When a customer walks into the supermarket and makes their way down the aisle, they are confronted by at least ten different brands of rice. The question is, what draws the person to pick a particular brand? Many times in a store I have witnessed people pick up an item, put it back on the shelf and then move to pick a different brand. It’s easy to rule out what just happened and say that market factors are involved, but in truth, as an entrepreneur, retailer or producer of a product, it is key to understand what makes up these market factors. The market factors that influence the demand of a product are as follows:
The rice produced locally is just as good as that produced in foreign markets and this we know because under the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) programme, the government supplied quality inputs to farmers in 2017 (Oxford Business Group, 2020). This begs the question that as an entrepreneur, how can I sway the preference of the customer when they walk into the shop? How do I present my product so that it can be seen on the same scale as those that are foreign products?
The simple answer I have for the entrepreneur who may be asking these questions is that as rice producers, we should implement third order control mechanisms to change the perception and preferences of customers. Third order controls are defined simply as training of community members to be aware of their interpretations or ways of understanding events and thereby enhancing their ability to change these interpretations (Bartunek & Moch, 1987).
To implement these third order controls, we as local entrepreneurs should move away from employing only our relatives. We should expand and, instead of having your child as the manager of the business, have a community member become a manager. People will generally always support you if you are one of their own. Let us understand that the idea of social responsibility affecting the customer’s reception to the product is not a myth—it is real. The interpretation of the value of your entity to local customers will cease from being “they just want to become rich through us” to “we are aiding our own selves.”
Hence, as an entrepreneur you must know and understand the market you are entering and the factors that will affect the demand of your products. If you as the entrepreneur understand these factors, you will rightly be able to tailor your products to the needs of the customer and achieve success.
Experimental Economics Center. (2006). EconPort. Retrieved October 24, 2020, from https://www.econport.org/content/handbook/Demand/Factors.html
Bartunek, J. M., & Moch, M. K. (1987). First-Order, Second-Order, and Third-Order Change and Organization Development Interventions: A Cognitive Approach*. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 483-500.
J.Singh. (n.d.). Economics Discussion. Retrieved October 24, 2020, from https://www.economicsdiscussion.net/essays/economics/6-important-factors-that-influence-the-demand-of-goods/926
Oxford Business Group. (2020). Oxford Business Group. Retrieved October 24, 2020, from https://oxfordbusinessgroup.com/analysis/dietary-staple-sector-working-grow-rice-production-and-lessen-dependence-imports#:~:text=In%202017%20Ghana%20produced%20721%2C610,a%20deficit%20of%20580%2C300%20tonnes.&text=Domestic%20rice%20production%20grew%20fr
Pettinger, T. (2019, November 28). Economics Help. Retrieved October 24, 2020, from https://www.economicshelp.org/microessays/equilibrium/demand/
BIOGRAPHY
My name is Siphiwe Ndlovu. I was born on 30 May 1998 and reside in Zimbabwe. I am a graduate from the National University of Science and Technology, having studied a Bachelor of Commerce Degree in Finance. At the same time, I have pursued writing as a hobby. I published an article in the March 2018 issue of Campus Moments. I also won the 2017 BAA non-fictional literary work award as a short story author for the book A Students Eye Perspective.
Contact Information: phiwe3098@gmail.com
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