Inside the Electronics Market

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to disclose any hidden policies of any company. It is not intended to disparage marketing strategies of companies. Examples given are not realistic.

        Dasera and Diwali are two major festivals in India. And people buy lots of electronic product on these festivals. So, from where would you buy electronic products? Internet or local electronics store?

        I guess many of you would prefer Electronics stores. Let’s just go through my analysis and very little research, I guess it will help you for your shopping.

e-shopping for electronic materials?

How many times have you thought of buying an electronics product online? Apart from cell phones and laptops, I don’t think anyone of you has bought a LED TV or a refrigerator online. Forget buying, I guess no one ever thinks of buying these consumer durable items online. That time is yet to come in India when we do 100% shopping on internet and of course none can trust reviews on internet and buy a product. For buying a tangible product we visit electronic stores to get feel of that product and to operate those products.

In short, generally we visit Electronics store for two reasons:

•          Reviews on internet are might not be trustworthy
•      We cannot operate the product and get feel of it

So, I assume 90% of people have same reasons for not buying the electronics products online.

So now,  

Inside the Electronics store:

On whom do you rely for your shopping? Obvious answer would be – Salesman in store

You as a customer think a salesman is a nice person, welcoming you very warmly and answering all your queries about the product. Salesman is store gives you demos and explains you many features of products. Let’s compare this salesman’s demo with internet reviews,

              

Internet reviews	Salesman’s reviews
1.  .Reviews might be biased.   I.e. You feel company might assign people            to give good reviews.	1. Unbiased reviews.     I.e. You trust salesman and feel reviews              are unbiased.

But no, you cannot fully rely on salesman.

So,what’s the Fact?

In big electronics retail stores like Croma, Reliance Digital or eZone etc,. big brands hire salesmen to promote their brand. These promoters are termed as brand staff. These promoters are dressed in same uniform. Customer cannot recognize who is from which brand? And mostly customer believes their reviews and buys the product.

This is part of down the line marketing of big brands but, this is not at all an unethical way of marketing.

These people are officially trained by companies. And these are very knowledgeable salesmen; you should consult them while buying the product.

But, their reviews can be biased ones too!  So customers, Be aware, Be smart !

So, like a customer in this image, you would be surrounded by salesmen from different brands !!

Some Unethical practices:

Sometimes it may happen that you want to buy a sony LED and you go to a store. And unfortunately salesman attending you is from  samsung. And to make situation worst, sony and samsung brand staff has some personal conflicts due to their targets.

The samsung guy would tell you don't ever buy sony,  its worst in quality, it has so and so faults. And you might end up buying samsung or else you would escape from store with confusion. In sales term this practice is called "Customer ko ghumana".

Bargaining:

Due to competition, bargaining is regular on electronics stores. Be free to bargain on products.Whether, it is TV or fridge.

So,Internet or Electronics store ?

I won't suggest you to go with a particular source. 

I would suggest you to 

• Know your requirements and budget. 
• And use both internet and electronics stores to know a product suitable for you.
• But, don't get carried away from your requirements and budget constraints.

Now as a reader of

http://insightsofmarket.blogspot.com/ you would be a smart customer.

Be aware, be smart !