personal selling

Definition:
Oral presentation in a conversation with one or more purchasers for the purpose of making a sale. Its function is to provide specific inputs which ADVERTISING and non-personal selling cannot offer at the individual levels. It takes several forms, such as sales calls by a field representative, assistance by a sales clerk, and so on. It can be used for many purposes, such as creating product awareness, arousing interest, developing product preferences, negotiating prices and other terms, closing a sale, and providing post-transactional reinforcement. Despite the importance of advertising and sales promotion in disseminating information and stimulating interest in products and services, there are many circumstances where personal contact is necessary to affect sales, as most advertising is generalized and cannot answer all the consumer's information needs. It is a complementary activity to advertising and most appropriate to high price, technically complex products which are bought infrequently.

Cross-References:
[advertising]

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