1.5 Determining Consumer Needs and Wants

Marketing facilitates what is known as the exchange process—the act of obtaining a desired product or service from an individual or business by providing in return something of value, as illustrated in Figure 1.10.

The buyer (or customer) initiates the exchange process. The buyer (who has a want or need) is the individual or business who is willing to pay money or provide other personal resources to satisfy this need or want. Let’s simplify that definition with an example. When lunchtime rolls around and you’re on campus or at your job, you’re hungry; you have a need for food and drink. You go to the dining hall or a nearby restaurant to order lunch, and you’re willing to pay money in exchange for your meal. Simple, right?

Keep in mind here, however, that there is a difference between a customer and a consumer. The customer is the individual or business that purchases the product or service. The consumer is the user of the product or service. To put this concept in simple terms, if a grandmother buys a toy for her grandson, she is the customer; her grandson (who will use the product) is the consumer. In the case of going out for lunch, you’re both the customer and the consumer.

The desired object is the product or service itself. It may be a physical good, service, or experience that consumers expect will satisfy their wants and/or needs. Let’s go back to our lunch example. The desired object is the meal. The seller is the individual or organization that supplies the need-satisfying product, service, or experience. Once again, in the lunch example, the seller would be the dining hall or the restaurant.

Inherent in the exchange process is what’s known as value—the benefit to the customer or consumer relative to the cost in the exchange. In other words, value is the monetary worth of the benefits the customer receives in exchange for the product or service. Let’s go back to our backpack example a few sections ago. You may really want that backpack because it keeps your “stuff” organized and it’s lightweight (the benefits), but if the cost is too high, either in terms of the monetary cost or the time you’d have to spend going to the store to buy it, that backpack won’t have value for you. No sale!