In the UK, ethical businesses are not as successful as less ethical businesses. Discuss - Essay Example

The reason for lesser success among ethical businesses in the market is that there is a lack of awareness among potential customers concerning origins of most products. This ignorance has made it extremely difficult for ethical businesses to not only promote themselves, but also to achieve the sales margins that less ethical businesses achieve (Anand and Rosen, 2008). Furthermore, the most popular brands available for customers tend to be those that are owned by less ethical companies and this situation makes it harder for ethical businesses to compete with them at the same level.

Therefore, while most ethical businesses spend much money in advertising their products, less ethical ones, which have been in the market longer, do not need to spend as much since they have established firm customer bases. Further, less ethical businesses take advantage of all favourable market conditions available to ensure that they reduce their costs of production as well as distribution and this is done in such a way that they do not necessarily have to observe ethical values. They take advantage of cheaper labour, greater means of production as well as favourable government policies to ensure that their products are not only cheaper, but also abundant in the market.

This is an aspect of current business environment, which many ethical businesses cannot compete with because they are based on achieving ethical observances such as fairer prices for producers as well as fair wages for those who provide labour. In the end, it is difficult for these companies to keep their prices low because they have to recover their costs; a major disadvantage when compared to less ethical companies. In recent years, less ethical businesses have had an edge over ethical businesses based on their having been firmly established in the market for much longer than their counterparts have.

This has made it quite difficult for ethical businesses