Marketing Sales

Oligopoly is a market situation in which there are a few firms selling homogeneous or differentiated products. It is difficult to pinpoint the number of firms in the oligopolist market. There may be three or five firms. It is also known as competition among the few. With only a few firms in the market the action of one firm is likely to affect the others. An oligopoly industry may produce either homogeneous or heterogeneous products.

Monopolistic competition refers to a market situation where there are many firms selling a differentiated product. There is competition which is keen, though not perfect, among many firms making very similar products. No firm can have any perceptible influence on the price output policies of the other sellers nor can it be influenced much by their actions. Thus monopolistic competition refers to competition among a large number of sellers producing close but not perfect substitutes for each other.

In pure competition the number of buyers and sellers is very large. There is a perfect competition among them. Price is determined for the entire industry by the forces of demand and supply. All firms have to sell their product at that price. No firm can influence price by a single action. Thus every firm is a price taker and a quality adjuster.

★ Segments must have enough profit potential to justify developing and maintaining

★ Consumer must have heterogeneous needs for the product

★ Segmented consumer needs must be homogeneous

★ Company must be able to reach a segment with its planned efforts. Must be able to measure characteristics & needs of consumers to establish groups.

The presence of the product in the marketplace with respect to the ups and down in its business costs and sales activities. Products usually have a limited life and they pass through distinct stages, each posing different challenges, opportunities, and problems to the seller.

★ Introduction stage

★ Growth stage

★ Maturation stage

★ Decline stage

1) Field research : It is related to the research for a specific purpose.

2) Desk research: Usually it is conducted for one purpose initially but gradually it is used to support another goal.

3) Xploratory research: It investigates an assumption..

4) Predictive research: This type of research is done to predict any future occurrence.

5) Conclusive research: This type of research is done to derive a conclusion of a research process.

Rejections are common within sales jobs, and one of the primary reasons that most personalities could not handle sales roles. Try to downplay how hard you take rejections, but feel free and be honest about a technique you use to handle rejection or answer with something like, "I simply move on to the next prospect, because a rejection is simply a sign that the individual was not yet ready for our solution.

Any interview questions about your discomfort in sales should always be responded to with a "no" without any elaboration. If you are uncomfortable, reevaluate whether the position is right for you.

Product refers to the bundle of tangible and intangible attributes that a seller offers to a buyer in return of a particular predefined amount of payment in a particular mode. Goods, ideas, methods, information, objects, services, etc., whose output serves as a need or want satisfier.

Marketing communication can be defined as the efforts made by the seller to convey his message to his buyers and to accept it in retrievable form. The main point of communication process is persuasion. It is totally goal oriented. It is not an haphazard activity. Each of its tool consists of specific complexities and potentialities that justify managerial specialization.

Not everyone can handle sales. You need to have the right attitude and abilities. At your job interview, the interviewer will be looking for your sales skills, and the aspects of the process that help close deals. An example of a good answer includes the ability to recognize both verbal and non-verbal cues to adapt the sales strategies you implement to impress the prospective buyer.

For an organisation, at the end of the day, the product must be sold. No sales means no profits and no profits means no business! So this in turn depends upon the quality of the sales force. The sales force of an organisation needs to be properly selected, trained, developed and managed so as to be able to reach out to and gain a wider customer base and to retain the existing customers. This activity relating to the sales force is known as sales management. Sales management entails deciding upon the sales territory, determining the composition of the sales force and sales organisation.