Welcome to the segment place marketing. In this segment, we will learn what a place is at a very fundamental level. We'll learn about cross-country place implications, cross-industry place implications, and how a place can help other mix elements. So, let's get started. Okay, what is a place? Simply put, a place refers to distribution. But much more fundamental than that, it's about selling and buying, all the things that have to be done to enable the matching of Noon Nopi. And there's so many to speak up. So this is what I refer to as being service add-ons. And often times, it's something that the manufacturer himself can't do, it's not something that the consumer, himself or herself, can do, and that is why we need so called middle men. And in a very broad sense, we can think of these add-ons as being an augmented product. So, these are some of the add-ons that have to be added in order to sell the product, things like time. People want to buy when they wanna buy it. Location, they wanna buy where they wanna buy. Variety, they want more than just one product. Quantity, often, they they want to buy it in smaller units but in some cases, especially in a B-to-B sense, they want to buy it in a much larger quantity. And lastly, customization. And that is the ultimate Noon Nopi. So, for example, if you're buying something like a suit, you want it altered on the spot. Of course, you have to pay money for all these services. So, it is ultimately related to pricing as well. So, product, we begin with that, but we have to augment it with time, with location, with variety, with quantity, and lastly, with customization. So, these all add to the ultimate pricing of the product. So, what does this imply for cross-country growth? Let's say that you're starting from Country A1, and you're going to Country A2. Let's also assume that in Country A1 that you have very demanding consumers, consumers who want all of these add-ons. They want it faster, they want it nearer. They want different kinds of products, they want it in smaller lots, they want it customized. Well, that still hold true when you go to A2. They might want something just as fast, they might want something just as near. But in terms of the other add-ons, there may be no need. So the Noon Nopi and ultimately the total product may vary between countries A1 and A2. And so, again, in terms of how you market it, in terms of matching the Noon Nopi, the Noon Nopi may have to be lowered when you go to A2. And of course, the opposite may be true if you're going from A2 to A1. And I think that is what happened in the case of Walmart, where they assumed that all people needed were lower prices and the other add-ons didn't matter, and that certainly was not the case in many countries including South Korea. Also, as we can see, add-ons add to the price and therefore, when you go to A2, the pricing has to be much lower or can be much lower. Okay, so, in terms of cross-industry implications, new technologies enable companies to add add-ons or make existing add-ons even better. And we had a major revolution with the Internet that made things work faster, much more accessible. And even customization can be aided through something like the Internet. So, we can outsource innovation for this distribution add-ons through newer technologies. Newer technologies such as NFC, which makes payment much faster. Okay, so how does place help other marketing mix elements? Let's start with the product. As I explained before, place is part of the product. And so, it can be considered an essential augmented product, such as alterations that I've mentioned before. And so, especially from a POP, point of parody sense, if others are doing it, you too will have to do it. But you can create a point of difference, such as a new potential product, using a GPS to deliver to home. And IT systems enable self-creation of products, as we see with Uniqlo and UTme, where you can, through online systems, self-create your own t-shirts. Okay, how does place help price? As we saw before, the add-ons add to the price of a product, so to the extent that you can leave some of them out. It can help to decrease the price of the product, such as what Ikea does with self-delivery and self-assembly. But on the other side, if you can offer these add-ons for free, as we learned with pricing, if you can lower the total cost to the consumer, that increases the value of the product to the consumer. And with online delivery system, such as with music becoming much more available and it's true with movie streaming like Netflix, that too lowers not only the total cost to you, but also the total cost to the consumers. And place can help promotion, such as by creating this storefront, which acts as the face of a company, a landmark even for very important and famous department stores. And a lot of companies like Apple and Nike are using flagship stores to curate their brand. And stores can use different variations of events to promote their stores such as having a fashion store, a fashion show for VIP patriots. So summing up, place can be thought of as not just distribution, but add-on services that facilitate the Noon Nopi matching between a seller and a buyer. So, from a cross-country perspective, the key here is to test the priority and the configuration of the add-ons across countries from a cross-industry standpoint. We should always be on the lookout for these sources of add-ons by industry, by technology or other innovations taking place elsewhere.
