In quality circles, it is
not unexpected to find professionals advise organizations to focus more on
developing a product or service that is characterized with high standards. Of
course, no advice can be better than that. Customers can totally abandon a
company’s product if they found that its products are substandard or of low
quality. These customers need the romance. However, in a recent research conducted in Africa’s most populous nation,
it was discovered that customers are wiser and now care more about pricing than quality.
A recent customer
satisfaction survey observed that Nigerian textile customers buy more when
prices are reviewed downward. Formerly in the textiles industry, sales volume
increases as manufacturers are able to improve customers’ perception about the
quality of their offering or brand. This has changed tremendously. The
proliferation of stakeholders via new entrants in the business of fabrics and related
categories helped in changing how customers perceive quality.
Textile companies now slug
it out through consistent price wars just to enlarge their market share.
Respondents to the questionnaire confirmed that they patronize and would
continue to buy from companies making substandard fabrics because the price helps
them to make more margin. Their resoluteness to trade quality for cheaper price is
unrelated to the continued reduction in economic power of the low end customers
who form the majority of users of such products made in Nigeria.
This same consumer philosophy
explains why many local manufacturers prefer to import inferior mass produced materials
just to be competitive and command a better chunk of the market. Similarly in
other sectors of the Nigerian economy, more consumers who ordinarily would not
do so in the past now opt for cheaper products from origins where manufacturers
maximize the ability to produce with a lean system.
Though many top members of
renowned companies in Nigeria cry foul over the nation’s lack of effective regulations
to minimize external competition from countries having advantage to supply cheaper
products via any or combination of: employment of cheap labour, reduction of
product quality, questionable or unethical production practice, conducive
production environment etc; it is high time that new methods of reducing
product prices is adopted in the country. For the past few years, the voice of
customers (VOC) continued to indicate year in and out that pricing has become a
major limiting factor for assured patronage. This strongly emphasizes that
something must be done to strategically position industry participants
positively. Else, attrition rates would continue to soar in companies that
refuse to change while the macro economy will extensively suffer profit flight
to countries with better economic clout.
Related Posts:
No comments:
Post a Comment