150 WORD RESPONSE TO BOTH POST (110)

POST 1)

Marketing segmentation characteristics Michael could use to develop a profile for consumers are, homeowners (psychographic), gardeners (psychographic) , car owners (psychographic), urban dwellers (geographic), women ages 25-65 (demographic) and men ages 25-65 (demographic), South East United States Region (geographic) (Joseph, 2016).

Michael will use the customer oriented pricing by asking himself questions such as, at one price will the garden hose be considered too expensive, what price would display the hose as being poor quality, at what price would the garden hose start to be considered too expensive and require customers to give additional thought into the purchase, and at what price would the hose be considered a good value for the price? The customer-oriented pricing approach is recommended because it focuses on providing value to the customers (Lumen Learning, n.d., Chapter 14, Pricing Strategies).

POST 2)

There are five common approaches to profile a customer in a segmented market. These five approaches are geographic, demographic, psycho-graphic, behavioral, and decision maker [Lumen Candela. (n.d.). Chapter 13: Marketing Function. Segmentation and Targeting. Table 1.]. Micheal would now identify some characteristics of these profiling approaches. One that is evident is geographic location. The customer will live in an area that is cold and has potential for freezing in the winter. This can be based by region or more broad as a characteristic. Two would be demographic. The customer will probably be of age to rent or own a house. So he will be targeting adults. This will also tie into the psycho-graphic are as well. The customer will want to show his status by maintaining his lawn. Some one willing to maintain his or her yard will also be able to spend more income which falls into the behavioral approach and the demographic approaches. A fifth way he could characterize his customer besides location, age, income, and status would be more off location but refined from regional or seasonal to will the customers buy more in a suburb, city, or rural areas. Based off all these categories or profiles for Micheal's customers he may want to do further marketing research to exploit the gaps within the market. 

Some pricing strategies that Micheal should use would be customer oriented pricing. This is the pricing that focuses on giving the most value to the customer [Lumen Candela. (n.d.). Chapter 14: Marketing Mix. Pricing Strategies. para. 16.]. However, Micheal could use one of the most common pricing methods known as cost-plus pricing. This allows the manager to set a gross margin to gain a profit for the item [  Lumen Candela. (n.d.). Chapter 14: Marketing Mix. Pricing Strategies. para. 20.].