Market and market orientation

A market for a product is the people or organizations who buy it or may buy it, or an area where it is sold. There exist different types of markets: street markets, shops and supermarkets, markets for services (e.g. restaurants), financial markets, commodity markets (e.g. coffee, tin).

A company’s or product’s target market is a group of consumers a company aims to sell its products to, for example children, housewives, fishermen, etc.

As an indication for the success of a business market share is often used which is the proportion of sales that a company or a product has in a particular market. The market leader is the company or product with the biggest share.

A firm usually focuses its attention on a market segment. Market segment is the part of a market consisting of consumers with similar characteristics. Ways in which a market might be segmented include age, income, lifestyle, geographical location.

A market niche is a small, specific segment of the market, often dominated by small firms selling some kind of goods.

Marketers often talk about market orientation: the fact that everything they do is designed to meet the needs of the market.

Companies quick to respond to the needs of a market are market-driven, market-led or market-oriented. A market-oriented approach to developing a product is one which puts the desires of the consumer at the centre of the decision about what to produce.

To make decisions about products companies do a market research which is the collection of information on markets, products and consumers; on what people need, want, and buy; how and when they buy and why they buy one thing rather than another.

Exercises in Word Study

Ex.1. Form nouns from the following verbs:

produce, organize, exist, differ, indicate, characterize, locate, dominate, decide, collect.