Unsought products typically are products that the consumers are not aware and don’t have any knowledge about it. Consumers have no desire and intention to buy unsought goods under normal circumstances. Another point of no desire to purchase is lack of tangible benefits at the time of purchase, so people think of fraud, waste of money and time.
To aware consumers about these types of products, intensive and heavy marketing campaigns, aggressive personal selling, persuasive advertising and strong sales techniques are required. Customers view regularly unsought products as undesirable, but it doesn’t mean they will remain unsold forever.
Definition of Unsought products
Philip Kotler defined unsought product as “A consumer product that the consumer either does not know about or knows about but does not normally think of buying.”
Philip Kotler
To give you a better understanding take an example of reference books. Being a college, university student or even in professional life very few people buy reference books. The reason is lack of desire and fear that product will not give you the exact value of your money. Another good example of unsought products is the home alarm system. Many of us don’t think of any alarm system unless a salesperson or a commercial during a movie grab our attention. Strong personal selling techniques and percussive advertisement can affect consumer buying behavior to think about alarm system.
Converting Unsought Products to Sought Products
Unsought product marketing and selling is a very difficult job for producers and sellers. Extensive marketing campaigns are required like highly trained salespersons, persuasive advertisement and personal selling techniques to motivate the consumers.
Broadly speaking there two categories of such products first, consumers don’t know about it and secondly, consumers have no desire to buy it.
Take an example of dishwasher, microwave and frozen food. A few years back these products were unsought until through huge advertisement, personal selling and referral groups made consumers knowledgeable about these products and converted to sought products.
How many of you donate blood on regular basis? Blood donation is good for health, but you will not donate until blood donation society and Non-profitable organization reach you and convince you about it. Cucumber Spiral Slicer is another example of kitchenware, once you know about this tool you will love it because it makes life easier.
There are some unsought products that consumers have no desire to buy. For instance, people are afraid of or no desire for prepaid funeral services. Consumers may not have interested to pay $10,000 for a basic funeral service as there is no provision for relocation, mismanagement in the funeral houses and the option to invest the amount in a family business or saving account.
Following are some examples of unsought goods
- Those innovative and new products you don’t know
- Life Insurance Policy
- Prepaid funeral Services
- Accidental and health insurance
- Smoke detectors
- Survival gears
