable organizations, private colleges, civic clubs, and so on. Holding costs down is especially important to them because it enables them to provide their services to more people. Figuring out who exactly in B2B markets is responsible for what gets purchased and when often requires some detective work by marketing professionals and the salespeople they work with.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    \r\n

    Review Questions<\/h3>\r\n
      \r\n \t
    1. What sorts of products do producers buy?<\/li>\r\n \t
    2. What role do resellers play in B2B markets, and why are they important to sellers?<\/li>\r\n \t
    3. How do sellers find government buyers? Institutional buyers?<\/li>\r\n \t
    4. Why is it difficult to figure out whom to call on in business markets?<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

      References<\/h2>\r\nFishman, C., \u201cThe Man Who Said No to Wal-Mart,\u201d Fast Company<\/em>, December 19, 2007, http:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/magazine\/102\/open_snapper.html?page=0%2C2 [new tab]<\/a> (accessed December 13, 2009).","rendered":"
      \n

      Learning Objectives<\/h3>\n
        \n
      1. Describe the major categories of business buyers.<\/li>\n
      2. Explain why finding decision makers in business markets is challenging for sellers.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n

        Business buyers can be either nonprofit or for-profit businesses. To help you get a better idea of the different types of business customers in B2B markets, we\u2019ve put them into four basic categories: producers, resellers, governments, and institutions.<\/p>\n

        \n

        Producers<\/h1>\n
        \"A<\/a>
        Figure 4.1: Your local tattoo parlour is a producer.
        romana klee –         apartment tattoo<\/a> – CC BY-SA 2.0.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
        \n
        <\/div>\n<\/div>\n

        Producers are companies that purchase goods and services that they transform into other products. They include both manufacturers and service providers. Procter & Gamble, General Motors, McDonald\u2019s, Dell, and Delta Airlines are examples. So are the restaurants around your campus, your dentist, your doctor, and the local tattoo parlour. All these businesses have to buy certain products to produce the goods and services they create. General Motors needs steel and hundreds of thousands of other products to produce cars. McDonald\u2019s needs beef and potatoes. Delta Airlines needs fuel and planes. Your dentist needs drugs such as Novocain, oral tools, and X-ray machines. Your local tattoo parlour needs special inks and needles and a bright neon sign that flashes \u201copen\u201d in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

        \n

        Resellers<\/h1>\n

        Resellers are companies that sell goods and services produced by other firms without materially changing them. They include wholesalers, brokers, and retailers. Walmart and Target are two big retailers you are familiar with. Large wholesalers, brokers, and retailers have a great deal of market power. If you can get them to buy your products, your sales can exponentially increase.<\/p>\n

        Every day, retailers flock to Walmart\u2019s corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, to try to hawk their products. But would it surprise you that not everybody wants to do business with a powerhouse like Walmart? Jim Wier, the one-time CEO of the company that produces Snapper-brand mowers and snowblowers, actually took a trip to Walmart\u2019s headquarters to stop<\/em> doing business with the company. Why? Snapper products are high-end, heavy-duty products. Wier knew that Walmart had been selling his company\u2019s products for lower and lower prices and wanted deeper and deeper discounts from Snapper. He believed Snapper products were too expensive for Walmart\u2019s customers and always would be, unless the company started making cheaper-quality products or outsourced their manufacturing overseas, which is something he didn\u2019t want to do.<\/p>\n

        \u201cThe whole visit to Wal-Mart\u2019s headquarters is a great experience,\u201d said Wier about his trip. \u201cIt\u2019s so crowded, you have to drive around, waiting for a parking space. You have to follow someone who is leaving, walking back to their car, and get their spot. Then you go inside this building, you register for your appointment, they give you a badge, and then you wait in the pews with the rest of the peddlers, the guy with the bras draped over his shoulder.\u201d Eventually, would-be suppliers were taken into small cubicles where they had thirty minutes to make their case (Fishman, 2007). \u201cIt\u2019s a little like going to see the principal, really,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

        \n

        Governments<\/h1>\n

        Can you guess the biggest purchaser of goods and services in the world? It is the U.S. government. It purchases everything you can imagine, from paper and fax machines to tanks and weapons, buildings, toilets for NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration), highway construction services, and medical and security services. State and local governments buy enormous amounts of products, too. They contract with companies that provide citizens with all kinds of services from transportation to garbage collection. (So do foreign governments, provinces, and localities, of course.) Business-to-government (B2G) markets, or when companies sell to local, state, and federal governments, represent a major selling opportunity, even for smaller sellers. In fact, many government entities specify that their agencies must award a certain amount of business to small businesses, minority- and women-owned businesses, and businesses owned by disabled veterans.<\/p>\n

        There is no one central department or place in which all these products are bought and sold. Companies that want to sell to the U.S. government should first register with the System for Award Management (SAM) at SAM.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n

        The existence of the SAM doesn\u2019t mean the agencies it works with don\u2019t have any say over what is purchased for them. It\u2019s not unusual for each agency or department to have its own procurement policies that must be followed. Would-be sellers are often asked to submit sealed bids that contain the details of what they are willing to provide the government and at what price. But contrary to popular belief, it\u2019s not always the lowest bid that\u2019s accepted. Would the United States want to send its soldiers to war in the cheapest planes and tanks, bearing the lowest-cost armour? Probably not. Like other buyers, government buyers look for the best value.<\/p>\n

        Yet selling to the government is not always easy. The SAM has its own red tape, as does each government division, and many purchases come with additional regulations or specifications written into the legislation that funded them. Because many purchases can be rather large, decision cycles can be very long and involve large buying centers. Some businesses avoid selling to the government because the perceived hassle is too great to warrant the effort. Other businesses, though, realize that learning the ins and outs of government purchases can become a sustainable competitive advantage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

        \"F-22<\/a>
        Figure 4.3: Politics can come into play when it comes to large government purchases: Although the F-22 is the most sophisticated fighter jet in the world, it has never been used in battle. But when the Pentagon wanted to stop production on seven of the jets so it could spend the money on other conventional weapons being used in the wars the United States is currently fighting, it had a fight on its hands from the members of Congress. They didn\u2019t want the companies in their states that helped produce the plane to lose business.
        Airwolfhound –         F22 Raptor – RIAT 2010<\/a> – CC BY-SA 2.0.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
        \n

        Institutions<\/h1>\n

        Institutional markets include nonprofit organizations such as the American Red Cross, churches, hospitals, charitable organizations, private colleges, civic clubs, and so on. Like government and for-profit organizations, they buy a huge quantity of products and services. Holding costs down is especially important to them. The lower their costs are, the more people they can provide their services to.<\/p>\n

        The businesses and products we have mentioned so far are broad generalizations to help you think about the various markets in which products can be sold. In addition, not all products a company buys are high dollar or complex. Businesses buy huge quantities of inexpensive products, too. McDonald\u2019s, for example, buys a lot of toilet paper, napkins, bags, employee uniforms, and so forth. Pretty much any product you and I use is probably used for one or more business purposes (cell phones and cell phone services, various types of food products, office supplies, and so on). Some of us own real estate, and so do many businesses. But very few of us own many of the other products businesses sell to one another: cranes, raw materials such as steel, fibre-optic cables, and so forth.<\/p>\n

        That said, a smart B2B marketer will look at all the markets we have mentioned to see if they represent potential opportunities. The Red Cross will have no use for a fighter jet, of course. However, a company that manufactures toilet paper might be able to market it to both the Red Cross and the U.S. government. B2B opportunities abroad and online B2B markets can also be successfully pursued. We will discuss these topics later in the chapter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

        \n

        Who Makes the Purchasing Decisions in Business Markets?<\/h1>\n

        Figuring out who exactly in B2B markets is responsible for what gets purchased and when often requires some detective work for marketing professionals and the salespeople they work with. Think about the college textbooks you buy. Who decides which ones ultimately are purchased by the students at your school? Do publishers send you e-mails about certain books they want you to buy? Do you see ads for different types of chemistry or marketing books in your school newspaper or on TV? Generally, you do not. The reason is that even though you buy the books, the publishers know that professors ultimately decide which textbooks are going to be used in the classroom. Consequently, B2B sellers largely concentrate their efforts on those people.<\/p>\n

        That\u2019s not to say that to some extent the publishers don\u2019t target you. They may offer you a good deal by packaging a study guide with your textbook or some sort of learning supplement online you can purchase. They might also offer your bookstore manager a discount for buying a certain number of textbooks. However, a publishing company that focused on selling its textbooks directly to you or to a bookstore manager would go out of business. They know the true revenue generators are professors.<\/p>\n

        The question is, which professors? Some professors choose their own books. Adjunct professors often don\u2019t have a choice\u2014their books are chosen by a course coordinator or the dean or chair of the department. Still other decisions are made by groups of professors, some of whom have more say over the final decision than others. Are you getting the picture? Figuring out where to start in B2B sales can be a little bit like a scavenger hunt.<\/p>\n

        \n

        Remember the keywords and topics from this chapter? Find them all in the word jumble!<\/p>\n

        \n