Week 4 EOC: Business to Business

 GE sells products such as refrigerators, light bulbs, clothes and many other appliances. These are bought by regular every day consumers. These consumers will possibly do a little bit of research. Look at cost and quality of other products, will look at them and compare in stores but ultimately right then and there the decision on what is to be purchased is made right there. "GE’s consumer products contribute less than one-third of the company’s total $183 billion in annual sales? To the surprise of many, most of GE’s business comes not from final consumers but from commercial and industrial customers across a wide range of industries." Marketing Armstrong/Kotler Pg 158 Most of GE's  consumers come from commercial business. The difference between every day consumer and business to business is the length of time it takes to make a decision on the on which company, the money spent, and the bulk amount of what is to be purchased. Companies will more or less take more time to decide which product is best by which company. They way pros and cons much more carefully. They will research products for months with many people on board to do so as well. This isn't as simple as picking out which appliance will work best in someone's kitchen, this is a company spending millions of dollars on a product that is needed to do business or even personal for a company. "Rather  than selling to large numbers of small buyers, GEsells to a few very large buyers. Whereas it might be disappointing when a refrigerator buyer chooses a competing brand, losing a single sale to a large business customer can mean the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in business." Marketing Armstrong/Kotler Pg 158 Such as in buying locomotives from GE. A company has to way pros and cons such as fuel efficiency, value, use, reliability, or performance. Buying a GE locomotive is to spend two million dollars or more. So this is not an easy decision. "Also, with GE’s business customers, buying decisions are much more complex. An average consumer buying a refrigerator might do a little online research and then pop out to the local Best Buy to compare models before buying one" Marketing Armstrong/Kotler Pg 158