On the basis of the research gathered on consumer perceptions, the tests it has conducted, and competitive considerations, the firm confirms its market and decides how the product will be positioned.

The amberssen specialty company is a chain of twelve retail stores that sell a variety of imported gift items, gourmet chocolates, cheeses, and wines in the toronto area. amberssen has an is staff of three people who have created a simple but effective information system of networked point-of-sale registers at the stores and a centralized accounting system at the company head- quarters. harry hilman, the head of amberssens is group, has just received the following memo from bill amberssen, sales director (and son of amberssen’s founder). harry—it’s time amberssen specialty launched itself on the internet. many of our competitors are already there, selling to customers without the expense of a retail storefront, and we should be there too. i project that we could double or triple our annual revenues by selling our products on the internet. i’d like to have this ready by - giving, in time for the prime holiday gift-shopping season. bill after pondering this memo for several days, harry scheduled a meeting with bill so that he could clarify bill’s vision of this venture. using the standard con- tent of a system request as your guide, prepare a list of questions that harry needs to have answered about this project.

Varto company has 9,400 units of its sole product in inventory that it produced last year at a cost of $23 each. this year’s model is superior to last year’s, and the 9,400 units cannot be sold at last year’s regular selling price of $42 each. varto has two alternatives for these items: (1) they can be sold to a wholesaler for $8 each, or (2) they can be reworked at a cost of $251,100 and then sold for $34 each. prepare an analysis to determine whether varto should sell the products as is or rework them and then sell them.

Total marketing effort is a term used to describe the critical decision factors that affect demand: price, advertising, distribution, and product quality. define the variable x to represent total marketing effort. a typical model that is used to predict demand as a function of total marketing effort is based on the power function: d = axb suppose that a is a positive number. different model forms result from varying the constant b. sketch the graphs of this model for b = 0, b = 1, 0< b< 1, b< 0, and b> 1. (we encourage you to use excel to do this.) what does each model tell you about the relationship between demand and marketing effort? what assumptions are implied? are they reasonable? how would you go about selecting the appropriate model?