Week 10: Place - how and where? Concept Location, location, location! This week will help guide you through how an organisation can make good 'place' decisions. The 'place' part of the marketing mix can refer to how you go about transporting your product to your customers (physically or virtually), where you choose to locate your warehouse or shop, your store layout and design, and even where your product sits on a shelf in a shop. Clearly, the best product in the world won't succeed if customers can't find it or get hold of it! The importance of place A varied range of activities fit under the 'place' component of marketing, and there are different terms used to describe them, including: · Placement · Physical distribution · Logistics · Marketing logistics · Integrated logistics management · Supply-chain management · Demand-chain management · Materials management. Don't worry - you don't need to memorise this list! It's presented so you will recognise the terminology as being relevant to the 'place' portion of the marketing mix. When it comes to deciding on strategies for the place part of the marketing mix, there are more options than ever before. Should you sell online, or have a physical shop, or both? Should you distribute beyond your local area to go national, or even global? Should you set up your own shop or sell through a major retailer or should you franchise? How will you transport your product to retailers? How will you make sure no one runs out of supplies of your product? Which suburb/s are the best locations for your products? Where should your product be located within a shop, and how should the shop be designed? The range of decisions to make is broad, but very simply, in the context of the marketing mix, 'place' is: · getting the right product · to the right place · at the right time · in the correct quantity. The figures Why is logistics important? Producer view and Why is logistics important? Consumer view, show the importance of this topic from both producer and customer perspectives. Use the arrow either side of the images to move between them. Rosenstreich 2013 diagram Why is logistics important? Marketing channels
As shown in the figure How a distributor reduces the number of channel transactions the use of intermediaries greatly simplifies the distribution process by reducing the number of different contact points required. Flight Centre is a good example of an intermediary. As shown in the figure Flight Centre's role as intermediary (Rosenstreich 2013) (use the arrow either side of the image below to see the figure), Flight Centre provides an online and 'bricks and mortar' retail service for a range of different travel-related service providers. Intermediaries like Flight Centre form part of the 'distribution channel' or 'marketing channel'. After your reading you should be able to explain what a marketing channel is, and also why intermediaries are used. Many suppliers lack the financial resources to carry out direct marketing for