Business-to-Business Customers:
Organizations are big and complicated entities and developed preferences, memories and manners via perceptions, data processing and practice. A corporation develops its culture (referred to as company culture) that determines extraordinarily solid approach of behaviors through the years and throughout situations. Organizational customers are available in numerous forms. Agricultural customers consist of the farmers, farm owners, storehouse owners, intermediaries etc. They buy substances for producing, stocking, retaining or dispensing the rural products.
Classification of Business Customers:
1-Traders: A trader is a businessman who deal in commodities that he did not manufacture himself, in order to get a profit. Traders may be of two types:
- A wholesale trader functions in the chain between manufacturer and retail business. Some wholesale vendors only organize the movement of supplies rather than supply the goods themselves.
- A retail trader or retailer deals in sale of commodities to consumers (including businesses). A shop owner is a retail trader.
A trader purchases goods from the wholesalers and sometimes, straight from the manufacturers. A trader purchases the goods and stocks them as in big storage.
2-Manufacturers: They are also known as “Original Equipment Manufacturer”. When commercial business purchases products to integrate in their final products, it is termed as OEM. Example: Intel Pentium chips for IBM notebooks or MRF tyres for Maruti 800 vehicles.
In an oligopolistic market, OEM’s are normally the major volume users of commodities. Also, a significant thing that needs to be noted here is that both MRF and Intel offer products to the customers in the substitute market or after market, through industrial distributors.
Example: If MRF is supplying tyres to Maruti, MRF will be called as OEM parts suppliers. Component part suppliers must meet requirement and also guarantee quality, reliability and JIT delivery.
3-Service Buyers: Organizations in the service sector also require apparatus for providing services. Example: A bank would need computers, furniture, fax machines, fixtures, flooring, fans, ACs, pens, papers, staplers etc. to run their business.
4-Systems Buyers: Many industry buyers prefer to obtain a total solution to a problem from one seller called Systems Buying. Many corporations buy total software packages from one company.
Example: Some companies buy ERP software, some buy SCP software, some buy supplier relationship software etc. from different suppliers. They are called system buyers.