The Market

• A market is anywhere buyers and sellers meet to trade — physical or online.
• Marketing exists to identify, anticipate, and profitably satisfy customer needs and wants.
• Understanding customer needs around price, quality, choice and convenience builds loyalty and competitiveness.
• Market orientation (research first, then build) vs product orientation (build first, then sell) — two totally different philosophies.
• Niche markets (small, specialised) vs mass markets (broad, large-scale) — each with different cost and pricing implications.
• Market share and market growth are both calculable using specific formulas — expect exam questions on these.
• Markets constantly shift due to changing tastes, incomes, demographics, global influences, and technology.
• Increased competition (often from globalisation and e-commerce) forces businesses to innovate, cut costs, or improve products to survive.
• Market segmentation — dividing a market into groups with shared characteristics (location, demographics, lifestyle/income, age) — lets businesses target marketing more efficiently.
• Segmentation has real advantages and disadvantages, and the right method depends on the type of business.

Forget the image of a fruit-and-veg stall for a second. In business terms, a market is place — physical or digital — where buyers and sellers meet to conclude a transaction. Amazon.co.uk is a market. A shopping mall is a market. Your local farmers' market is a market too.

Good marketing means digging into five key areas of what customers actually want:

competes more effectively up to date with changing tastes positive word-of-mouth