Principles of Marketing, 17/e

6 Business Markets and Business Buyer Behavior

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In the previous chapter, you studied final consumer buying behavior and factors that influence it. In this chapter, we’ll do the same for business customers—those that buy goods and services for use in producing their own products and services or for resale to others. As when selling to final buyers, firms marketing to businesses must engage business customers and build profitable relationships with them by creating superior customer value.

To start, let’s look at IBM. Although the IBM brand is very familiar to most final consumers, nearly all of the company’s almost $100 billion in annual revenues comes from business and institutional customers. More than just “selling” its products ...