Pricing process
The VW beetle of the 1940s was designed to move with a top speed of 62 miles per hour. This unique feature attracted more customers from the global community and made it useful during WWII to facilitate faster transport services. The demand led to mass production at a higher cost. The vehicle’s output power greatly influenced the pricing of the VW, and the car model produced that period. The establishment of the tradition period of the 1950s new features was introduced to the VW model of post-war. The price of a standard sedan began at $1,295, the cabriolet sold at $2,296, and made sales of 390 VW beetles in 1951 at the United States markets. Throughout the decade, they advanced the features and made the long term its greatest undeniable success in the U.S. markets. VW’s price has been on a steady rise due to the advancements in features and use of technology in their designs with the 2010 model costing $5,470. In the current markets and economy, the pricing process involves all costs incurred from producing the product to the end when the product is made available in the market or ready for sale. The manager of the company and sales manager incorporate the costs and standardize them to ensure the price of the product is customer-friendly and affordable. Other factors considered in the pricing include the demand rate, similar products available in the market, the target customers, the new technology, and the company’s general economic constraints.
Pricing of the product assigns an item (tangible) a value price (currency) it will cost in the market after manufacturing and supplied to the market for sale. In contrast, the service’s pricing is the cost price of the workforce and human resources used to make a product (Gupta et al., 2019). The product price includes the service price at the time, while the product price includes only the resources used in the product’s production less than the service price that human resources used. For instance, paying engineers in the production of VW is the pricing of service while paying for the metals, and the welding, transport, and testing services involved in the creation of the VW car is pricing the product. The two prices were accumulated in the pricing process to determine the overall cost of the VW beetles and ensure that the company made profits.
The marketing channel system is the people, organization, activities, strategies, and methodologies used to buy and sell products and services to the global market through advertisements and offers. At the same time, the value network links organizations and/or individuals socializing to benefit the whole company. It’s a network that allows members and non-members to buy and sell products and services and share information about new products and improvements. A value network can be a marketing channel system. The VW established several branches in significant contributors to the global economy as its marketing channels and opened a website to connect the worldwide customers for more sales. While the marketing channel conflicts are the clashes that arise among the channel partners in the company’s distribution channel. The products from the manufacturer pass through four market intermediaries: agents from the manufacturer, wholesalers in the major markets, distributors for product transport service, and retailers in remote areas where the customer cannot reach the major markets.
E-commerce is electronic commerce, which is the selling and buying of products and services over the internet—use of the internet to buy and sell products online. In recent years, the VM has advanced its system and adopted the selling of its products over the internet (Chaffey et al., 2019). While M-commerce is the use of mobile devices to execute business services anywhere and anytime, you have internet connectivity, for example, using a smartphone to do business transactions. The future of retailing is un-promised because of the rise in the use of these two business forms as customers can order products directly from the producer to get product sales promotion through advertisements. Advertisements are meant to reach global customers and sell more products quickly. Sales promotions attract more customers hence making more sales of the products and services. It is the role of marketing communications to do advertisements and sales promotions.
Social media is mostly, and most relied upon, sales and advertising tools due to its popularity. Personal selling is the company selling its products without involving other companies or platforms. It brings monotony in the selling techniques, and this reduces the sales hence diminishing its effectiveness in the future. The designing of salesforce helps the company plan and implement the best selling strategies that reach remote customers and covers a large customer environment with the help of sales management. The sales manager has the mandate to oversee and regulate the sales process through designing strategies and implementing them.
Conclusion
The VW beetle company developed marketing concepts, which helped them achieve significant profits in the 1950s. They continued to improve and advance their product in every decade after the end of WWII to maintain customer and grow their company. The technological advancements have brought many changes in the company’s marketing channel systems and value networks. The product pricing process has been influenced more by the technology in that product prices depend on the customers’ location. The use of holistic marketing philosophy has helped many companies, especially the VW Beetle, make large-scale sales. The development of new products from existing products helps a company to be sustainable in the market by selling different products from the sale company. The use of social media as an advertising tool in the digital advertising environment exposes the company to new global customers, making it sustainable in the worldwide market.
References
Chaffey, D., Hemphill, T., & Edmundson-Bird, D. (2019). Digital business and e-commerce management. Pearson UK.
Gupta, R., Mejia, C., & Kajikawa, Y. (2019). Business, innovation, and digital ecosystems landscape survey and knowledge cross-sharing. Technological Forecasting and Social Change.