Whether you're looking for an obscure phrase or your basic marketing definition, the AMA Dictionary has it all! Originating from the print version in 1995, we're always adding new terms to keep marketers up to date in the ever-evolving marketing profession.
| Term | Definition | See Also |
|---|
| Safety Act (1966) | An act designed to improve the safety of automobiles, roads, and tires, delegating the responsibility for implementing standards to the Department of Transportation. | |
| safety needs | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| safety stock | A measurement used in inventory management. It is the average amount of inventory on hand when a new shipment arrives. Higher levels of safety stock to protect against out of stock condition require additional dollar investment in inventory. | |
| safety stock merchandise | Inventory used as a safety cushion for cycle stock so the retailer won't run out of stock if demand exceeds the sales forecast. | |
| salary | Compensation paid periodically to a salesperson, independent of performance. | |
| salary plus commission | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| saleable sample | A regular or specially sized quantity of the product offered at a low price to induce trial. | |
| sale-leaseback | The practice of retailers building new stores and selling them to real estate investors who then lease the buildings back to the retailers on a long term basis. | |
| sales | Any of a number of activities designed to promote customer purchase of a product or service. Sales can be done in person or over the phone, through e-mail or other communication media. The process generally includes stages such as assessing customer needs, presenting product features and benefits to address those needs and negotiation on price, delivery and other elements. | |
| sales activity goal | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sales agent | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sales analysis | A procedure involving the gathering, classifying, comparing, and studying of company sales data. It may simply involve the comparison of total company sales in two different time periods. Or it may entail subjecting thousands of component sales (or sales-related) figures to a variety of comparisons among themselves, with external data, and with like figures for earlier periods of time. | |
| sales approach | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sales aptitude | The overall limit of an individual's ability to perform a given sales job. Sales aptitude is a function of such enduring personal and psychological characteristics as physical factors, mental abilities, and personality characteristics. | |
| sales budget | The portion of a firm's total marketing budget allocated for sales force training, compensation, travel, entertainment expenses, and the costs of sales force administration. | |
| sales call | A meeting between a customer and a salesperson who engages in selling. | |
| sales call allocation grid | A method used to classify customers and determine the sales effort to direct toward them. The dimensions are the strength of the firm's position with the customer and the customer's sales potential. | |
| sales contest | 1. (sales definition) A short-term incentive program designed to motivate sales personnel to accomplish specific sales objectives. Comment: In general, a sales contest is used by firms to stimulate extra effort for obtaining new customers, promoting the sales of specific items, generating larger orders per sales call, etc. [BAW] 2. (sales definition) A short-term incentive program designed to motivate salespeople to accomplish very specific sales objectives. Although a contest should not be considered part of the firm's ongoing compensation plan, it does offer salespeople the opportunity to gain financial as well as non-financial rewards. Contest winners often receive prizes in cash or merchandise or travel that have monetary value. Winners also receive non-financial rewards in the form of recognition and a sense of accomplishment. | |
| sales demonstration | An aspect of the sales presentation that provides a sensory appeal to show how the product works and what benefits it offers to the customer. | |
| sales dual career path | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sales engineer | A salesperson who has extensive product knowledge and uses this knowledge as a focal aspect of the sales presentation. | |
| sales force administration | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sales force compensation | A financial reward or inventive program based on salesperson performance and tenure. A major purpose of any sales force compensation program is to motivate or influence the sales force to do what management wants, in the way they want it done, and within the desired time. The three major methods of compensating salespeople are (1) straight salary plan, | |
| sales force composite | A method of developing a sales forecast that uses the opinions of each member of the field sales staff regarding how much the individual expects to sell in the period as input. | |
| sales force efficiency | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sales force evaluation | An assessment of the overall personal selling effort. The evaluation process helps to measure whether the selling effort is on target with respect to the goals established and also provides strong clues of where and how the selling effort can be improved. Sales analysis and cost analysis are major techniques sales managers use to evaluate sales force efforts. To supplement these analyses, objective measures such as output evaluation measures, input evaluation measures, and ratio of output and/or input measures can be employed. | |
| sales force management | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sales force management audit | A periodic and in-depth review of the adequacy of a firm's sales management process. It is conducted to identify current and potential strengths, weaknesses, and problems at all levels of the sales organization. | |
| sales force models | The models for allocation of sales efforts include 1) models such as CALLPLAN for allocation of time among various customer and prospect segments; 2) models such as DETAILER, or those more geared for resource allocation such as the analytic hierarchy process, for allocation of sales efforts across products; and 3) models for design of and allocation of resources among sales territories. These models include various applications of linear programming and integer programming as well as specialized models such as GEOLINE. In addition to these types of models, a number of compensation/ incentive models have been prepared typically as an optimization model. | |
| sales force organization | An arrangement of activities and job positions involving the sales force. The starting point in organizing a sales force is determining the goals or objectives to be accomplished; these are specified in the firm's overall marketing plan. The selling activities necessary to accomplish the firm's marketing objectives can then be divided in such a way that the objectives can be achieved with as little duplication of effort as possible. The organizational structure provides for specialization of labor, stability, and continuity in selling efforts and coordination of the various activities assigned to different salespeople and departments within the firm. | |
| sales force recruitment and selection | The activities necessary to attract and hire potential members of the sales force. The starting point in the recruitment process is a thorough analysis of the job to be filled and a description of the qualifications that a new hiree should have. The next step is to find and attract a pool of qualified job applicants. The final stage in the hiring process is to evaluate each applicant through personal history information, interviews, reference checks, and/or formal tests and then based upon this evaluation, select the appropriate applicant to fill the position. | |
| sales force selection | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sales force size | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sales force supervision | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sales forecast | An estimate of the dollar or unit sales for a specified future period under a proposed marketing plan or program. | |
| sales interaction | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sales interview | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sales job satisfaction | A feeling (positive or negative) that a salesperson has about his or her work situation. This includes all of the characteristics of the job itself that salespeople find rewarding, fulfilling, satisfying, or frustrating and unsatisfying. | |
| sales lead | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sales management | The planning, direction, and control of the personal selling activities of a business unit, including recruiting, selecting, training, equipping, assigning, routing, supervising, paying, and motivating as these tasks apply to the sales force. Sales management involves three interrelated processes: (1) formulation of a strategic sales program; (2) implementation of the sales program; and (3) evaluation and control of sales force performance. In formulating the strategic sales program, sales management involves a number of activities including development of account management policies, demand forecasts, and quotas and budgets; sales organization; sales planning; territory design; deployment; and routing. In implementing the sales program, sales management activities include supervising, selecting, recruiting, training, and motivating the sales force. In addition, implementation requires the development of compensation systems and sales force incentive programs. The evaluation and control of sales force performance involves the development and enforcement of methods for monitoring and evaluating sales force performance. Sales management activities typically required for evaluation and control include behavioral analysis, cost analysis, and sales analysis. | |
| Sales Management Survey of Buying Power | A survey published annually by Sales and Marketing Management that contains market data for states, a number of counties, cities, and standard metropolitan statistical areas. Included are statistics on population, retail sales, and household income, and a combined index of buying power for each reported geographic area. The index of buying power is a weighted index calculated with the formula: 5 (percentage of disposable personal income in an area) + 2 (percentage of U.S. population) + 3 (percentage of total retail sales)/10. | |
| sales manager | The sales manager is responsible for planning, organizing, directing, and controlling the personal selling function. There are usually several levels of sales management ranging from the general sales manager to the first line field supervisor of salespeople. | |
| sales models | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sales organization specialized by account | Each salesperson is assigned to one or more accounts of the same type, often without regard to geographic location. An account specialist, for example, may call only on chain store headquarters, or only on automobile company headquarters. This may be an appropriate strategy when the account potential is large and when experienced salespeople are needed to deal with high level customer executives. Although this is the highest cost sales organization strategy, it is usually justified by the large sales potential of the accounts assigned in this manner. | |
| sales organization specialized by market | In this organization, different salespeople specialize in the sale of the product line to different markets, such as consumer, institutional, and industrial markets. They may report to the same supervisor or there may be separate sales organizations for each market. Specialization may be an appropriate strategy when market knowledge is more important than product knowledge. Sales costs are higher than for a full-line strategy because two or more salespeople travel over the same geographic area, and more supervisors are needed if there is more than one sales force. | |
| sales organization specialized by product | In this organization, different salespeople specialize in the sales of different products. They may report to the same supervisor or there may be a separate sales organization for each product line. This may be an appropriate strategy when technical expertise is required for each line, or when there are too many products for one person to sell effectively. Sales costs are higher, however, than they are for a full-line strategy because two or more salespeople travel over the same geographic area; also more supervisors are needed if there is more than one sales force. | |
| sales organization, forms of | Sales forces may be centralized at the corporate level or decentralized at the division level. In either case they may be organized to sell the full product line through one salesperson in each territory, or they may be organized to specialize by product, market, or type of account. | |
| sales per call | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sales planning | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sales potential | The portion of the market potential that a particular firm can reasonably expect to achieve. | |
| sales presentation | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sales program | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sales promotion | The media and nonmedia marketing pressure applied for a predetermined, limited period of time at the level of consumer, retailer, or wholesaler in order to stimulate trial, increase consumer demand, or improve product availability. | |
| sales promotion manager | A staff specialist responsible for providing market communication ideas, programs, and materials not otherwise defined as personal selling, advertising, or publicity. The sales promotion manager may report to the marketing manager, advertising manager, or there may be an advertising and sales promotion manager reporting to the marketing manager. | |
| sales promotion payment | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sales promotion, in organizational buying | Those activities other than advertising and personal selling aimed at stimulating product sales. Some of the components of sales promotion are trade shows, premiums, incentives, give-aways, and specialty advertising (in which a firm's name may be printed on a calendar, for example). | |
| sales quota | A sales goal or objective that is assigned to a marketing unit. The marketing unit in question might be an individual salesperson, a sales territory, a branch office, a region, a dealer or distributor, or a district. Sales quotas apply to specific periods and may be expressed in dollars or physical units. Thus, management can specify quarterly, annual, and longer term quotas for each of the company's field representatives in both dollars and physical units. It might even specify these goals for individual products and customers. | |
| sales report | A report submitted by salespeople that tells management what is happening in the field. Most managers expect salespeople to report competitive activities, reactions of customers to company policies and products, as well as any other information management should know. In addition, sales reports can provide records for evaluating sales force performance. Sales reports often include such information as the number of calls made, orders taken, miles traveled, days worked, new prospects called on, and new accounts sold. | |
| sales representative | The term sales representatives is a generic term that includes both direct salesperson and sales agent. | |
| sales response function | The relationship between the sales volume of a business and the determinants of the sales volume of that business. The determinants of most interest to a business are those over which they have some control, i.e., the decision variables that comprise the marketing mix. | |
| sales returns and allowances | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| Sales Rights | When sponsor is granted preferred supplier right to sell its product or service to the property or its attendees or members.
Source: IEG | |
| sales skill level | An individual's level of sales-related knowledge or proficiency at carrying out the specific tasks necessary to perform a sales job. Sales skills are proficiency levels that can change rapidly with learning and experience. | |
| sales taxes | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sales territory | 1. (sales definition) A segment of the firm's market assigned to a salesperson or a group of salespeople. Comment: While a sales territory is typically defined by customers within a geographic boundary, it can be defined by customer types. 2. (sales definition) A group of present and potential customers that is assigned to a salesperson, branch, dealer, or distributor for a given period of time. The key word in this definition is customers. Good sales territories are made up of customers who have money to spend and the willingness to spend it. Although the key to sales territory design is customers, the notion of a territory is typically operationalized using geographical boundaries. In cases in which products are highly technical and sophisticated, product specialists rather than geographic boundaries define sales territories. | |
| sales training | A formal or informal program designed to educate the sales force and convey management expectations of job responsibilities. Sales training provides managers with the opportunity to communicate high performance expectations through training and to equip the sales force with the skills needed to reach high performance levels. A well-designed training program moves beyond passive learning techniques and shows the sales force how to sell. Behavior modeling is one successful approach to sales training. Some common objectives of sales training are to impart product knowledge, teach selling skills, increase productivity, improve morale, lower turnover, improve customer relations, and improve time and territory management. | |
| sales volume quota | A quota that emphasizes sales or some aspect of sales volume. Sales volume quotas can be expressed in dollars, physical units, or points (a certain number of points is given for each dollar or unit sales of particular products.) The point system is typically used when a firm wants to give selective emphasis to certain products in the line. | |
| salesperson | A person who is primarily involved in the personal process of assisting and/or persuading a potential customer to buy a product or service to the mutual benefit of both buyer and seller. | |
| salesperson career cycle | The sequence of stages that a salesperson passes through during his or her sales career. The salesperson has unique tasks, challenges, and concerns in each stage. The career cycle is characterized by four stages. In the exploration stage, individuals are concerned about finding a career in which they can succeed. In the establishment stage, sales personnel seek to attain stabilization within their occupation and desire professional success (e.g., a promotion). The maintenance stage is typified by salespeople's interest in maintaining their present position, status, and performance level. In the disengagement stage, salespeople are likely to psychologically and/or physically withdraw from their jobs. | |
| salesperson motivation | The amount of effort the salesperson desires to expend sample 1. (marketing research definition) The selection of a subset of elements from a larger group of objects. 2. (sales promotion definition) A small portion of a product that is made available to prospective purchasers to demonstrate the product's value or use and to encourage future purchase. | |
| salesperson role | The set of activities or behaviors that are to be performed by any person occupying the position of salesperson in a firm. | |
| salesperson-related buying criteria | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| salient beliefs | Those beliefs that are activated from memory in a situation to influence comprehension or decision making. | |
| sample survey | A cross-sectional study in which the sample is selected to be representative of the target population and in which the emphasis is on the generation of summary statistics such as averages and percentages. | |
| sampling control | A term applied to studies relying on questionnaires that concerns the researcher's dual abilities to direct the inquiry to a designated respondent and to secure the desired cooperation from the respondent. | |
| sampling distribution | The distribution of values of some statistic calculated for each possible distinguishable sample that could be drawn from a parent population under a specific sampling plan. | |
| sampling error | The difference between the observed values of a variable and the long-run average of the observed values in repetitions of the measurement. | |
| sampling form | A list of sampling units from which a sample will be drawn; the list could consist of geographic areas, institutions, individuals, or other units. | |
| sampling frame | The list of sampling units from which a sample will be drawn; the list could consist of geographic areas, institutions, individuals, or other units. | |
| sampling plan | The procedure that will be used to select a sample. | |
| sampling units | The nonoverlapping collections of elements from the population. | |
| satellite media tour | A publicity method that allows a celebrity or company spokesperson to participate in up to 25 interviews per day with representatives of the media. The person being interviewed sits in a television studio and is connected to remote locations via satellite hook-up, increasing the reach of the publicity program at a relatively low cost. | |
| satellite tracking | A specific information technology application that allows two-way communication between channel members for the purpose of tracking merchandise throughout the delivery process. | |
| satisfaction | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| satisfaction/dissatisfaction | A positive or negative reaction to a purchase decision or product after purchase. (See also consumer satisfaction, expectation-disconfirmation model, and postpurchase evaluation.) | |
| satisficing | An action whose goal is to do something less than optimal, i.e., an action that is satisfactory and will "get me by." | |
| Saturation (Search Engine Saturation) | A term relating to the number of URLs included from a specific web site in any given search engine. The higher the saturation level or number of pages indexed into a search engine, the higher the potential traffic levels and rankings.
Source: SEMPO | |
| SAU | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| savings | An amount, if any, left after a government, a firm, or a household has accounted for all expenditures. | |
| SBU | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| scanner | 1. (marketing research definition) An electronic device that automatically reads imprinted Universal Product Codes as the product is pulled across the scanner, looks up the price in an attached computer, and instantly prints the price of the item on the cash register tape. 2. (sales promotion definition) An electronic device that records retail purchase data (prices, brands, product sizes, etc.) at the point of sale by means of reading the universal product code. | |
| scanner market testing | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| scanning | The process in point-of-sale systems (point-of-sale service) wherein the input into the terminal is accomplished by passing a coded ticket over a reader or having a hand-held wand pass over the ticket. | |
| scenario | A narrative sketch, description of possible developments or outline of a conceivable state of affairs at some future period. It is designed to focus attention on future causal processes and decision points. | |
| schema | A network of associated meanings that represents a person's general knowledge about some concept. | |
| scope of planning activities | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| scorecarding | A process that allows companies to align the enterprise around a central strategy, measurable goals and the tactics used to achieve those goals. Through scorecarding, a company can gain a clear understanding of how its decisions affect overall performance by providing the metrics needed to understand what's driving that performance. | |
| scoring models | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| scrambled merchandising | A deviation from traditional merchandising that involves the sale of items not usually associated with a retail establishment's primary lines - e.g., supermarkets handling nonfood items, drug stores selling variety goods and sometimes, hardware. It is also called scrambled retailing. | |
| scrambled retailing | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| screening of ideas | The step just prior to research and development and systems design in the product development process. It involves use of scoring models, checklists, or personal judgments and is based on information from experience and various market research studies (including concept testing). Screening calls for judgments that predict the organization's ability to make the item and its ability to market the item successfully. It culminates in directions to guide technical personnel in their developmental efforts. | |
| script | A mental directory of appropriate actions in particular situations. | |
| SD-BL | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| SDR | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sealed-bid pricing | A mechanism for awarding a sale or contract. Confidential bids are due at a certain time and the award is normally made to the lowest bidder if that bidder's specifications conform to the request for quotation. | |
| Search Advertising | An advertiser pays for the chance to have their ad display when a user searches for a given keyword. These are usually text ads, which are displayed above or to the right of the algorithmic (organic) search results. Most search ads are sold by the PPC model, where the advertiser pays only when the user clicks on the ad or text link.
Source: Lazworld | |
| Search Directory | Similar to a search engine, in that they both compile databases of web sites. A directory does not use crawlers in order to obtain entries in its search database. Instead, it relies on user interaction and submissions for the content it contains. Submissions are then categorized by topic and normally alphabetized, so that the results of any search will start with site descriptions that begin with some number or non-letter character, then moving from A-to-Z.
Source: SEMPO | |
| search engine | A program that indexes documents, then attempts to match documents relevant to the users search requests. Search engine can refer to the program on an individual site, or those on broad Internet sites such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN. | |
| search engine optimization (SEO) | The process of developing a marketing/technical plan to ensure effective use of search engines as a marketing tool. Typically, consists of two elements. On a technical side, SEO refers to ensuring that a Web site can be indexed properly by the major search engines including keywords, content, and links. On the marketing side, SEO refers to the process of targeting specific keywords where the site should "win" in searches. This can be done by modifying a Web site to score well in the algorithms search engines use to determine rank, or by purchasing placement with individual keywords. Often , SEO programs are a blend off several elements and strategies. | |
| search engine spam | Excessive manipulation to influence search engine rankings, often for pages which contain little or no relevant content. Major search engines are improving processes to weed out search engine spam. | |
| search engine submission | The act of supplying a URL to a search engine in an attempt to make a search engine aware of a site or page. | |
| Search Funnel | Movement of searchers, who tend to do several searches before reaching a buy decision, that works from broad, general keyword search terms to narrower, specific keywords. Advertisers use the search funnel to anticipate customer intent and develop keywords targeted to different stages. Also refers to potential for switches at stages in the funnel when, for example, searchers start with keywords for a desired brand, but switch to other brands after gathering information on the category. Microsoft AdCenter tested a search funnel keyword tool in 2006 to target keywords to search funnel stages.
Source: SEMPO | |
| search heuristics | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| Search Query | The word or phrase a searcher types into a search field, which initiates search engine results page listings and PPC ad serves. In PPC advertising, the goal is to bid on keywords that closely match the search queries of the advertiser’s targets.
Source: SEMPO | |
| search spy | A perpetually refreshing page that provides a real-time view of actual Web searches. | |
| Search Submit Pro (SSP) | Search Submit Pro is Yahoo!’s paid inclusion product that uses a “feed” tactic. With Search Submit Pro, Yahoo! crawls your web site as well as an optimized XML feed that represents the content on your site. Yahoo! applies its algorithm to both the actual web site pages and the XML feed to determine which listing is most appropriate to appear in the organic search results when a user conducts a search for relevant terms. Yahoo! charges a CPC, determined by category, for each time a listing established through SSP is clicked.
Source: SEMPO | |
| season dating | A form of advance dating allowed on merchandise of a seasonal nature, granted by a manufacturer to induce early buying of seasonal goods so as to keep the plant occupied in slack seasons. | |
| seasonal demand | A product demand that fluctuates and peaks at regular points in time. | |
| seasonal discount | A special discount to all retailers who place orders for seasonal merchandise well in advance of the normal buying period. | |
| seasonal variations | The regular changes occurring in the production or sales of products due to such factors as climate, vacations, holidays, and customs. | |
| secondary data | The statistics not gathered for the immediate study at hand but for some other purpose. | |
| Secondary Links | Links that are indirectly acquired links, such as a story in a major newspaper about a new product your company released.
Source: SEMPO | |
| secondary package | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| secondary readers | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| secondary shopping district | A cluster of stores outside the central business district that serves a large population within a section or part of a large city. It is similar in character to the main shopping district of a smaller city. | |
| secondary trade zone | The geographic area of secondary importance in terms of customer sales, typically generating about 20 percent or so of a store's sales. | |
| Securities and Exchange Commission | The federal agency that administers the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and other acts relating to holding companies and investments. | |
| security | An operating unit that is responsible for protecting merchandise and other assets from pilferage (internal or external). Those working in security may be employees or outside agency people. | |
| security needs | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| segment descriptors | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| segmentation | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| segmentation basis | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| selective advertising | An approach to developing advertising messages that seeks to present the unique or differentiating characteristics of a particular brand of product or service. | |
| selective attention | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| selective demand | The demand for a specific brand marketed by a firm. | |
| selective distribution | A form of market coverage in which a product is distributed through a limited number of wholesalers or retailers in a given market area. | |
| selective exposure | 1. (consumer behavior definition) A process by which people avoid stimuli in their environments, such as leaving the room while commercials are on TV. 2. (consumer behavior definition) The conscious or unconscious exposure to a limited set of information, messages, or media. | |
| selective perception | 1. The conscious or unconscious increase in attention for stimuli and information consistent with a person's attitudes or interests, or conscious or unconscious discounting of inconsistent stimuli. 2. The ability of the individual to protect himself or herself from the chaos and confusion of excessive and conflicting incoming stimuli. By selectively perceiving and organizing these stimuli, order is created. The needs, values, beliefs, opinions, personality, and other psychological and physical factors are brought into play leading to selective attention, selective exposure, and selective retention, along with the ability to distort and add information to meet the needs of the perceiver to cognitively reorganize reality. | |
| selective retention | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| selective specialization | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| selective specialization coverage | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| self concept | 1. (consumer behavior definition) The ideas, attitudes, and perceptions people have about themselves. 2. (consumer behavior definition) The image one has of oneself. Research indicates that the self-concept is a relatively important variable in how a person judges and evaluates other persons or products. For example, the person with a self concept of "upwardly mobile urban professional" may well prefer and purchase a different model or brand of automobile than the | |
| Self reference criterion (SRC) | The unconscious reference to one's own cultural values or one's home country frame of reference. | |
| self regulation | Control of itself by a business organization or association independent of government supervision, laws, or the like. | |
| self selection | The method used in retailing by which the customer may choose the desired merchandise without direct assistance of store personnel. | |
| self service | 1. A type of operation in which the customer is exposed to merchandise that may be examined without sales assistance, unless the customer seeks such assistance. It is usually accompanied by central or area checkouts or transaction stations. This is typical of supermarkets and discount stores. 2. retailers offering minimal customer service. | |
| self sufficiency | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| self-actualization | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| self-actualization needs | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| self-fulfilling forecast | A forecast that motivates behavior causing the forecast itself to be realized. | |
| self-fulfillment | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| self-image | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| self-price elasticity | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| self-rating scales | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| self-regulation | An industry or profession's internal efforts to establish standards of quality, truthfulness, and propriety for its promotional efforts. | |
| sell-and-lease agreement | A term applied to an arrangement whereby a business enterprise owning and occupying real estate sells it to an investor, such as an insurance company, and makes a long-term lease on the property and often, in addition, an option or agreement to buy, effective at the termination of the lease. | |
| seller identification | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sellers market | A combination of economic conditions that favor sellers in negotiated transactions, usually because of high levels of demand, scarcity of supply, etc. It is the opposite of buyers market. | |
| seller's welfare models | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| selling | The personal or impersonal process whereby the salesperson ascertains, activates, and satisfies the needs of the buyer to the mutual, continuous benefit of both buyer and seller. | |
| selling agent | An agent who operates on an extended contractual basis. The agent sells all of a specified line of merchandise or the entire output of the principal, and usually has full authority with regard to prices, terms, and other conditions of sales. The agent occasionally renders financial aid to the principal. | |
| selling functional expense | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| selling space | An area set aside for displays of merchandise, interactions between sales personnel and customers, demonstration, and so on. | |
| sell-through analysis | A comparison between actual and planned sales to determine whether early markdowns are required or whether more merchandise is needed to satisfy demand. | |
| SEM - Search Engine Marketing | The process of building and marketing a site with the goal of improving its position in search engine results. SEM includes both search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click advertising (PPC), as well as using all other areas and services offered by Search Engines.
Source: Lazworld | |
| Semantic Clustering | A technique for developing relevant keywords for PPC Ad Groups, by focusing tightly on keywords and keyword phrases that are associative and closely related, referred to as "semantic clustering.” Focused and closely-related keyword groups, which would appear in the advertiser’s ad text and in the content of the click-through landing page, are more likely to meet searchers’ expectations and, therefore, support more effective advertising and conversion rates.
Source: SEMPO | |
| semantic differential | A self-report technique for attitude measurement in which subjects are asked to check which cell between a set of bipolar adjectives or phrases best describes their feelings toward the object. | |
| semantic differential scale | A scale anchored by two words that emphasize different meanings; the word anchors are opposites of one another. For example, it is a measurement scale anchored by "good" and "bad" or "happy" and "sad." | |
| semantic knowledge | The general meanings people have acquired about their world. | |
| semimanufactured goods | The industrial products that are at least one stage past being raw materials and are sold for use as components of other products. They comprise parts and processed materials. | |
| sensitivity analysis | (See also LITMUS.) | |
| sensitivity coefficient | The average percentage change in consumption corresponding to a 1 percent change in disposable personal income. | |
| sensory pleasures | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sentence completion | A questionnaire containing a number of sentences that respondents are directed to complete with the first words that come to mind. | |
| sentence completion test | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| SEO | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sep | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sequence bias | The distortion in the answers to some questions on a questionnaire because the replies are not independently arrived at but are conditioned by responses to other questions; the problem is particularly acute in mail questionnaires because the respondent can see the whole questionnaire. | |
| sequential choice models | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sequential sample | A nonprobability sample formed on the basis of a series of successive decisions. If the evidence is not conclusive after a small sample is taken, more observations are taken; if still inconclusive after these additional observations, still more observations are taken. At each stage, then, a decision is made as to whether more information should be collected or whether the evidence is sufficient to draw a conclusion. | |
| SERP | Search Engine Results Page. The page searchers see after they've entered their query into the search box. This page lists several Web pages related to the searcher's query, sorted by relevance. Increasingly, search engines are returning blended search results, which include images, videos, and results from specialty databases on their SERPs.
Source: Lazworld | |
| served market | The business develops, manufactures, and markets products appropriate to a selected segment of the market. It should be noted that the market for which the product is developed (called the qualified market) and the market that is targeted in marketing efforts will often not overlap precisely. The overlap between the qualified market and the target market represents the served market. | |
| Server-Side Tracking | The process of analyzing web server log files. Server-side analytics tools make sense of raw data to generate meaningful reports and trends analysis.
Source: SEMPO | |
| service desk | A station within a store where customers take merchandise for exchange or credit and receive information or other services, depending upon company policy. | |
| service mark | A trademark for a service. | |
| service merchandiser | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| service quality | An area of study that has developed to define and describe how services can be delivered in such a manner as to satisfy the recipient. High quality service is defined as delivery of service that meets or exceeds customers' expectations. | |
| service shopping | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| service(s) | 1. Products, such as a bank loan or home security, that are intangible or at least substantially so. If totally intangible, they are exchanged directly from producer to user, cannot be transported or stored, and are almost intantly perishable. Service products are often difficult to identify, because they come into existence at the same time they are bought and consumed. They comprise intangible elements that are inseparable; they usually involve customer participation in some important way; they cannot be sold in the sense of ownership transfer; and they have no title. Today, however, most products are partly tangible and partly intangible, and the dominant form is used to classify them as either goods or services (all are products). These common, hybrid forms, whatever they are called, may or may not have the attributes just given for totally intangible services. 2. Services, as a term, is also used to describe activities performed by sellers and others that accompany the sale of a product and aid in its exchange or its utilization (e.g., shoe fitting, financing, an 800 number). Such services are either presale or post-sale and supplement the product, not comprise it. If performed during sale, they are considered to be intangible parts of the product. | |
| Session ID's | Dynamic parameters, such as session IDs generated by cookies for each individual user. Session IDs cause search engines to see a different URL for each page each time that they return to re-crawl a web site.
Source: SEMPO | |
| sets in use | The percentage of television or radio households in which the sets are actually being used (turned on) during a given time period. In television, this concept is sometimes called HUTS, which stands for households using television. | |
| SGU | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| Shaping | A process of reinforcing successive approximations of a desired behavior, or of other required behaviors, in order to increase the probability of the desired response. | |
| share | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| share of audience | The proportion of sets in use that are tuned to a particular radio station, television station, or cable television channel during a given time period. It is computed by dividing the rating by the sets in use. | |
| share of market | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| Share of Voice | "A brand's (or group of brands') advertising weight, expressed as a percentage of a defined total market or market segment in a given time period. SOV advertising weight is usually defined in terms of expenditure, ratings, pages, poster sites, etc.” Source: Wikipedia
Source: SEMPO | |
| shareholder wealth maximization (SWM) | The goal of the firm in financial economics. Comment: SWM is an assumption derived from certain axioms about individual behavior due to Von Neumann and Morgenstern. From these axioms it can be deduced that individuals will behave as if they were attempting to maximize an expected utility function. The empirical accuracy and ethical adequacy of SWM is an issue of some controversy. | |
| Shareware | Software programs that are openly available, and usually they can be downloaded online. They are often free, though not always.
Source: Lazworld | |
| shelf life | The length of time a product can safely remain in storage between production and consumption. After this period, deterioration makes the product unfit for sale and/or consumption. Virtually every good has a shelf life, but services (if totally intangible) do not. Shelf life is not related to product obsolescence. | |
| shelf stock | In a complex distribution system, inventory occurs at the plant and at field locations. Shelf stock refers to inventory that has been accumulated for display at the point of final sale. | |
| shelf talker | A printed card or other sign used in retail stores to call attention to a shelved product. It commonly is attached to the shelves or railings of display cases. | |
| Shell International Directional Policy Matrix | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) | This act prohibits contracts, combinations, and conspiracies that restrain interstate or foreign trade, and prohibits monopolization, attempts to monopolize, and conspiracies to monopolize. (See also antitrust laws; contract, tying; HartScott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act; Miller-Tydings Resale Maintenance Act; and rule of reason.) | |
| shippers' cooperative | A nonprofit organization that pools members' shipments so that they can be moved at low carload or truckload rates instead of the more expensive LCL or LTL rates. | |
| Shipping Act (1984) | This act permits ocean common carriers to file agreements with the Federal Maritime Commission that fix or regulate transportation rates, pool traffic revenues, allot ports, and restrict the number of ships between ports. | |
| shipping costs | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| shoplifting | The stealing of a store's merchandise by customers. | |
| shopping cart | Software used to make a site's product catalogue available for online ordering, whereby visitors may select, view, add/delete, and purchase merchandise. | |
| shopping center | A group of architecturally unified commercial establishments built on a site that is planned, developed, owned, and managed as an operating unit related in its location, size, and type of shops to the trade area it serves. | |
| shopping product | A product such as a better dress or hair treatment for which the consumer is willing to spend considerable time and effort in gathering information on price, quality, and other attributes. Several retail outlets are customarily visited. Comparison of product attributes and complex decision processes are common. | |
| shopping radius | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| shop-worn goods | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| short delivery | A discrepancy in the amount of goods delivered, the number being less than shown on the purchase order or invoice. | |
| Shortage | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| short-line distributor | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| short-range plans | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| short-run | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| shotgun approach | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| Shovelware | Shovelware is software that is inflated in value by "shoveling" in all kinds of information, usually free to anyone and generally worthless. The term is being expanded by usage to the web, where a lot of irrelevant information is shoveled onto many sites.
Source: Lazworld | |
| shrinkage | 1. (physical distribution definition) The absence of book inventory. The presence of shrinkage suggests that there is less inventory than expected at some specific location in the channel. 2. (retailing definition) The difference between the recorded value of inventory (at retail) based on merchandise bought and the actual retail value of actual inventory in stores and distribution centers divided by retail sales during a time period. Shrinkage is caused by theft by employees and/ or customers, merchandise being misplaced or damaged, and clerical errors. | |
| shrink-wrap | A packaging process that allows the shipper to extend a clear plastic covering over a package or set of packages. The clear plastic is then circulated through a heat tunnel where the film shrinks to adhere closely to the package or collection of packages. | |
| SIC | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| sight draft-bill of lading (SD-BL) | A sight draft is an instrument attached to the bill of lading and must be honored before the buyer can take possession of the shipment. It resembles C.O.D. terms and may be said to constitute one way of forcing them. | |
| Signage | Banners, billboards, electronic messages, decals, etc., displayed on-site and containing Sponsor ID.
Source: IEG | |
| signaling intentions to defend | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| Siloing | Siloing (also known as Theming) is a site architecture technique used to split the focus of a site into multiple themes. The goal behind siloing is to create a site that ranks well for both its common and more-targeted keywords. Source: Bruce Clay Newsletter 09/06
Source: SEMPO | |
| similar store approach | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| simple random sample | A probability sample in which each population element has a known and equal chance of being included in the sample and in which every combination of n population elements is a sample possibility and is just as likely to occur as any other combination of n units. | |
| simple tabulation | A count of the number of cases that fall into each category when the categories are based on one variable. | |
| simulated test market | A form of market testing in which consumers are exposed to new products and to their claims in a staged advertising and purchase situation. Output of the test is an early forecast of sales and/or market share, based on mathematical forecasting models, management assumptions, and input of specific measurements from the simulation. | |
| simulated test market models | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| simulated test marketing | Test marketing done by firms in shopping malls or consumers' homes as a prelude to a full-scale marketing test for the product. | |
| simulation models | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| single column tariff | The simplest type of tariff that consists of a schedule of duties in which the tariff rate applies to imports from all countries on the same basis. | |
| single market concentration | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| single price policy/store | The offering of all goods at a single price-e.g., everything for $5, or $10, etc. It is not to be confused with one price policy. | |
| single product-market concentration coverage | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| single sourcing | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| single-zone pricing | The practice of setting one price for all buyers regardless of their distance from the seller. | |
| site search | A program providing search functionality specific to one site. | |
| site selection model | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| Site-Targeted Ads | Site targeting lets advertisers display their ads on manually-selected sites in the search engine’s content network for content or contextual ad serves. Site-targeted ads are billed more like traditional display ads, per 1000 impressions (CPM), and not on a Pay-Per-Click basis.
Source: SEMPO | |
| situation | A particular occasion; the stream of interactions between a consumers' affect and cognitions and goal directed behaviors in an environment. | |
| situation analysis | The systematic collection and study of past and present data to identify trends, forces, and conditions with the potential to influence the performance of the business and the choice of appropriate strategies. The situation analysis is the foundation of the strategic planning process. The situation analysis includes an examination of both the internal factors (to identify strengths and weaknesses) and external factors (to identify opportunities and threats). It is often referred to by the acronym SWOT. | |
| situation assessment | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| situational involvement | The interest or concern with a product brought about by the situation or context. For example, consumers may become situationally involved with buying a hot water heater if their old one breaks. | |
| situations | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| size lining | This is related to the concept of price lining. It is the selection of predetermined size points at which merchandise will be offered. For assistance to customer selection, sizes should be according to customer behavior-e. g., junior sizes together. | |
| size scale | A chart of the proper quantity of an item to order in each size. | |
| skimming | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| skimming price policy | A method of pricing that attempts to first reach those willing to buy at a high price before marketing to more price-sensitive customers. | |
| SKU | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| skyscraper ad | An online ad significantly taller than the 120x240 vertical banner. | |
| sleeper effect | A controversial finding in the communications literature that asserts that the influence of advertising or other communications material can increase once the message is no longer broadcast or presented to the respondent. The research findings are divided on its existence with sufficient evidence to prove and to disprove the existence of the phenomenon depending on who is interpreting the findings. The belief is that the influence of advertising or other communications increases with number of repetitions. However, as repetitions increase, so does noxiousness, lessening the effectiveness of the persuasion. Once the communication ceases to exist, its noxious character no longer exists and the prior repetitions influence an increase in effectiveness. | |
| Slippage | A promotion marketing term that describes when a consumer purchases a product because of an associated incentive, such as a rebate, but does not send in the rebate form. Slippage is difference between the amount of incentives actually redeemed and the total possible redemptions if at 100%. | |
| slipsheet | A materials handling device usually composed of a flat piece of cardboard or board on which product is stacked. The multiple units of product are moved as a unit load in the transportation and distribution system. | |
| slogan | The verbal or written portion of an advertising message that summarizes the main idea in a few memorable words. It is sometimes called a tag line. | |
| slotting allowance | 1. (retailing definition) A fee paid by a vendor for space in a retail store. 2. (sales promotion definition) The fee a manufacturer pays to a retailer in order to get distribution for a new product. It covers the costs of making room for the product in the warehouse and on the store shelf, reprogramming the computer system to recognize the product's UPC code, and including the product in the retailer's inventory system. | |
| slow-moving goods | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| small group theory | A set of conceptualizations and hypotheses relating to the behavior of individuals within a small group of psychologically interrelated individuals. It is the study of the influence of others in a small group of interdependent individuals on the beliefs, attitudes, and behavior of the individual. | |
| SMSA | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| snake diagram | A diagram (so called because of its shape) that connects with straight lines the average responses to a series of semantic differential statements, thereby depicting the profile of the object or objects being evaluated. | |
| snowball sample | A judgment sample that relies on the researcher's ability to locate an initial set of respondents with the desired characteristics; these individuals are then used as informants to identify still others with the desired characteristics. | |
| social accounting | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| social advertising | The advertising designed to educate or motivate target audiences to undertake socially desirable actions. | |
| social audit | A systematic assessment and report of some domain of a company's activities that have social impact; thus, it is an assessment of social performance. | |
| social benefits | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| social character | A term coined by David Riesman to describe values and behavioral characteristics of people in various stages of cultural development. | |
| social class | A status hierarchy by which groups and individuals are classified on the basis of esteem and prestige. For example, one classification divides our society into upper-class Americans (14 percent of the population), middle-class (32 percent of the population), working class (38 percent of the population) and lower-class (16 percent of the population). | |
| social consciousness | Marketing managers' concern for meeting social purposes, pursuing social benefits, and adhering to social criteria as compared with achieving the sales, profit, and other wealth-producing goals of capitalism. Social actions are often taken at the expense of immediate profits. | |
| social cost | The cost to a society as a whole resulting from a firm's decisions and actions, such as the development and launching of a new product that impacts negatively upon the environment. | |
| social criteria | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| social drive | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| social engineering | The use of knowledge and techniques of social and behavioral sciences to improve the social systems in a community. | |
| social factors in consumer behavior | The variables other than individual psychological and cognitive factors that have an influence on the behavior of the consumer in the market place. They include the small group, subculture such as ethnic groups, and social class. | |
| social impact | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| social impact of marketing | The external effects of the processes and outcomes of marketing on the well-being of society in general or of specific population segments. Comment: The economics term "externalities" connotes the same effects. The social impacts maybe positive or negative. Examples of general impacts would be the effects on public health of the promotion of cigarette smoking. Segment impacts would be advertising portraying the elderly as forgetful, frightened, and physically infirm; or racially discriminatory real estate marketing. These would be negative impacts. An example of a positive impact would be automobile commercials that portray drivers as always wearing seat belts. | |
| social indicator | Information in the form of statistical data and statistical series that can be used for social audit purposes. The data and information that facilitate the evaluation of how well a society or institution is doing in relation to social values and goals. (See also quality of life.) | |
| social influence | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| social man | A person whose buying decisions are highly influenced by sociological factors. | |
| social marketing | 1. (environments definition) The branch of marketing that is concerned with the use of marketing knowledge, concepts, and techniques to enhance social ends, as well as the social consequences of marketing strategies, decisions, and actions. 2. (social marketing definition) Marketing designed to influence the behavior of a target audience in which the benefits of the behavior are intended by the marketer to accrue primarily to the audience or to the society in general and not to the marketer. Comment: Social marketing is sometimes confused with social impact of marketing. Social marketing can be carried on by for-profit, public, and private nonprofit organizations or by individuals. Examples would be attempts to influence individuals to stop smoking (by the private nonprofit American Cancer Society) or report crimes (by the public U.S. Department of Justice). An attempt of one friend to influence another to go on a diet is also social marketing. | |
| social marketing perspective | The orientation or perspective that focuses on social purposes and reflects on whether or not a company should market a good or a service as compared to whether or not it can do so economically. | |
| social marketing report | A report on those marketing activities that have social impact, usually in the form of disclosures to relevant publics, overall rating schemes, or internal performance review. | |
| Social Media/Social Search | Sites where users actively participate to determine what is popular.
Source: SEMPO | |
| social mobility | The ability of the individual to climb above, or slip below, the social class or position in society into which he or she was originally reared. Social mobility can be increased through education, occupation, or fortuitous circumstances. | |
| social mobilization campaign | In social marketing, a campaign directed at the community level designed to stimulate word-of-mouth and social pressures to bring about change in individual behavior. | |
| social motives | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| social needs | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| social perceived risk | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| social performance | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| social purposes | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| social responsibility | Concern for the ethical consequences of a person's or institution's acts as they might affect the interests of others. Corporate social responsibility is seriously considering the impact of the company's actions and operating in a way that balances short term profit needs with society's long term needs, thus ensuring the company's survival in a healthy environment. | |
| social responsibility of marketing | The obligation of marketing organizations to do no harm to the social environment and, wherever possible, to use their skills and resources to enhance that environment. Comment: Social responsibility of marketing also is called societal marketing. This term is frequently confused with social marketing. | |
| social stratification | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| social styles matrix | A method of classifying customers based on their preferred communication style. The two dimensions used to classify customers are assertiveness and responsiveness. | |
| socialism | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| socialization | 1. (consumer behavior definition) A process by which an individual learns the values and appropriate behavior patterns of a group, institution, or culture. 2. (consumer behavior definition) The process by which an individual is acculturated into the mores, norms, values, and beliefs of a society or subdivision. It often applies to the learning and conditioning of children. | |
| societal marketing | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| Socioeconomic | Both the social and economic characteristics, status, or relationships such as social class, education, profession, as well as income and wealth. | |
| Soft Drink Interbrand Competition Act (1980) | This act permits the use of exclusive geographic areas by the soft drink industry for bottling and distribution. | |
| soft goods | These are generally felt to be the clothing portion of nondurable goods. They may also include bolt goods and notions. | |
| soft sell | The opposite of hard sell. | |
| sogo-sosha | Japanese general trading companies. | |
| Sole Sponsor | A company that has paid to be the only sponsor of a property.
Source: IEG | |
| solitary survivor stage | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| solo coupon | A certificate for a price reduction or other inducement made for a single product or service. It commonly is distributed separately from other products by media advertising, direct mail, or other method. | |
| sortation | The general process in materials handling of sorting packages by origin or destination. Sortation is a generic word that describes a process of breaking down shipments into specific destinations, based on customer locations or other destination designators. | |
| sorting | A function performed by intemediaries in order to bridge the discrepancy between the assortment of goods and services generated by the producer and the assortment demanded by the consumer. This function includes four distinct processes: accumulation, allocation, assorting, and sorting out. | |
| sorting out | A sorting process that breaks down a heterogeneous supply into separate stocks that are relatively homogeneous. | |
| sound bite | The basic element of a broadcast news story, consisting of a newsmaker speaking on camera in 10 to 20 second blocks. | |
| source credibility | The believability or veracity of the communication or source of a communication or advertising message. Although it is usually assumed that more credible sources will of necessity be more believable and therefore more influential, research does not unequivocally support the contention. | |
| sourcing | 1. (global marketing definition) The what, where, and how of production to supply the customers targeted in the marketing plan. 2. (industrial definition) Another term for procurement. Single, dual, and multiple sourcing refer to the number of suppliers from whom one buys a particular product. | |
| spam | Unwanted, unsolicited e-mail, typically of a commercial nature. | |
| Spamming | Spamming refers to a wide array of techniques used to “trick” the search engines. These tactics generally are against the guidelines put forth by the search engines. Tactics such as Hidden text, Doorway Pages, Content Duplication and Link Farming are but a few of many spam techniques employed over the years.
Source: SEMPO | |
| span of control | The number of people a manager can supervise before managerial effectiveness declines. Comment: The number varies by the complexity of the positions supervised and the degree of decision making authority that is delegated to persons reporting to the manager. There has been a general increase in the space of control as companies have down-sized during the late 1980s and early 1990s. When the span of control is exceeded it usually is necessary to insert another level of supervision. (See also centralized management, decentralized management, and flat organization.) | |
| spatial competition | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| special drawing rights (SDR) | The "paper gold" created by the International Monetary Fund. The SDR is an international reserve asset that is exchanged by member countries of the IMF to offset trade surpluses and deficits. | |
| special event | A sales promotion program comprising a number of sales promotion techniques built around a seasonal, cultural, sporting, musical event, or other activity. | |
| specialty advertising | The placement of advertising messages on a wide variety of items of interest to the target market such as calendars, coffee cups, pens, hats, note paper, paper weights, Tshirts, watches, etc. In contrast to premiums, specialty advertising items are usually given to members of the audience. | |
| specialty department store | A large store with a department store format that focuses primarily on apparel and soft home goods. | |
| specialty distributed coupon | The coupons distributed through nontraditional media, such as the back of cash register tapes, egg cartons, shopping bags, pizza boxes, etc. | |
| specialty product | A product that has unique attributes or other characteristics that make it singularly important to the buyer. Multiple-store searching, reliance on brand, and absence of extensive product comparisons are the rule. Cigarettes, deodorants, and specialized insurance policies are examples. | |
| specialty store | 1. A store that handles a limited variety of goods, as compared to single-line stores. 2. A departmentalized apparel store, as distinct from a department store. 3. Increasingly, a store that caters to narrowly defined core customer target markets. | |
| specialty wholesaler | A wholesaler who stocks a narrow range of products, not often a great depth of assortment choice. | |
| specific duties | These duties are expressed as a specific amount of currency per unit of weight, volume, length, or a number of other units of measurement. | |
| specific tasks | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| speculation | This concept holds that changes in the form and movement of goods to forward inventories should be made at the earliest possible time in the marketing process in order to reduce the costs of the marketing system. | |
| SPI | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| Spider | A term used to describe search engines such as Yahoo and Alta Vista, because of the way they cruise all over the world wide web to find information. It is a software program which combs the web for new sites and updated information on old ones, like a spider looking for a fly.
Source: Lazworld | |
| spiff | 1. (sales definition) A payment made by a producer's salesperson to a reseller's salesperson to motivate the reseller to sell the producer's products. 2. (sales promotion definition) A cash payment made to salespeople at the retail level to influence them to promote and sell the manufacturer's brand or a specific item in the line rather than a competitive item. | |
| SPIN | A sales technique involving a logical sequence of questions about situations, problems, implications, and need payoff that salespeople use to identify the prospect's needs. | |
| splash page | A branding page before the home page of a Web site. | |
| split run | The placement of two or more different ads for the same advertiser in alternate copies of the same media vehicle in order to compare the effectiveness of the different advertising messages. | |
| split shipment | A vendor ships part of a shipment to a retailer and back orders the remainder because the entire shipment could not be shipped at the same time. | |
| Sponsee | A property available for sponsorship.
Source: IEG | |
| sponsor | An entity that pays a property for the right to promote itself and its products or services in association with the property, according to IEG.
Source: IEG | |
| Sponsor ID | Visual and audio recognitions of sponsor, e.g., sponsor name/logo on participant clothing, equipment, etc.; in property’s publications and advertising; public-address and on-air broadcast mentions.
Source: IEG | |
| Sponsored Listing | A term used as a title or column head on SERPs to identify paid advertisers and distinguish between paid and organic listings. Alternate names are Paid Listings or Paid Sponsors. Separating paid listings from organic results enables searchers to make their own purchase and site trust decisions and, in fact, resulted from an FTC complaint filed by Commercial Alert in 2001 alleging that the confusion caused in consumers who saw mixed paid and unpaid results constituted fraud in advertising.
Source: SEMPO | |
| sponsorship (1) | Advertising that seeks to establish a deeper association and integration between an advertiser and a publisher, often involving coordinated beyond-the-banner placements. | |
| sponsorship (2) | Defined by IEG in 1982 as: A cash and/or in-kind fee paid to a property (typically sports, entertainment, non-profit event or organization) in return for access to the exploitable commercial potential associated with that property.
Source: IEG | |
| Sponsorship Agency | A firm which specializes in advising on, managing, brokering or organizing sponsored properties. The agency may be employed by either the sponsor or property.
Source: IEG | |
| Sponsorship Fee | Payment made by a sponsor to a property.
Source: IEG | |
| Sports Marketing | Promotional strategy linking a company to sports (sponsorship of competitions, teams, leagues, etc.).
Source: IEG | |
| spot broadcast | The purchasing by a national advertiser of radio and television time on a local or market-by-market basis. This contrasts with the purchase of nationwide exposure by using national television networks or national cable television channels. | |
| spot check | This is used particularly in receiving operations when goods come in for reshipping to branch stores in packing cartons. Certain cartons are opened in the receiving area of the central distribution point and spot checked for quality and quantity. | |
| spot market | The market for immediate delivery or, in the interbank market, for delivery within two business days of the transaction. | |
| spot purchase | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| spot sale | The sale or purchase of a commodity for immediate delivery, often on a cash basis. | |
| spotter | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| spreading activation | Through this usually unconscious process, interrelated aspects of consumers' knowledge are activated during comprehension and decision making. | |
| SPRINTER Mod III | A model for analyzing the response to anew product over time using test market data. It simulates product awareness, intention to buy, product search, brand choice, and post-purchase behavior. Besides facilitating a go/no go decision, the model is designed to help improve decisions regarding the level of marketing mix variables (Urban 1970). | |
| spurious correlation | A condition that arises when there is no relationship between two variables but the analyst concludes that a relationship exists. | |
| SRC | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| SSP Feed | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| Stability | A technique for assessing the reliability of a measure by measuring the same objects or individuals at two different points in time and then correlating the scores; the procedure is known as test-retest reliability assessment. | |
| staff authority | This includes two types of authority-advisory and functional. Advisory is implied authority based on the staff person's experience or expertise. A staff person with advisory authority cannot order something done but can recommend that it be done in a certain way. Functional authority is the authority held by functional managers (e. g., finance and personnel) to issue orders to people not under their direct (line) supervision; however, this authority encompasses only those functions designated by the chief executive. | |
| staged advertising and purchase situation | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| stages in the buying process | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| stagflation | An economic condition characterized by a combination of slow growth (stagnation) and upward creeping prices (inflation). | |
| Staggers Rail Act (1980) | This act allows competition and demand to establish rates for rail transportation; it prohibits predatory pricing and undue concentration of market power. | |
| stakeholder | One of a group of publics with which a company must be concerned. Key stakeholders include consumers, employees, stockholders, suppliers, and others who have some relationship with the organization. | |
| standard advertising unit (SAU) | The system of standard sizes of newspaper space adopted by newspapers in order to introduce a measure of uniformity to the complex process of buying space in a variety of newspapers in an assortment of market areas. | |
| standard geographic units | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) | A system developed by the U.S. Department of Commerce to assign products and establishments to categories. It divides the U.S. economy into 11 divisions, including one for nonclassifiable establishments. Within each division, major industry groups are classified by two-digit numbers. Within each major two-digit SIC industry group, industry subgroups are defined by a third digit, and detailed industries are defined by a fourth digit. More detailed product categories range up to seven digits. | |
| Standard International Trade Classification | A numeric-based commodity code for products moving by air transportation. It was developed by the United Nations and is used by U.S. air carriers. | |
| standard memorized presentation | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| standard metropolitan statistical area (SMSA) | An integrated economic and social unit having a large population nucleus. This is an old term now replaced by metropolitan statistical area. | |
| standard package | In some trades, custom or law has stipulated one or several package sizes that the goods are customarily sold in. Bread and sodas are typical, though few product categories today adhere only to the standard sizes. | |
| standard test market | A market in which companies sell their products through normal distribution channels when testing these products or the marketing efforts supporting these products. | |
| standardization | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| standardized portfolio models | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| Standards | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| standing order | An arrangement with a vendor to make shipments periodically in specified quantities in which the vendor may be authorized to ship a certain quantity each month or week for a set period. | |
| Stapel scale | A self-report technique for attitude measurement in which the respondents are asked to indicate how accurately each of a number of statements describes the object of interest. | |
| staple good | A convenience product such as sugar or potatoes that is bought often and consumed routinely. Staples often offer little differentiation and are sold importantly on the basis of price. These sometimes are called commodity products, but industrial products can be commodities, too. | |
| staple merchandise | The merchandise for which a fairly active demand continues over a period of years and which the retailer finds necessary to carry continually in stock. | |
| staple stock list | The list of items that are to be carried regularly in stock. | |
| Star | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| stationary first order Markov model | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| stationary process | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| Statistical Abstract of the United States | An annual publication of the U.S. Bureau of the Census, published since 1878 as the standard summary of statistics on the economic, social, and political organization of the U.S. It is both a convenient statistical reference and a guide to other statistical publications. | |
| statistical demand analysis | A method of developing a sales forecast that attempts to determine the relationship between sales and the important factors affecting sales, typically using regression analysis, and the use of that relationship to forecast sales for the future. | |
| statistical efficiency | A measure used to compare sampling plans; one sampling plan is said to be superior (more statistically efficient) than another if, for the same size sample, it produces a smaller standard error of estimate. | |
| Statistical Validity | The degree to which an observed result, such as a difference between two measurements, can be relied upon and not attributed to random error in sampling or in measurement. Statistical Validity is important to the reliability of test results, particularly in Multivariate Testing methods. Source: UsabilityFirst.com
Source: SEMPO | |
| status | The positioning of an individual within a group, organization, or society. | |
| STEAM | A model for predicting the sales over time for a new frequently purchased consumer product based on panel data. The approach explicitly considers heterogeneity across households in their purchase behavior, and models repeat purchase as a function of the household's depth of repeat level (Massy 1969). | |
| stereotype | A generalized belief about what people or events will be like, what attributes they will possess, how they will behave, etc., based upon group or type membership. For example, a possible stereotype is that older people will be less active than younger people. | |
| stickiness | The amount of time spent at a site over a given time period. A variety of techniques can be used to influence stickiness such as frequently updated content, games and interaction. | |
| stimulus response sales approach | A sales presentation method that emphasizes the importance of saying the right things at the right time by means of a well-prepared sales presentation (stimulus) in order to elicit the desired response (sale). | |
| stochastic dominance models | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| stochastic model | Strictly speaking, this is any model having a stochastic, i.e., probabilistic or random, component. This component can stem from a variety of sources. It arises in models for a single individual making a single decision (e.g., to represent the effect of uncertainty). Randomness also is incorporated in modeling multiple events for a single individual (e.g., to represent the effect on each event of omitted variables-i.e., factors that have an impact but that are not explicitly part of the model). Finally, a probabilistic component can be used in modeling a single event for each of several individuals. Here the randomness represents the (unmeasured) heterogeneity across individuals. In each case the result is a process that, from the standpoint of the observer, appears to have a random component. Often the term stochastic model denotes a more narrow subset of models; namely probability mixture models (Lilien and Kotler 1983; Massy, Montgomery, and Morrison 1970). | |
| stochastic programming | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| stock balance | This balance is concerned with planning and controlling merchandise investment so that it is balanced with expected sales. The three perspectives from which one can view stock balance are (1) stock width (breadth), (2) stock support (depth), and (3) total dollars invested in stock. | |
| stock bin control | A system for maintaining assortments of staple merchandise by reordering periodically on a basis of empty spaces or observed low stock conditions in bins or on stock shelves. | |
| stock breadth perspective | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| stock control | This includes all the activities that are carried on to maintain a balance between inventories and sales. | |
| stock depth | The number of units in individual merchandise items needed to meet sales of each assortment factor. | |
| stock or inventory control | A system or approach to the management of material that is received, stored, and distributed within the firm and between the firm and its vendors or customers. | |
| stock rotation | A term used in inventory management to describe the process of moving stock to ensure freshness and shelf life of inventory. | |
| stock shortage | This includes all unexplained or unrecorded shrinkages in the value of merchandise available for sale. It is the amount by which a physical inventory is short of a book inventory figure. | |
| stock support perspective | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| stock turnover | 1. (physical distribution definition) The number of times average stock keeping units are sold during a specific time period (usually one year)..) 2. (retailing definition) An index of the velocity with which merchandise moves into and out of a store or department. The rate of stock turnover is the number of times during a given period, usually on an annual basis, that the average inventory on hand has been sold and replaced. It is computed by dividing sales by average inventory, with both stated in comparable valuations, either cost or selling price. | |
| stock width perspective | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| Stockholder | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| stockkeeping unit (SKU) | 1. (physical distribution definition) A specific unit of inventory that is carried as a separate identifiable unit. A pint bottle and a quart bottle of the same product would be separate SKUs for inventory purposes 2. (retailing definition) The lowest level of identification of merchandise. | |
| stock-out | 1. (physical distribution definition) A stock-out occurs when buyers are unable to fulfill their purchase intentions in a specific buying situation. 2. (retailing definition) A situation in which a retail store does not have enough items of a particular kind in stock to meet customer demand; thus, the product is not available to consumers. | |
| stockpiling | The situation in which consumers buy multiple units of products that are on deal and hoard those products for future use. | |
| stock-sales ratio | The ratio between the stock on hand at the beginning or end of a period and the sales for that period. It is determined by dividing stock, preferably at the beginning of the period, usually monthly, by sales. It is distinguished from inventory turnover or stock turnover, which are ratios or averages for a period of time, usually annually. | |
| Stop Word | A word that often appears in a page’s copy or content, but it has no significance by itself. Examples of stop words are: and, the, of, etc.
Source: SEMPO | |
| store atmosphere | The affective (emotional) and cognitive states consumers experience in a store, but may not be fully conscious of when shopping. | |
| store brand | The private brand that is owned by a retailer. | |
| store image | 1.(consumer behavior definition) The total of what consumers think about a particular store. 2. (retailing definition) The way in which a store is defined in a shopper's mind. It is based on the store's physical characteristics, retailing mix, and a set of psychological attributes. | |
| store layout | The interior retail store arrangement of departments or groupings of merchandise. It should be organized to provide for ease of customer movement through the store and to provide for maximum exposure and attractive display of merchandise. (See also block plan, boutique store layout, bubble plan, free-flow pattern, free-form, gridiron pattern, and loop layout.) | |
| Store loyalty | 1. (consumer behavior definition) The degree to which a consumer consistently patronizes the same store when shopping for particular types of products. 2. (retailing definition) A condition in which a customer regularly patronizes a specific retailer. | |
| store patronage | The degree to which a consumer shops at a particular store relative to competitive outlets. | |
| storyboard | A sequence of illustrations of the key scenes in a proposed television commercial. They are used by advertising agencies to obtain client advice and approval before continuing to the more advanced, and expensive, stages of television commercial production. | |
| Storytelling | A questionnaire method of data collection relying on a picture stimulus such as a cartoon, photograph, or drawing, about which the subject is asked to tell a story. | |
| straight commission plan | A sales force compensation plan that uses commissions as the sole basis for pay. A commission is payment for achieving a given level of performance. Salespeople are paid for results. Usually, commission payments are based on the salesperson's dollar or unit sales volume. However, they may be based on the profitability of sales so as to motivate the sales force to expend effort on the most profitable products or customers. | |
| straight rebuy | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| straight salary plan | A sales force compensation plan that relies exclusively on salary as a financial reward for salespeople. A salary is a fixed sum of money paid at regular intervals. The amount paid to the salesperson is a function of the amount of time worked rather than any specific performance. Two sets of conditions favor the use of a straight salary compensation plan. These are (1) when management wishes to motivate people to achieve objectives other than short-run sales volume, and (2) when the individual salesperson's impact on sales volume is difficult to measure in a reasonable time. | |
| strategic alliances | Cooperation strategy between companies to jointly pursue a common goal. They are also referred to as collaborative agreements or global strategic partnerships. | |
| strategic business planning | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| strategic business plans | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| strategic business unit (SBU) | From a strategy formulation point of view, diversified companies are best thought of as being composed of a number of businesses (or SBUs). These organizational entities are large enough and homogeneous enough to exercise control over most strategic factors affecting their performance. They are managed as self contained planning units for which discrete business strategies can be developed. | |
| strategic fit | The degree to which the growth strategy that allows the business to achieve its performance objectives can be implemented within the constraints imposed by past strategic commitments, resource availability, and other historical rigidities. Often, tradeoffs and changes are required in the growth strategy prior to implementation. | |
| strategic intent | An ambitious organizational goal that is not proportional to current resources and capabilities and remains stable over time. To ensure long-term success, management envisions a desired leadership position and then establishes the criterion that the organization will use to chart its progress. The concept encompasses an active management process that includes focusing the organization's attention on the essence of winning; motivating people by communicating the value of the target; leaving room for individual and team contributions; sustaining enthusiasm by providing new operational definitions as circumstances change; and using intent consistently to guide resource allocations. | |
| strategic management process | An approach to management that incorporates the following elements: (1) focusing planning processes on the search for competitive advantage; (2) the integration of strategic planning with operational and functional levels; (3) orientation toward funding and implementing strategies rather than discrete projects; and (4) greater emphasis and continued focus on strategic issues. | |
| strategic market planning | The planning process that yields decisions in how a business unit can best compete in the markets it elects to serve. Strategic market decisions are based on assessments of product market and pertain to the basis for advantage in the market. The plan that is the output of the process serves as a blueprint for the development of the skills and resources of a business unit and specifies the results to be expected. In many companies these are called strategic business plans. | |
| strategic moves | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| strategic planning | The consideration of current decision alternatives in light of their probable consequences over time. The practice of strategic planning incorporates four distinguishing features: (1) an external orientation; (2) a process for formulating strategies; (3) methods for analysis of strategic situations and alternatives; and (4) a commitment to action. | |
| Strategic Planning Institute | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| strategic sales program | A program that organizes and plans the company's overall personal selling efforts and integrates these with the other elements of the firm's marketing strategy. The strategic sales program should take into account the environmental factors faced by the firm. | |
| strategic thinking | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| strategic thrust | A compelling theme that knits together otherwise independent activities and focuses the energies of functional groups on things that matter in the market. The essence of this theme is a shared understanding of why the business is better than the competition and what has to be done to keep it in front. | |
| strategic window | The limited time period in which the fit between the factors critical for success in a market and the distinctive competencies of a business competing in that market is at an optimum. The implication is that businesses should prepare for and respond appropriately to the "opening" and "closing" of strategic windows. | |
| strategy | This describes the direction the business will pursue within its chosen environment and guides the allocation of resources and effort. It also provides the logic that integrates the perspectives of functional departments and operating units, and points them all in the same direction. The strategy statement for a strategic business unit is composed of three elements: (1) a business definition that specifies the area in which the business will compete; (2) a strategic thrust that describes whether a competitive advantage is to be gained by focusing the scope or by exploiting an asymmetry in the position of the business; and (3) supporting functional strategies that are activities designed for consistency and comparability with other activities and the strategic thrust. | |
| strategy development | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| stratified sample | A probability sample that is distinguished by the two-step procedure in which (1) the parent population is divided into mutually exclusive and exhaustive subsets and (2) a simple random sample of elements is chosen independently from each group or subset. | |
| STRATPORT | A decision support system for the allocation of a firm's financial resources across its strategic business units (SBUs). The approach models the impact of general marketing expenditures on both market share and on the firm's cost structure. Given a specific portfolio strategy, the system can evaluate the profit and cash flow implications of following that strategy over time. Alternately, the approach can determine the optimal allocation of marketing expenditures across SBUs in order to maximize net present value over a specified time horizon (Larreche and Srinivasan 1981, 1982). | |
| strengths and weaknesses analysis | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| strict liability | 1.(legislation definition) A doctrine under which a seller is held liable for injury caused by a defective product even though the seller exercised all possible care in the preparation and sale of the product and the user had not bought the product from or entered into any contractual relation with the seller. 2. (product development definition) An extreme variant of product liability (in common practice today) in which the producer is held responsible for putting a defective product on the market. Under strict liability, there need be no negligence, sale no longer has to be direct from producer to user (privity of contact), and no disclaimer statement relieves the producer of this responsibility. | |
| string-street location | A location on a major thoroughfare upon which various kinds of stores are strung for a number of consecutive blocks. | |
| strip-type shopping center | A shopping center in which stores are aligned along a thoroughfare, usually set back some distance from the street to permit front parking. | |
| structured questionnaire | A degree of standardization imposed on the data collection instrument. A highly structured questionnaire, for example, is one in which the questions to be asked and the responses permitted subjects are completely predetermined, while a highly unstructured questionnaire is one in which the questions to be asked are only loosely predetermined and respondents are free to respond in their own words and in any way they see fit. | |
| stub control | A perpetual inventory system of unit control in which sales information is obtained from stubs of price tickets rather than from sales checks, scanning of bar codes, or other sources. | |
| style | A distinctive mode of presentation or performance in any art, product, or activity. Styles may be permanent, but move into and out of fashion. | |
| style-out | A method of pinpointing the determinants of consumer demand for fashion merchandise, whereby buyers and/or merchandise managers physically inspect fast-selling and slow-selling items to determine their customer attracting features or lack of same. | |
| subculture | The segments within a culture that share distinguishing meanings, values, and patterns of behavior that differ from those of the overall culture. | |
| Subhead | A part of the written component of print advertising that is designed to guide the reader's attention to specific details about the advertised item or to help organize issues presented in the body copy. | |
| Subject | A person from whom information is secured in a marketing research study, either by questioning or by observing him or her in some way. | |
| Sublimation | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| subliminal advertising | Advertising messages that are supposedly disguised so that they are not able to be overtly seen and/or heard yet are nevertheless effective in persuading members of the audience. There is no scientific evidence to indicate that this approach is effective communication and, if there were convincing evidence of effectiveness, the approach would likely be prohibited as a deceptive business practice. | |
| subliminal perception | 1. (consumer behavior definition) A psychological view that suggests that attitudes and behaviors can be changed by stimuli that are not consciously perceived. 2. (consumer behavior definition) The perception of or response to a stimulus that the perceiver is unaware of perceiving and can not recognize. The stimulus is below the perceiver's limen, or perceptual threshold. | |
| Submission | The act of submitting a web site to search engines and search directories. For some search engines, this is performed simply by typing in the absolute home page URL of the web site you wish to submit. Other engines and directories request that descriptions of the web site be submitted for approval.
Source: SEMPO | |
| submissive selling style | A selling style often used by excellent socializers who like to spend time talking about nonbusiness activities. These salespeople usually are reluctant to obtain commitments from prospects. | |
| subsidiary company | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| subsistence economy | An economy in which exchange is notable by its absence because goods and services are produced and consumed by the same families. | |
| substantiation | An FTC requirement that advertisers have a reasonable basis for their advertising claims. | |
| substitute | Substitutes-in-kind are products that look alike and represent the same application of a distinct technology to the provision of a distinct set of customer functions. Substitute-in-use are products that have shared functionality based on the customer's perception of all the ways in which their needs can be satisfied in a given usage or application situation. The attractiveness of a substitute product depends on (1) its initial price, (2) customer switching costs, (3) postpurchase costs of operation, and (4) the additional benefits the customer perceives and values. | |
| substitute products | The products that are viewed by the user as alternatives for other products. The substitution is rarely perfect, and varies from time to time depending on price, availability, etc. | |
| substitutes-in-kind | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| substitutes-in-use | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| suggested retail | A recommended list price submitted by a manufacturer or other vendor to a retailer. | |
| summated rating | A self-report technique for attitude measurement in which subjects are asked to indicate their degree of agreement or disagreement with each of a number of statements; a subject's attitude score is the total obtained by summing the scale values assigned to each category checked. | |
| summative evaluation | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| super regional shopping center | One of several standard classes of shopping centers recognized by The Urban Land Institute. It provides for extensive variety of general merchandise, apparel, furniture, and home furnishings. Typically, it has three or more full-line department stores of more than 100,000 square feet each, and total store area of center may be about 600,000 square feet to more than 1,500,000 square feet. | |
| Super Verbs | Compelling verbs that trigger emotions or visual images.
Source: SEMPO | |
| superego | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| supermarket | A large departmentalized retail establishment offering a relatively broad and complete stock of dry groceries, fresh meat, perishable produce, and dairy products, supplemented by a variety of convenience, nonfood merchandise and operated primarily on a self service basis. | |
| superstation | A television station in a particular city that sends its signal via satellite to subscribing cable television stations anywhere in the world. Television station WGN in Chicago is an example of such a superstation. The cable system disseminates the signal to its subscribers. | |
| superstore | A very large store that is typically of a supermarket character and offers an unusually wide range of the merchandise lines carried, with appeal to the mass market. This term may apply in any line of trade. | |
| supervision | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| supervisor ratings | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| supplement | A special, preprinted section of a newspaper or magazine that is then inserted during the regular printing process for the publication. Supplements usually contain both editorial matter and ads. Supplements inserted in a variety of newspapers (often appearing on Sundays) are called syndicated supplements. | |
| Supplier | Official provider of goods or services in exchange for designated recognition. This level is below official sponsor, and the benefits provided are limited accordingly.
Source: IEG | |
| supplier decision | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| supplier management | The process whereby industrial buyers make suggestions about the suppliers' policies, procedures, and strategies to improve the quality of products and services furnished. | |
| supplies | The industrial products that are consumed in the process of producing other products. They facilitate the production process and do not go into the product itself. They frequently are referred to as maintenance, repair, and operating items and supplies. | |
| supply | 1. (economic definition) A schedule of the amounts of a good that would be offered for sale at all possible prices at any one instance of time. 2. (business definition) The number of units of a product that will be put on the market over a period of time. | |
| supply curve | A graph of the quantity of a product expected to be offered to the market by suppliers at various prices, given that other factors are held constant. | |
| supply house | A middleman selling industrial goods to manufacturers or other business or institutional users. Generally, this is a distributor, wholesaler, or jobber. | |
| supply-pushed innovation | Innovation that is based at least partly on the abilities and outputs of technical engineering and research and development functions. It involves making what the organization is able to make. It is commonly called technology-driven innovation and contrasts with demand-pulled innovation. | |
| support arguments | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| surcharge | An additional charge for performing service that is assessed over and above the base rate. | |
| surround session | An advertising sequence in which a visitor receives ads from one advertiser throughout an entire site visit. | |
| sustainable competitive advantage | A sustainable competitive advantage exists when a firm is implementing a value-creating strategy not simultaneously being implemented by any current or potential competitors and when these other competitors are unable to duplicate the benefits of this strategy. The sustainability of a competitive advantage depends upon the possibility of competitive duplication. Invisible assets may allow a firm to sustain a competitive advantage. | |
| sweepstakes | The offering of prizes to participants, where winners are selected by chance and no consideration is required. | |
| switch trading | A mechanism that can be applied to barter or countertrade. A professional switch trader, switch trading house, or bank steps into a simple barter arrangement, clearing arrangement, or countertrade arrangement when one of the parties is not willing to accept all the goods or the clearing credits in a transaction. The switching mechanism provides a secondary market for countertraded or bartered goods and credits. | |
| Switcher | A consumer who alternates purchases in a product category between two or more brands. | |
| SWM | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| SWOT | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| symbolic interaction | A sociological theory that focuses on the formation of self through interactions with other people. The meaning attached to products is a function of the interaction of the self and others to the object. | |
| symbolic meaning | The psychological and social meanings products have for consumers that go beyond product attributes. | |
| syncratic decision making | A pattern of decision making within a family in which most decisions are made jointly by both spouses. | |
| syndicated barter | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| syndicated research | The information collected on a regular basis that is then sold to interested clients (for example, Nielsen Television Ratings). | |
| syndicated supplement | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| Synectics | The joining together of different and seemingly irrelevant elements and people into a problem-stating and problem-solving group. | |
| systematic risk | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| systematic sample | A probability sample in which every kth element in the population is designated for inclusion in the sample after a random start. | |
| systems design | Refer to “See Also” column to the right. | |
| systems selling | An approach aimed at providing better service and satisfaction to customers, through the design of well integrated groups of interlocking products, together with the implementation of a system of production, inventory control, distribution, and other services, to meet major customers' needs for a smooth-running operation. | |