The Effect of Brands in B2B Purchasing Decisions

Abstract

In the past, brands and brand management in the industrial goods sector have rarely been taken into consideration neither within scientific framework nor in practice. The specifics of industrial goods cast doubt on the realisation of brand-strategy concepts. For some years now, there has been an increase in the significance of brand-policy aspects in industrial goods markets. In many industrial goods companies, greater focus is now being placed on the brand concept. But what role do brands actually play in industrial purchasing processes? In our view, a direct primary evaluation to determine the additional price willingness of brand aspects amongst purchasers of industrial goods providers would not, therefore, be useful. Numerous studies indicate that the direct retrieval of purchasing decision factors amongst industrial purchasers leads to a one-sided emphasis on objective performance factors such as quality and the “price” factor. From a methodical perspective, evaluation processes that confront the purchaser with an overall purchasing situation are more meaningful. In order to evaluate the significance of B2B brands in industrial purchasing processes, we will perform an adaptive choice-based conjoint analysis with 32 industrial purchasers.