Where is the brand growth potential? An examination of buyer groups

Abstract

Practitioners and academics have long discussed strategies for brand sales growth. A recent example is an industry debate in which different brand growth strategies were argued: https://www.mmaglobal.com/thegreatdebate (MMA Global & Neustarr, 2021). A central question in this arena is whether a brand should focus on its heavy, light, or non-buyers in its efforts to grow its sales. This study contributes to our knowledge about how sales growth can occur by investigating the potential contribution these three buyer groups can make to any sales gain. Using both, a simulation study and an empirical study of purchases of approximately 12,400 households in the UK, across different brands and categories, we show that almost any brand’s headroom growth potential lies mostly in light or non-buyers of that brand. Even for large brands with high penetration the growth potential of light brand buyers eclipses heavy brand buyers.

From Friends to Feedback: Effect of Social Influence on Mobile Shopping in the Post-COVID Era

“…It is crucial to comprehend market segmentation in this way, from a broad management perspective, because frequent shoppers generate much higher sales than occasional ones [43]. Additionally, marketers often propose focusing on heavy and frequent buyers rather than light and infrequent ones [44]. The needs of different customer groups based on shopping frequency are important for customer retention, especially in an online shopping context where customer churn is high [45].…”

Valuing the contribution of ultra‐light buyers

“…Understanding buyer behaviour helps develop business strategies (Anschuetz, 2002;Howard & Sheth, 1969). An important aspect when evaluating buying frequency or behavioural loyalty for a brand or business is distinguishing between light (i.e., the least frequent buyers Kim et al, 2017) and heavy (i.e., the most frequent buyers McCarthy & Winer, 2019;Tanusondjaja et al, 2022;Trinh et al, 2023;Twedt, 1964) buyers. Previous research has prioritised heavy buyers, as they are significant contributors to brand and category sales (Anesbury et al, 2020;McCarthy & Winer, 2019;Romaniuk & Wight, 2015).…”