11 Characteristics to Add in International Trade Offering that Customers Greatly Value

Any clear explanation of a business should be followed by an understanding of who the consumers are in that trade.

The subsequent step is to form an understanding of what characteristics in international trade offering those consumers prefer the most.

Businesses can succeed by scrutinizing customers’ actual requirements (which are not certainly the same thing as the customer wants) and by following them better than perhaps even consumers do themselves.

Locating new sources of value for consumers requires rigorous market research that should be approached as an ongoing process since requirements and likings keep changing continuously.

The value may mean many forms in the perceptions of customers. The following are some of the more universal factors valued by diverse groups of consumers:

1. Price

Virtually all customers like a bargain. They will be happy with the company if they feel it gives them a product or service relative to the competition at a cheaper price.

A low-cost approach is one of the two requisite approaches that can be attempted by managers (the other being product differentiation).

In today’s complex organizations, there are literally counts or points along the value chain where steps can be exercised to decrease costs.

There is, of course, also the tact of predatory pricing in which businesses with deeper pockets can manage to cut prices for a long time than their smaller competitors.

2. Fame

Paradoxically, there is a little number of markets where the power comes from a high rate tied to rich items, designer tags, or what might be called as “snob appeal.”

Companies like BMW or Rolex render to this sort of market, charging a significant price for branding their logo on a product.

In such markets, the manager’s job is to preserve an aura of exclusivity. This may stem more from the way in which a product or service is marketed, rather than how it is manufactured.

3. Characteristics

This is a very wide category that eventually depends on the specifics of each product. An ideal example of a market driven by characteristics is the cell phone sales.

Today’s phones are no longer just devices for doing calls. They include screens, cameras, and a strong memory, and can be used for web access, texting, watching movies, listening to music, and downloading videos.

In this kind of trade, managers will look for ideas of fusing characteristics that no one else has.

The skill is to ensure that the characteristics are appropriate to the product, that they are helpful to customers, and that they work.

4. Timeliness

The term timeliness should not be used to mean that going to market first is invariably best, as anyone faced with green bananas at the supermarket will understand.

Timeliness really means going there at exactly the true time. In the grocery business, this suggests at the peak of freshness.

In the retail electronics business, it indicates delivering the latest gaming system to buyers while interest is intense and before everyone on the street owns it.

5. Collection

In some businesses, buyers value having a huge set of collection of items from which to pick. This is particularly typical of apparel stores, but the same policy extends to many other user goods.

Traditionally, managers worked to store as many products as possible in a store, though this tied up inventory and resulted in being expensive.

Amazon has illustrated how catalogs, online buying, and next day delivery present customers with a variety of options that would have been prohibitively costly in a typical retail outlet.

6. Reliability

Reliability can be interpreted in many ways. One is that the product works specifically as displayed, so a software program will not keep going down unexpectedly.

For some products, such as batteries, the theory of reliability is interpreted as being long-lasting. And in the matter of power tools, the theory really interprets into ruggedness or sturdiness.

Another way of interpreting reliability is that the business actually does precisely what it claims it will do. For example, rebate programs will be held in dishonor by customers if the issuing company does not truly follow through and release the promised discount.

Lastly, reliability can imply a guarantee that something will be accessible when customers want it. Retailers will originally stock many copies of popular new technology to meet initial demand, then reduce their stock as the demand falls.

7. Service

In many industries, the sale is only the start of an ongoing relationship between the customer and trader.

Most computer manufacturers and software developers bear a promise of 24/7 technical assistance along with their products. Car manufacturers offer regular maintenance sessions in their warranty periods along with their vehicles.

8. Responsiveness

The capacity of a company to answer to customers can also be a cause of value.

Responsiveness can happen long before a deal is conceived when the buyer is still “kicking the tires” or looking for more information, and it can continue long after the deal is done and the customer is looking for the resolution of a problem.

In this field, a company’s delegates, whether they are full-time staffers or commissioned sales agents in an international market, are fundamental to the creation of customer value.

They should be equipped with the tools to allow them to achieve this role. This might include training, useful sales material, the reserve of market intelligence and contacts.

9. Convenience

In some situations making it comfortable for customers to find out about or buy a product is crucial. The growing prevalence of e-commerce and the progress of companies such as Amazon testify to the significance of convenience to customers.

Dell computers practiced in delivering its products straight to customers’ homes or office locations.

In some instances, even grocery shops are allowing customers to buy and pay online, after which products are delivered to their door on the very day.

10. Unrecognized Needs

Some businesses create new requirements about which consumers were totally unaware.

Pharmaceutical businesses spend years advancing research into medical conditions (e.g., restless leg syndrome) that had not caught any attention. They will finance research studies and help to issue them, after which they will advertise that they have products that better the condition.

A comparable tact was tried in the making of the Big Bertha driver (Callaway Golf), which was bigger than previous golf clubs and placed as a club that would greatly improve the performance of even average golfers. As a result, sales went over the roof.

11. The Cool Factor

There is a notable category of products that interest to the teenage groups and early adult demographic. The cause of this interest may be hard to define, but it concerns items such as clothes, entertainment, music, movies and gear (technology).

Being cool may be compared with attributes such as design and feel, but a huge part of what makes “cool” so interesting is exactly that it is interesting: everybody else desires it.

Managers working toward this attribute have to be skillful at generating the right kind of buzz to propose that everybody desires the item, and therefore, so should you.

Beyond any of the determinants described above is the deeper consideration of quality.

The idea of quality means more than just clear of defects or errors. The word is a bit of a catchall and can be used to express many different things.

Indeed, most of the characteristics of the above list can be regarded as contributing to quality. Many businesses have come to welcome the concept of quality as a cause of competitive position (e.g., “At Ford, Quality is Job 1”).

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Let us know your thoughts about different other characteristics you think are important to customers in the comments section below.