bait and switch
- A deceptive sales practice whereby a low-priced product is advertised to lure customers to a store, where they are then induced to buy higher priced models by disparaging the less-expensive product.
barriers to competition
- The economic, legal, technical, psychological, or other factors that reduce competitive rivalry below the level that would otherwise occur naturally. Barriers include branding, advertising, patents, entry restrictions, tariffs, and quotas. Product differentiation is a barrier to competition.
barriers to entry
- The economic, legal, psychological, technical, and other forces that limit access to markets, and hence reduce the threat of new competition.
behavior
- The overt acts or actions of consumers that can be directly observed.
behavioral intention
- A cognitive plan to perform a behavior or action ("I intend to go shopping later"), created through a choice/decision process that focuses on beliefs about the consequences of the action.
belief
- 1. (consumer behavior definition) A cognition or cognitive organization about some aspect of the individual's world. Unlike an attitude, a belief is always emotionally or motivationally neutral. Krench and Crutchfield define belief as a generic term that encompasses knowledge, opinion, and faith an enduring organization of perceptions and cognition about some aspect of the individual's world. It is the pattern of the meanings of a thing, the cognition about that thing. 2. (consumer behavior definition) The perceived association between two concepts. A belief is synonymous with knowledge or meaning in that all refer to consumers' interpretations of important concepts.
benefit segmentation
- The process of grouping consumers into market segments on the basis of the desirable consequences sought from the product. For example, the toothpaste market may include one segment seeking cosmetic benefits such as white teeth and another seeking health benefits such as decay prevention.
black market
- The availability of merchandise at higher than ordinary prices when difficult or impossible to purchase it under normal market circumstances. This commonly involves illegal transactions.
boutique
- Actually, in French the word means "little shop," but in American retailing, the term has come to mean a carefully selected group of merchandise with unusual displays and fixtures, informal and attractive decor, and an atmosphere of individualized attention in the personalized manner of the image created in the operation.
brand
- A name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers. The legal term for brand is trademark. A brand may identify one item, a family of items, or all items of that seller. If used for the firm as a whole, the preferred term is trade name.
See also: advertised brand, brand extension, brand generic, brand image, brand name, brand personality, branded merchandise, branding, individual, branding, line family, competitive brands, distributor\'s brand, family brand, fighting brand, flanker brand, generic,
brand choice
- The selection of one brand from a set of alternative brands.
brand equity
- The value of a brand. From a consumer perspective, brand equity is based on consumer attitudes about positive brand attributes and favorable consequences of brand use.
brand extension
- A product line extension marketed under the same general brand as a previous item or items. To distinguish the brand extension from the other item(s) under the primary brand, one can either add a secondary brand identification or add a generic. Thus an Epson FX-85 printer is an extension of Epson that used the secondary brand of FX-85, while Jello Instant Pudding is an extension of the Jello brand that uses a generic term. A brand extension is usually aimed at another segment of the general market for the overall brand.
See also: family brand and individual brand
brand image
- The perception of a brand in the minds of persons. The brand image is a mirror reflection (though perhaps inaccurate) of the brand personality or product being. It is what people believe about a brand-their thoughts, feelings, expectations.
brand loyalty
- 1. (sales promotion definition) The situation in which a consumer generally buys the same manufacturer-originated product or service repeatedly over time rather than buying from multiple suppliers within the category. 2. (consumer behavior definition) The degree to which a consumer consistently purchases the same brand within a product class.
See also: brand indifference and brand switching
brand name
- The brand name is that part of a brand that can be spoken. It includes letters, numbers, or words. The term trademark covers all forms of brand (brand name, brand mark, etc.), but brand name is the form most often meant when trademark is used.
brand personality
- This is the psychological nature of a particular brand as intended by its sellers, though persons in the marketplace may see the brand otherwise (called brand image). These two perspectives compare to the personalities of individual humans: what we intend or desire, and what others see or believe.
brown goods
- Merchandise in the consumer electronic audiovisual field, such as televisions, radios, stereo sets, etc. The name came from the brown (furniture color) cases in which such merchandise is frequently manufactured. At one time the term also included all furniture.
bundling
- Offering several complementary products together or offering additional services in a single "package deal." The price of the bundle is typically lower than the sum of the prices of the individual products or services included in it. Groups of services or products may be bundled in different combinations appealing differently to different segments in order to price discriminate among these segments and to avoid cherry picking.
See also: mixed bundling, multiple-unit pricing and price bundling,
business intelligence
- The actionable information that comes out of data analytics techniques. Business intelligence incorporates the entire process of reporting, warehousing, data management, analysis of future trends and presentation of transactional information, as well as extraction and loading tools, to help users make better decisions.
buyer behavior
- This term is often used as an alternative to consumer behavior, but also is used when the purchaser is not the ultimate consumer but rather an industrial buyer, a buying center, or other middleman between the seller and the ultimate user. It is defined by some as the more general term, with consumer behavior and organizational buyer behavior as subsets.
buyer readiness stage
- The buyer's stage regarding readiness to buy a certain product or service. At any time, people are in different stages: unaware, aware, informed, interested, predisposed to buying, and intending to buy.
buying power (consumer behavior definition)
- A term found in economic psychology implying the income available for discretionary spending among segments in the population. It is a measure of the ability and willingness to buy goods or services. 2. (industrial definition) Refers to the relative influence an individual or a job function (engineering, purchasing, production) has in a purchase decision. Power may be based on reward abilities (granting monetary or perceptual benefits), coercion (imposing punishment), legitimacy (formal authority), personality (based on individual characteristics or status), or expertise (special knowledge or expertise).
See also: purchasing power
buying power index (BPI)
- 1. (retailing definition) An index indicating the percentage of total U.S. retail sales occurring in a specific geographic area. It is used to forecast demand for new stores and to evaluate the performance of existing stores. 2. (industrial definition) A weighted index that converts three basic elements-population, effective buying income, and retail sales-into a measurement of a market's ability to buy. The index is expressed as a percentage of total U.S. potential and is published annually by Sales and Marketing Management magazine.
