Buying and Selling in Marketing

Buying
Buying of a goods and services is a first and most important function of marketing process. Producers, intermediaries, wholesaler and retailers. Producers buy raw materials semi finished goods to produce final product. Middlemen buy goods to resell, consumer buy goods for satisfaction.

Elements of Buying:
Buying includes five major elements which can describe below:
a) Demand Estimation
First of all every buyer must estimate demand of product correctly. The buying activity is planned on the basis of anticipated demand in market that purpose demand forcaste is made on the basis of opinion of salesperson, channel members and past trends etc.

b) Identification of sources of supply
After estimating the demand the buyers has to identity and locate all alternative sources of supply of the product. The buyers can search for potential suppliers from various sources and buyers can select best of one supplier among them on the basis of repatation, past experience financial and strength, delivery capability etc. of supplier.

c) Assembling
In this step buyer prepare detail description of require product. Finance department provides budget like wise product department provides technical and specification, quality and quantity of product.

d) Negotiation terms and condition
In this stage the buyer has to negotiate the price and other terms and conditions of purchase. Basically the negotiation has to be done for regarding the matters like price, discount, and delivery date and payment methods.

e) Purchase
Finally, the buyer and seller agree on the term and condition of sale and enter into a contract. In this stage the ownership of product is taken by buyer and arrangement for physical delivery of product is made.

Methods of Buying
There are various methods of buying. Buyer can adopt a particular method among them. The methods of buying are as follow:
i) Conservative buying
Here buyer uses to purchase small quantity of goods to meet their daily needs. This method is also known as current need buying, economical buying, small order buying. Conservative buying is suitable when the price of the product is fluctuating or decreasing.

ii) Buying by tender
In this method buyer buy goods and services by tender. They called tender from various suppliers and select best among them. Most of the government offices use this method of buying.

iii) Contract buying
Buyer and supplier make an agreement by defining term and condition and follow the term and condition and follow the term and condition mention on contract. Buyer get regular supply of goods at certain price for fixed duration as mentioned in contract.

iv) Concentrated buying
Under this method buyers buy necessary goods from one or few seller from certain area. Concentrated buying build up special relationship with supplier so they can get higher discount avoid searching cost.

v) Buying by samples
Sellers sell the samples and price list a product to buyers. If the buyer is satisfied with the product and price list buyer place and order.

Selling
Selling is one of the most important merchandising functions of marketing than transfer the ownership of goods and services from seller to buyer in terms of money.
Different elements of buying are describe briefly:
a) Product Planning and Development
It is mainly concerned with customer needs and desires. Therefore product and service should be developed according to customer needs.

b) Identification of Customers
In this step the seller has to identify the potential customers from various source mainly the seller identify the customer who have the current need or future need of the product.

c) Demand Creation
After identifying potential buyers called customer seller can creat demand by using various promotional tools of marketing like personal selling, advertising, sales promotion, publicity and public relation.

d) Negotiation
It is discussion between buyer and seller to finalize the term and condition of sale. They negotiation about the product price, quantity, quality, delivery date, mode of payment, provision of discount and mode of transport.

e) Transfer of Ownership
This is the final step by which the ownership of product will transfer from seller to buyer.