American Marketing Association Code of Ethics - Essay Example

SALES ETHICS IS NOT AN OXYMORON Your name Class name Date of submission Sales ethics refer to a code of principles and guidelines that should guide businesses in making sales. Ethics refer to a moral aspect of a subject. Therefore sales ethics is majorly concerned about the moral aspect of sales. Oxymoron refers to the opposite of the other in a contradictory context. The stamen that sales ethics is an oxymoron therefore implies that ethics is not applied in sales. This is considered so hugely because the sales are about convincing buyers using any means to buy your product (Barnett, Brown and Herbert 1998, 719). I disagree to that statement although ethics is to a large extent taken for granted in business. I feel that sales ethics is a topic of discussion to determine the various right and wrong morals that affect ethics in sales (Koehn 1999, 38). A sale being the process of selling goods and services to customers involves quite a lot of communication with the potential buyer. It has been discovered that most of the people give a lot of attention to moral issues. This therefore has demystified the way sales people approach and talk to their customers (Bone and Corey 1998, 107). The sales person can employ various techniques to lure the buyer into purchasing that product. Using false information to make the product saleable is unethical. This is so because usually the customer purchases a product out of trust hence the seller is obligated to be honest about the information he gives. Moral standards however are not observed in business. Deception and dishonesty are used as a norm to conduct business (FTC 1998). These malpractices are manifested are manifested through payment of bribes to secure tenders, conniving with officials to sell illegal and substandard products and evasion to pay taxes. Deception occurs when customers are made to believe that they have received value for money when actually they have not. Deception takes many forms. Misleading the buyer about the content of the product is one way of deception. Erroneously omitting critical information about a product and or providing false information about a product also constitutes deception. This causes the consumers to have doubts about the products hence change brands. This is because the customer does not get the expected value. Deception also occurs when pricing of products. A customer is made to believe that a certain product costs a certain amount which is actually more than it ought to cost. It could also happen when implying falsely that your products cost cheaper than those of your competitors. Lying about the actual performance of a product is deception. This can further be manifested in improper packaging of products that may influence the buyer’s decision. Some organizations provide fake warranty for their products which they do not honor. This is a gross form of deception. Sales ethics has also been critically studied in relation to advertising. Marketers should be cautious on how they formulate their advertisements. To some customers, publications sponsored by a particular product could be offensive. The materials for TV, radio or newspaper advertising should be sensitive to the society’s expectations (Sirgy, Lee, Kosenko and Lee 1998, 126). Products advertising sexual images are considered offensive to many societies hence caution should be taken to design such advertisements. International adverts portray so much about the host country. Depending on how a product is, the reactions to it could either be negative or positive. If a society feels offended by certain products they may complain against selling the product in public. Hence all adverts must be edited to incorporate the society’s values and moral standards. Direct sales are being implemented by very many organizations. Without proper planning, it may result to massive rejection by the customers. Persistent and annoying calls to follow up on purchase of products can be annoying and irritating. This has therefore made the direct selling association to regulate this practice by publishing a list of voluntary guidelines. In order to implement ethics in sales, the expected levels of justice, moral rights and wrong should be fully integrated in sales planning and decision making. A common practice by many businesses is to conduct their activities in the interest of the business. For a business to gain a big share of the market, it should strive to fulfill the customer’s requirements. This includes producing quality goods and giving exceptional services. The targeted market usually has its beliefs customs hence for a sales person to make high sales he must ensure compliant to those morals. This is the most practical way to gain market advantage. This therefore asserts the fact that ethics influence sales to a very high degree. The market economy has undergone a series of dynamics due to global competition. This has made the concept of ethics to be of great significance. The past tendencies showed that businesses were only concentrating into producing good products. This has however undergone a paradigm shift into incorporating ethics and the products. This is the case because organizations realized that the concept of ethics was very pertinent to be ignored (Gustafson, Popovich and Thomsen 1999). It was discovered that customers embraced organizations that practiced ethics wholly becoming loyal to their products and services. Unethical sales methods results tom loss of business through loss of trust and sometimes costs of litigation might rise to undesirable levels. Ethical issues put an obligation to businesses to always stand accountable for their actions. The government should establish relevant institutions to regulate and check on unethical business practices. Interest groups like consumer insight have raised awareness on the need for regulating marketing practices. For instance the Federal Trade Commission and other agencies were formed to formulate policies that could be used to reduce market malpractices. These industries are also tasked to developing a general code of conduct that would be used by all industrial groups and businesses in marketing. For instance the American Marketing Association has clearly outlined code of ethics. These guidelines are accessible to all market players. This will enable them to regulate themselves in order to comply with them. The code of ethics can also be used in formulating a marketing strategy for the organization. The government has also clearly defined the penalties for defying enforcing this code of ethics. Hence the market players will have no alternative but rather to implement it. Being a big tool for marketing, various organizations success is dependent on how the code is implemented. Sales ethics encompasses both the acceptable and the unacceptable practices. Although there are inherent unethical instances that are prevalent in business, there are sets of principles that guide business. A series of dishonest transactions between sales people and buyers results to mistrust and loss of customers. This is a sure way to kill businesses but then most have survived through. This is testimony that there are those that are guided by ethics in business transactions. The greatest misunderstanding about ethics in sales is about the true meaning of ethics and morality. There is no standard measure to what constitutes right or wrong ethics and ethical morals. Morals refer to norms, values and beliefs that define a societies view of things. Ethics refer to the study of this morals and how they influence reasoning in the society. A study on ethics and morality reveals that morals have more influence than ethics. This is so due to the fact that everyone belongs to a community that embraces particular believes on morality as concerns a particular activity. This influences their decision on what constitutes right or wrong in relation to a particular situation. The essence of ethics is therefore to harmonize these varied moral perceptions. This has left majority divided over the issue of ethics. The bid to standardize the morals and set a standard code of ethics is trying to proof an elusive mission. This is so because many theories have been put forward to explain these concepts. There is a need to harmonize all these propositions and cultural issues related to quality. The management should also lead others in implementing the ethical aspects in sales. This involves initiating programs to sensitize all the staff about the significance of ethical values and how they influence business. Businesses that inculcate good ethics that are in sync with the society receive wide acceptance hence high sales. In conclusion, Sales ethics is a very wide and amorphous subject that should be carefully researched. Ethics vary from one community to another globally hence it is quite challenging to strike a common position that really defines ethics. Sales ethics cannot be said to be an oxymoron simply because a few unethical things happen in sales. This is because ethics has become an integral aspect to determine the market share for various businesses. This has made organizations to appreciate the fact that their consumers are driven by sound morals even in making purchases. Ethics is increasingly being considered alongside quality in product design. Thus it can conclusively be said that malpractices in sales ethics resulted because customers had not expressly shown disapproval to unethical practices. This resulted in organizations thinking that it was normal to abuse the ethical code of conduct. This thus shows that consumers are the drivers of what defines sales ethics. Bibliography American Marketing Association. American Marketing Association Code of Ethics. New York: Author, 1998. Barnett, Tim, Bass, Ken, Brown, Frederick, and Hebert. J. “Ethical Ideology and the Ethical Judgments of Marketing Professionals.” Journal of Business Ethics 17, no. 7 (1998): 715- 723. Bone, Paula , and Corey, Robert J. “Moral Reflections in Marketing.” Journal of Macromarketing 18, no. 2 (1998): 104-114. Federal Trade Commission. “FTC Guides against Deceptive Pricing.” Federal Trade Commission: Protecting America’s Consumers. 1998. http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/guides/decptprc.htm Gustafson, Robert, Popovich, Mark, and Thomsen, Steven. “The 'Thin' Ideal.” Marketing News March 15 (1999):22. Koehn, Daryl. “Business Ethics Is Not a Contradiction.” San Antonio Business Journal 12, no.49 (1999): 38. Sirgy, M. Joseph, Lee, Dong-Jin, Kosenko, Rustan, and Lee, H. “Does Television Viewership Play a Role in the Perception of Quality of Life?” Journal of Advertising 27, no. 1 (1998): 125-142. Read More