When referring to exchange, marketers are focusing on the trading of things of value. But what does this mean?
Before answering the question, let us first discuss what do we refer to as marketing exchange? Marketing exchange refers to the trading of goods and services between two or more. Every such exchange between two parties should produce ‘utility’. This is according to marketing theory. The utility here means that the total value of what you receive is more than the total value of what you traded for it.
Yet, each of these exchanges or traded when made in real life are more complicated than that.
The working of the concept of exchange depends on various conditions that one needs to fulfill. Here, the basic condition is the availability of some value for both parties to offer. To understand this value better, let’s take a scenario.
Case Study Example:
For instance, you wish to buy a shirt. A garment shop wants to sell a shirt. For the exchange to happen, the value that you carry is the money that you will give to the shop. In return, the shop will give you a shirt as the value it owns. This is how the exchange works. Yet, in the real market, the exchange depends on various human aspects as well. Examples could be such as need, desire, and willingness for the parties to come together to trade.
The motivation of the trade and market exchange comes from the concept of ‘utility. In this concept, it says that both parties must get higher returns to what they give. A customer may need a cold drink because they are thirsty and do not mind spending money on that drink. For them, the utility of a drink that can quench their thirst is more than the money spent on purchasing it. On a similar note, for the cold drink seller, the drink does not hold as much utility. The money or the profit extracted from the trade which the seller can use to make more such utility exchanges is more valuable.
Today, the consumers are looking for a higher value in the exchanges they make.
For example, they might not be hungry to visit a restaurant. They might be looking for a good ambiance and environment to hang out with friends and family. So the value they would be looking for may not be mere food. To keep that in mind, the restaurant must fall into all these brackets to meet the customer’s needs.
When the consumers demand more than one product/service in exchange, marketers go behind the value in trading. Here’s the answer to the question we started with.
Trading of things of value is nothing more than providing the best possible thing to the consumer. This value depends on knowing exactly what the consumer is looking for. It also includes putting up reasonable prices and understanding the benefits that the consumer might give. Most of all, being a consumer and looking at things from their perspective. Thus, value marketing is more important in today’s world scenario.
