What is the purpose of market segmentation How is it used by

What is the purpose of market segmentation? How is it used by marketers? Is there an ethical issue when marketers segment customers that are considered to be \"vulnerable\" and then target vulnerable consumers? (You must first research what is meant by vulnerable consumers in order to answer this question. Include citations in your response).

Solution

Purpose of market segmentation is to generate higher sales volumes by making the products at a lower cost Marketers specific group of people who believe in their product and consider it as the best one to satisfy their need. They focus on the difficulties in selling the product to everyone does not allow to advertise a unique selling benefit, make it difficult to compete with other businesses. Through Market segmentation marketers develop products at a lower cost, because through this they can narrow down their product features to only those a specific group of people want, instead of trying to provide multiple products to multiple consumer groups.

The vulnerable customer groups include children, elderly, minorities, and different religious groups. It is easy to influence vulnerable customer because either have less knowledge about these practices or because of their minority or religion. Companies have always target children for certain kind of products, because they have great influencing power while making purchase decision.

Ethical questions arise in situation when children are exposed to questionable practices such as advertisements attracting them towards products which are potentially harmful for them such as alcohol and tobacco. Because of Internet and direct marketing practices these products have become a major ethical issue for children in today\'s environment. The content which goes over the web sites have less and almost negligible controls to supervise. Thus the marketers can present objectionable and misleading material to the minors without any regulation. Due to all these issues, high levels of regulations for marketing to children.