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Speaking the Same Language—The Gap Between the Sales Pitch and Supplier Selection Criteria—And How It Applies in the Excipients Market
Kate Hammeke Director of Marketing Intelligence, That’s Nice
Hammeke K. Speaking the same language—the gap between the sales pitch and the supplier selection criteria—and how it applies in the excipients market. Am Pharm Rev. 2015;18(1):58-59.
One of the key tenets of behavioral research in the consumer environment is that it is easier to adapt to your customers’ behavior than to change their actions to accommodate your sales approach (eg, store layout, intended product usage, etc). There are few exceptions to this rule; a key example is the refrigerated section of the supermarket being located at the back of the store. This forces a customer who needs only a gallon of milk to walk past the temptations that fill the center of the grocery store. This works because the customer's need heavily outweighs the seller’s trap. And, we tend to fancy ourselves capable of escaping the trap and leaving the store without a bag of cookies to go with the milk. The other element working against this trap is the introduction of the convenience store, where the milk is close to the door, but a premium price is commanded. Because convenience stores play into the customer need so well, they are able to sell the same products at a higher price point than the supermarket. You almost never hear someone exiting with a gallon of milk complaining it was 25% more than he or she would have paid at the grocery store. This is because of the time-savings associated with the convenience. After all, time is money and saving time is a way of saving money—to a degree.
In the past 10 years, some of the differences that once separated B2C purchase behaviors from B2B purchase behaviors have converged. This change has taken place for a variety of reasons—from the introduction of the internet facilitating side-by-side price comparisons in a matter of minutes, to the economic downturn and overarching change in how businesses keep expenses under control—but the outcome is the same regardless of why or how this convergence occurred. As such, sellers need to differentiate their product from the competition in order to attract buyers. In doing so, sellers need to create a compelling case as to why their product is a better fit for the customers’ needs than the competition. Further, to get more return on marketing materials and business development teams, sellers need to adjust their sales approach to match what buyers seek.
From the information hierarchy on a product’s package to the packaging itself, in a retail environment there are a variety of ways a manufacturer can influence shopping behavior to improve purchase
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likelihood. The choice of the product’s location within the store, the product’s placement on a shelf, and any associated signage or discounts are ways that a retailer can influence shopper behavior to increase the likelihood of purchase. When it comes to B2B sales, sellers must rely on a different set of tools to influence their customers’ purchase decision. The important thing is that sellers understand the purchase criteria of their customers and tune into those elements during the selling process.
Survey Methodology
The Nice Insight Excipient Survey was deployed to R&D and Formulation personnel and excipient buyers in the purchasing function. The 2015 report includes responses from 412 participants. The survey is comprised of 60+ questions and randomly presents ~25 questions to each respondent in order to collect baseline information with respect to customer awareness and customer perceptions of the top ~45 excipient manufacturers and distributors serving the pharmaceutical industry. Five levels of awareness, from “I’ve never heard of them” to “I’ve worked with them,” factor into the overall customer awareness score. The customer perception score is based on 6 key influencers to purchase: Quality Assurance, Financial Stability, Regulatory Track Record, Affordability, Product Specifications, and Reliability of Supply. In addition to measuring customer awareness and perception information on specific companies, the survey collects data on supplier selection criteria and formulation requirements as they relate to excipients.
And in Excipients
The results from Nice Insight’s first industry-wide study of pharmaceutical excipients include insights into both sides of the transaction. The study focused on buyers of excipients (n = 412),
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