My New Blog

The concept of a buyer incentive is not newand probably dates back to the first consumer and their attempt to negotiate a great price on a wheel. As long as we have a competitive market place, merchants will attempt to gain the upper hand on their competition with discounts to get the consumer to enter their doors.

Who doesn't remember the different stamps that were offered as far back as the late 1800's by merchants as a reward for spending dollars on goods with the catalogs offering almost anything for the proper amount of books.

The time spent on putting those stamps into the books and persuading our parents to go back because we only needed another 20 stamps and we would qualify for a special gift.

Service stations offered the stamps as well, not because they feared not getting their share of the market, but to try and increase their customer base.

Auto manufacturers offered cash rebates and lower interest rates on new car financing to get their inventory moving. Many people bought at discount, but there were always those that waited for the right time to buy.

Manufacturers' coupons are probably the most likely predecessor to the stamps. In an effort to maintain market share as, discount coupons were given away in magazines, in newspapers and by direct mail, sometimes with small samples of the products to further tease the consumer.

Coupons are now offered on special Internet sites as the quest to get the buyers attention is a never ending task for marketing.

The one common denominator with all of these incentives was that the consumer would often take advantage of the 'gifts' but many times it was a smaller representation of the market that took these gifts. Many others continued to wait for the right time for their purchase and would forsake the discount for a better value.

Even our American Government did a throw back to old-time marketing with the first time buyer incentive that just ended.

Many people did try and take advantage of this gift as a way of getting into their first homes. It is highly likely that these people may well have been buying in the not to distant future, but if there was a special reward for buying now, why not take advantage of it.

As with any other marketing incentives that are offered, there will be people that take advantage of the opportunity. Others that do not like to cloud their judgment or prefer to make well thought out and logical choices will look for their deals in other ways and feel better about their choice.

As is always the case with a past program, somebody will regret the lost discount, but there will also be far more that don't care.

We don't have our Government Tax Rebate to help us with our marketing. Now we just have to use our common sense, and sell our services to make the buyers still out there realize that we do know how to get them a deal.