An Inside Look on Apple
Jocelyn Perry
BUS 330 Principles of Marketing
Cynthia Goussak
October 6, 2015

When defining value, you have to have a precise understanding of how your customers describe it. When it’s time for consumers to purchase new products, they take heed to a lot of different things. First being is will they receive great value for what they are purchasing? They are spending their hard earned money on this product so the question they ask themselves is, “Does the value validate the amount I’m about to pay?” Next, they also evaluate the supplier of the product and their performance on a related criteria. If a business is working to gain and maintain customers, they must extremely understand what customer’s find important.
When discussing value in terms of utilities, four core points are talked about. First being form, and “this is the utility that is the primary responsibility of purchasing and operations managers who acquire inputs and transform them into products or services of greater customer value (Fawcett, page 2.)” When consumers see the latest Apple products, they see a nice sleek finish. You always know what to expect when paying for the latest products with Apple. It won’t always be the exact same as the previous model, but it will have a twist to it. For example, the latest models of the iPhones come in the standard colors in addition to the newest one, rose gold. Whoever came up with this marketing strategy was brilliant because it worked. The rose gold iPhone is the only phone that will take 2-3 weeks to ship before the customer will receive it. Second is possession, “it is the utility that falls within marketing’s domain and consists of efforts to communicate (i.e., promote) a product’s value and then facilitate the exchange process (Fawcett, page 2.)” Even though the iPhone’s primary purpose is to be used as a phone, once the consumer