Marketing Business 2 Business

As individual consumers, we don't give too much thought to how companies that produce what we buy market to other companies.
But how do my favorite brands end up in the grocery store?
Who builds the parts for cars before they are cars? I'm pretty sure it's not elves.

They only make shoes and cookies...
And mostly importantly, where do mannequins come from?
First, Grocery Stores.
Why is it that WinCo has organic food, and Safeway has national brands like Nabisco and Kraft?
The answer isn't hard; it's because each brand uses their market research to try and figure out WHERE consumers are going to buy their product, and they market their product to that place. Safeway buys all of the stock we see, and sells it to consumers for a higher price.
This is one example of a Business selling to a business. Another is a factory selling cars parts to a major manufactuar like Ford. Ford doesn't make all of it's parts in the factories that assemble the cars, but buys many of them from other companies. It's the job of marketers to know what Ford needs (do they need headlights or brake pads?) and market these products to the company that will buy them.
Finally, manniequins. When you walk into any retail clothing store, you see them. Sometimes they look like very large dolls, sometimes they don't have heads, and sometimes they just look like gray aliens. But have you ever wondered where the retail stores get them?


I have!
There are many factories that make nothing but manniquins, sell them to clothing stores. But what they are really selling are the tools for the retailer to market their clothing items. So they need to sell the idea that their particular style of manniquin is what the retailer needs.

Businesses sell to businessess all the time, but consumers often don't think about it. However, it is important that we do, because knowing what is being bought can give us insight into what EXACTLY we are being sold, whether it is a food, car, or an image.