BUILDING EXPORT TRADE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 225, 17 May 1932, Page 4

BUILDING EXPORT TRADE

I The manufacturers of New Zealand suffer from a curious .lack of enterprise in the marketing of their products. It is almost as though they are aiflicted with a sort of blind spot which prevents them from seeing, and therefore from appreciating at anything like their true value, certain of the elementary rules of saiesmanship. It is, and always has been, recognised by the successful merchant, that in order to sell his wares he must show them to the prospective buyers, expound their virtues and explain their uses. These three simple rules were the guiding principles of the merchant adventurers of England who, filling their ships with the manufactures and other products of their countrv, sailed f orth to strange and distant shores in search of trade, and in so doing Iaid the foundations upon which later arose Eng~ land's commercial supremacy. In these days methods have, of course, changed almost beyond recognition, but human nature has not changed and so the principles underlying successful merchandising remain the same. It is still necessary to show our wares, expound their virtues and explain their uses. In their home markets the methods of the Dominion's manufacturers have greatly improved within the past few years, though even here, there is still a great deal of scope for further improvement, especially in the direction of advertising and packing, both of which are vital to really successful saiesmanship. These weaknesses being apparent in the exploitation of their home market, it is not surprising to find them accentuated on an examination of the methods employed in foreign markets. There are exceptions ,of course, notably in the butter, cheese and lamb trades, in all of which the product is now well advertised and attractively packed. In each case marked success in establishing steady markets and increasing saies has been achieved. This only makes the more noticeable the failure of other industries to follow their example. In an interview published in our columns yesterday, Mr. W. A. Blakiston, saies and adventising manager for one of the big American oil companies, stressed these weaknesses in marketing methods, and expressed the firm conviction that, properly cultivated, there was an exeellent potential market in America for a^number of typically New Zealand products. Mr. Blakiston mentioned rugs and passion fruit as examples ancj he might have ajided toheroa^ and whitebait and several other things, all of which are or would be were they available, definitely luxury lines abroad and correspondingly profitable to their pro4ucers. It may be answered that most, if not all of these things are already being expoyted, without any great success. But can it be said that they are in any real sense being shown to the potential buyers, their virtues expounded and their uses explained? Mr. Blakiston suggested the urgent need of scientific market research and it must be admitted that this is a subject which seems to be very little understood as applied to the development of foreign markets. The three points mentioped above come within its field, and also another equally important- — the discovery of the needs, tastes and even the idiosyncracies of the people with whom it is desired to trade. If, instead of the somewhat haphazard methods employed to-day, the Pominion's inanufacturers would embark on a properly organised research campaign, even in those markets which they now reach, hut do not cultivate, |:hey would undoubtedly find that . for certain -products, such as those mentioned, there was a large j and yaluable market waiting |o be developed.