Portobello Road and the 4P's (Continued)

The second of the 4P's are Place and Promotion.


Place - The place or placement of products can be very important to how they sell in a marketplace.  At Portobello Road the vendors are arranged into stalls of different sizes, with many products laid out on tables or hung on a clothes rack.  This way, the products better grab your attention as you walk by and you will be more tempted to purchase an item since you can clearly see it on a table.  This especially applies to food vendors because all of their food/produce is fresh, as you can clearly see from the positioning/placement of the products and the fact that most of them make their food, such as crepes, sausages, and hamburgers, right in front of you.  All of this is done for a specific reason: to get the consumer to notice their product in the fastest way possible.

Promotion - In my opinion, promotions are the most important aspect of marketing and the 4P's because no matter what the actual product, price, or placement of an item is, consumers always need to think that they are getting a good "deal" and they will be more likely to purchase from your stall.  There were many promotions at Portobello Market.  Everywhere you looked there were signs with deals, such as the donut I ate.  All of the fresh pastries were "3 for £3" (or £1.20 each).  With this promotion they are enticing you to purchase more than one donut/pastry, specifically at least 3, in order to get the better price per item.  Another deal I noticed was on women's scarves; there was a promotion for "Up To 50% Off!"  There was even a deal on prepackaged chocolate where you could by "3 for £1".  They connect with their target markets more easily this way because they give off the illusion of being nice and offering you a good deal on the products you want, and will therefore (hopefully) generate loyalty to that particular product or vendor during another visit.  Vendors would rather you purchase items, even if it is at a discount, than walk away without buying anything at all.  By using these promotions, vendors are trying to get you to purchase more than one item and in return they will give you a discount.