12. Selling Concepts

The selling concept is a part of marketing management and one of several concepts that make up a marketing strategy. A sales concept analyses buying and selling effects to place the focus primarily on generating sales transactions (Czinkota et al., 2021). Selling concepts place emphasis on goods the consumer may not ordinarily buy or necessarily need. The selling concept came into practice following the Great Depression era when goods were not in great supply. Once the depression ended, companies with an abundance of products needed to move their inventories, and the selling concept followed shortly thereafter. Today’s selling concept has evolved to assume the customer will buy the product without regret, or, if they do, their feelings won’t linger, and the customer will buy the product again at a future date (Homburg et al., 2012). Figure 12.1 shows the most common selling concepts and examples. The most common selling concepts are social selling, cross-selling, upselling, deep selling, consultative selling and virtual or visual selling.