Consumers determine life and death of a product

The consumer’s decision to buy is power.

Consider the ordinary housewife, everyday she has hundreds of pesos at her disposal to buy basic needs and splurge on some luxury items on what is leftover from her budget.

She is free to choose from a wide variety of products offered at the market shelves. She dictates to the market what she needs – five eggs and loaf of bread for breakfast, a kilo of fish and beef for lunch and dinner. Probably she would drop the kilo of fish and buy a pair of step-in slippers as she detours to the nearby department store.

Does anyone notice her buying pattern? Oh yes, the egg vendor lists down in her notebook how many were bought today and how many eggs must be brought in tomorrow.  The department store merchandiser places a notch on the log book that the item has moved.

In the process, the consumer has revealed to the market what she needs and silently what she does not.

This is just one consumer on an ordinary marketing day.

Now, let us consider all the buyers in a single place, clearly this very loose conglomeration of individuals with million pesos of buying power can turn a market to either desolate or bustling area. Thus, the consumer together with the producer that builds the market. This constant interaction of buyer and seller develops market and that market that gives birth to towns and cities – just because there are consumers are willing to spend in a given area.

Consumers determine the life and death of a product. If they like it - more likely it will have a good shelf life - but if they love it, a bestseller is born.  Meanwhile, unpopular products end up in incinerators. With this line of argument, it is also the consumer that determines the development of an industry. Thus, companies spend a lot of money to study on how consumers behave and the preferences they make. They probably would research if girls would love to wear T-shirts that show belly buttons or boys want to put on loose pants.

Companies will only supply what the consumer is willing to buy. Only a foolish businessman will offer his goods to the market without considering the needs of the consumer.

Passing by vegetable stalls or even at the Tutuban in Divisoria you will hear vendors bark “Bili na dito suki!”  Come to think of it you have not even bought at the store at all in your life.

But a very important idea is being presented by a sales lady … patronage or the choice to continuously by from establishment. Suki means you get a discount. Suki means you get more sukli or more value for your money.  Their business is at the mercy of the patronage of consumers.

Unfortunately, the ordinary consumer does not understand this power. The ordinary housewife does not know how to wield this to her favor. Alas, a lot of education must be done to make the consumer a powerful force to reckon with - education that will make consumers cry out for better products.

But definitely, the power is in the hands of the consumer from which firms take their cue. Others may say it is the money that is inside the purse or wallet. But in the end, it is the decision of the person when, how, what, and where to buy.

(Same article released in Business Mirror, 22 June 2006, p. A2)