What is personal sellings most important advantage when compared with television advertising personal selling?

Definition: Personal selling is also known as face-to-face selling in which one person who is the salesman tries to convince the customer in buying a product. It is a promotional method by which the salesperson uses his or her skills and abilities in an attempt to make a sale.

Description: Personal selling is a face-to-face selling technique by which a salesperson uses his or her interpersonal skills to persuade a customer in buying a particular product. The salesperson tries to highlight various features of the product to convince the customer that it will only add value. However, getting a customer to buy a product is not the motive behind personal selling every time. Often companies try to follow this approach with customers to make them aware of a new product.

The company wants to spread awareness about the product for which it adopts a person-to-person approach. This is because selling involves personal touch, a salesperson knows better how to pitch a product to the potential customer. Personal selling can take place through two different channels – through retail and through direct-to-consumer channel. Under the retail channel, a sales person interacts with potential customers who come on their own to enquire about a product. The job of the salesperson is to make sure that he understands the need of the customers and accordingly shows various products that he keeps under that category. Under the direct channel, a salesperson visits potential customers in an attempt to make them aware about a new product that the company is launching or it may have a new offer which the customers may not get from the open market.

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What is Personal Selling?

Introduction

Personal selling is also known as the act of convincing a customer to buy a given product or device. It is also considered to be one of the most costly and effective promotional methods that are ever seen. It is effective as there is a face-to-face interaction observed between the seller and the buyer which helps the seller to change their promotional techniques used as the situation asks for. If you have been wanting to know more about Personal Selling - Concept, Importance, Advantages, and Limitations then now you can check out this article through Vedantu to get a detailed view on personal selling and the concepts that are involved.

Personal Selling is yet another type of selling initiative by the business companies, a way to persuade the local people to try their products. Personal Selling is surely one of the distinctive methods which are used by the selling strategists to achieve their goal of selling a destined quantity of sales. 

In our discussion, we have included this interesting topic of ‘Personal Selling’, and to further strengthen our knowledge we have discussed the pros and cons related to this.

Concept of Personal Selling

Personal selling is face-to-face selling where one person who is the salesman tries to convince the customer to buy a product assigned by the company. It is a promotional activity by which the salesperson uses his or her skills and abilities to persuade people to buy the product thereby in an attempt to make a sale.

Here, the salesperson tries to highlight the features of the product to convince the customer that the product will hold benefits in the long term. However, getting a customer to buy a product is not always the motive behind personal selling, this personal selling is also done to make the customers aware of new products in the market. 

Personal Selling Examples

Personal selling is where businesses use the sales force to sell the product after meeting the customer face-to-face.

The sellers advertise these products through their skills such as attitude, appearance, and specialist product knowledge. The salesperson informs and encourages the customer to buy or at least try the product.

A unique example of personal selling is found in the department stores on the perfume and cosmetic counters. A customer can get advice on how to apply the product, its specialties and can try different related products, these all are guided by the personal selling staff present there. Products with high prices, and with complex features, are often sold using this type of technique. Examples: Cars and many products that are sold by businesses to other industrial customers.

Importance of Personal Selling 

The following points explain the importance of personal selling:

1. Two-Way Communication:

This is the best tool for personal selling. Salesmen can provide necessary information to customers about the company's offer, and also can collect feedback from customers. He can ask if there are any queries about the product to the salesman present for personal selling. 

2. Personal Attention:

Advertising and publicity are among mass communication tools, and thus personal selling is concentrated and is focused on one individual, this will result in ineffective results. 

3. Detail Demonstration:

Television demonstrations are limited; thus, salesmen can provide a detailed demonstration and can supervise the customer through personal selling.

4. Complementary to other Promotional Tools:

Personal selling supports advertising, sales promotion, and publicity. Personal Selling even removes the drawbacks of advertising and its sales promotion. 

5. Immediate Feedback:

This is the only market promotion technique that provides immediate feedback from the customers. 

Advantages of Personal Selling 

The Advantages of Personal Selling are as follows - 

• This is a two-way communication where the selling agent gets instant feedback from the prospective buyer about their intention to buy. 

• This is an interactive form of selling, which helps in building trust with the customer. While selling high-value products like cars, the customer must trust the product and thus personal selling is needed. 

• Personal Selling is a persuasive form of selling as in this type of sale the customers come face to face with the salesperson where it is not easy to dismiss them, there is an effort of the customer to listen to them.

• Direct selling helps in reaching the audience. 

Limitations of Personal Selling 

• It is an expensive method of selling that requires high capital costs.

• Also, this method involves many labours as it is a labour-intensive method as a large sales force is needed to carry out personal selling successfully.

• The training of the salesperson for personal selling is also a very time-consuming and costly process.

• The method can only reach a limited number of people, it does not provide mass advertisements like TV or Radio ads.

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