Why do some new products fail?
How do new products diffuse through the marketplace?
Be able to identify and differentiate among the five diffusion groups.
What are the characteristics of products that influence the diffusion process?
What are the processes that facilitate diffusion?
Product life-cycle: Know what’s happening in each stage with regards to sales, profits, pricing strategies, marketing strategies, customers (who is buying?), and competitors.
Different types of product life cycles (style versus fashion versus fad)?
Supply chain management and marketing channels
What is a supply chain?
Why is supply chain management important?
What is a supply chain orientation?
What is supply chain integration?
What is demand-supply integration?
What are the business processes that must be the focus for improving supply chains?
Know the main goal of each one
How do firms balance sustainability concerns with the needs of the supply chain?
Trends in supply chain management
Outsourcing
Offshoring
Nearshoring
Public-private partnerships
Electronic distribution
Global supply chain management
Use of big data
What is a marketing channel?
How do marketing channels achieve economies of scale?
How do marketing channels create value? Know the four types of utility.
Types of intermediaries: be able to identify the type in a given scenario
Merchant wholesalers versus agents and brokers
Retailers
What factors influence the type and number of intermediaries used?
What are the functions of intermediaries?
Transactional versus logistical
What are the four types of marketing channels for consumer products?
Be able to identify the type given a scenario
What are the types of marketing channels for business products?
Be able to distinguish between direct and indirect channels
What is dual/multiple distribution? What is omni/multichannel marketing?
What is a gray marketing channel?
What is a reverse channel?
What are the factors affecting channel choice?
What are the three levels of distribution intensity? Be able to identify the level in a scenario.
Retailing
What is retailing?
How can retailers be classified?
Ownership: independent vs. chain store vs. franchise
Level of service
Product assortment: width vs depth
Price
What are the types of in-store retailers? Be able to identify the type given a retailer.
What is non-store retailing? Be able to identify the type given a description.
Floor stock vs. back stock?
How does a firm develop a retail strategy? What are the six tasks involved?
What are the main areas of focus in service retail?
How can a firm recover from a failure?
What is retail channel omnification? Compare it to click-and-collect.
Pricing concepts
What is price?
What is the sacrifice effect?
What is the information effect?
Why is price important?
What are the three pricing objectives? How do they influence pricing?
How does demand influence pricing?
What is price elasticity?
What influences price elasticity?
What is dynamic pricing?
What is yield management pricing?
How does cost influence pricing?
Fixed versus variable costs
Markup pricing
Break-even analysis
How does the product life cycle influence pricing?
How does distribution influence pricing?
How does promotion influence pricing?
What is the relationship between price and perceived quality?
Pricing strategies: be able to identify the strategy used in a given scenario.
Price skimming
Penetration pricing
Status quo pricing
Single-price
Flexible pricing
Professional services pricing
Price lining
Leader pricing
Odd-even pricing
Price bundling
Two-part pricing
Pay what you want
What are the legal and ethical pricing issues?
Price fixing
Price discrimination
Predatory pricing
Bait pricing
Price adjustments:
Discounts
Allowances
Rebates
Coupons
Geographical adjustments