Unsought Products and Examples of Unsought Products

Unsought Products Definition

Unsought products are those products that consumers do not usually seek or look for or a product that the average consumer may not even be aware of because it is unpleasant to think about. These are products that may also need to be a personal demonstration to convenience the consumer to buy.

Unsought products typically are products that the consumer does not think about, so they do not seek the specific product.

Unsought products are often sold through Marketing, advertising, and personal selling. These products require a high degree of advertisement, marketing, and aggressive sales strategy. This is necessary because consumers unawareness of the product or no real desire to purchase it. Another major hurdle with unsought goods is that there is often no urgent, tangible benefit obtained at purchase, and so, no incentive to make the purchase.

Good examples are microwaves, dishwashers, and frozen food. Some years back, these products were unsought goods, and not until significant marketing advertisements, personal selling, and referral groups made consumers knowledgeable about these products and converted to sought products.

Again, these are products that a consumer does not seek out but purchases out of fear, precaution, or need.

Example of Unsought Products

Some good examples of unsought products include;

• Burial plot Life insurance 
• Accident insurance
• Prepaid funeral plans 
• Survival gears
• Nursing home insurance 
• Vacuum cleaners 
• Smoke detectors
• Reference books
• Long-term or short-term disability insurance and
• Completely new and innovative products, like touch screen smartphones when they first came out. 

Burial Plots as an Example of Unsought Product

A very widely given example in terms of unsought good as burial plots. You generally may want to buy a burial plot. But nobody keeps in mind that they have to buy a burial plot. It is good that the consumers do not seek.

Another Example of Unsought Products insurance.

How many of us wake up in the morning very excited that they’re going to buy insurance today? Not many of us, at least not me, right? So, in that case, it’s an unsought good. The consumer is not seeking to buy insurance.

It’s something that they have to do, but it’s not something that they seek.

If you are selling unsought products/ goods, then one of the things that you will need to do is you will need to get yourself in the consumer’s mind. That’s what you have to advertise a lot so that you are on top of the consumer’s mind.

When it comes time for the consumer to seek your product, and there will come a time when the consumers will have to seek your product; hopefully, they will buy your brand over your competitor’s brand.

Another example of an unsought product could be reference books. College students and graduates don’t buy reference books. The main reason is lack of desire and fear that the product will not provide you the exact value of your money.

Other Different Types of Products

The different types of goods are convenience goods, shopping goods, specialty goods, and unsought goods.

Convenience Products

Convenience products refer to a type the product is associated with convenience.  When consumers seek convenience products, they want convenience; they want the product to be available everywhere.

If you’re selling a convenience product, which is basically products that the consumers want convenience, you have to make it available almost everywhere. If they are not available, the customer will most likely switch to your competitors’ products.

Convenience products is a product that the consumer is not going to spend a lot of time looking for.

When you’re selling a convenience product, you want to make sure you do a comprehensive distribution strategy. You want to make your product available almost everywhere.

Examples of Convenience Goods

Examples of convenience products are commodity products like salt, sugar, eggs, milk, and maybe a beer.

Beer is also an example of a convenience product.

Shopping Products

Shopping goods and convenience goods are different in the sense that consumers will generally shop around for. Shopping products are not something that the consumer is looking for convenience. Still, they are looking for comparison shopping, so they want to look around for alternative products that will provide them with more value.

When the price is high, then the consumer wants to know where the price is lower. When a higher quality competitive product is available somewhere, the consumers also want to know that it gives the consumers different value.

So, the consumer will shop around for the product, and one of the reasons they do is shopping for products that are more expensive than convenience products. Convenience products are generally cheaper products as well in terms of pricing strategy.

If you’re selling convenience products, then you have to price the products cheaper, and you also have to match your competitors in terms of pricing.

You cannot charge higher than your competitors because the consumer will not use your product and choose your competitors’ product.

But in shopping products, there is more leeway for the company in terms of their pricing strategy because consumers will shop around and look at other different product attributes that the consumer is looking for. Consumers have their own unique tastes so that they will shop around for the product.

If you are selling a shopping product, you don’t need to be available everywhere. For example, Samsung TV, and if you’re selling television, you will just make it available in select stores.

Customers will go to Samsung’s target outlet, and they do not expect a shopping product like television to be available at a grocery store or a gas station.

Examples of Shopping Products

Examples of shopping products include television, maybe furniture’s.

Suppose you think about another example of stopping products like furniture. In that case, there will be a few furniture stores around town, and consumers will drive around those specific furniture stores to look for the shopping product that they want to buy.

Specialty Products.

As the name suggests, these are special products for the consumers. In the case of specialty products, the product doesn’t have to be available everywhere or for geographical reasons.

Because the specialty product is so special for the consumers that consumers will take it upon themselves to seek them to get their hands on their product.

And specialty products don’t need to be expensive, but specialty products have to be special for the consumers, and many times these are expensive luxurious products.

Specialty Products Examples

If I want to buy a car, then generally, the car will be considered a shopping product, a car will be considered a shopping good because I will go around town looking at different car brands and the different dealerships to buy a car.

But if I wanted to buy a Lamborghini and there is no Lamborghini dealership around town. Then what would I do? Then I will drive maybe more than a few hours to get to the dealership to get my Lamborghini.

And if the nearest Lamborghini dealer were in Jacksonville, Florida, which is three hours away, or in Atlanta, which is four hours away, I would drive to Atlanta. I would drive to Jacksonville to get my hands on the Lamborghini because it’s a special product.

Another example is Rolex Watches; if there was no dealership in town that we’re selling Rolex watches, maybe I will drive a long way to get my hands on the specialty product.

Summary on Convenience Products, Shopping Products, specialty Products, and Unsought Products

Convenience products should be available conveniently everywhere are then really cheaper in terms of pricing strategy.

If you think about the shopping products, stopping products is what the consumers will shop around for. So, you don’t need to have extensive distribution for stopping products. Also, there is more leeway for you to price their products in pricing because the consumers are shopping around for value. They have more attributes that they might be looking for more benefits than they might be looking for when shopping for a shopping product.

And thinking about specialty products, the distribution does not need to be extensive, like if you have one place where you are selling your product within a specific geographic reason, then the consumers nearby we’ll drive to that geographic reason to buy our products, so you don’t need to have extensive distribution.

Consumers are generally less price-sensitive when it comes to specialty products because there are not many alternatives available. Even if there are alternatives available, the consumers want the product because it is special to them.

There might be a Ferrari store right nearby, That’s also especially at the product. But if I want a Lamborghini, I will drive four hours to the Lamborghini story instead of going half an hour to buy a Ferrari. No Ferrari store, right because and that is why consumers are less price-sensitive when it comes to especially good.

The distribution system is not very important, and there is more leeway for you in pricing your product than if you were selling a convenience good or shopping.