Comments on: Green Consumers Pull Back – Now What? Recession Strategies For Eco Businesses

By: 10 Tips For Keeping Your Green Business Afloat in 2009 | 4 entrepreneur

10 Tips For Keeping Your Green Business Afloat in 2009 | 4 entrepreneur — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 20:29:40 +0000

[...] I’ve written about before, now is the time to get back to basic marketing principles. I speak from experience, [...]

By: 10 Tips For Keeping Your Green Business Afloat in 2009 : Ecopreneurist

10 Tips For Keeping Your Green Business Afloat in 2009 : Ecopreneurist — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:32:41 +0000

[...] I’ve written about before, now is the time to get back to basic marketing principles. I speak from experience, [...]

By: Five Consumer Benefits You Need To Sell Green | Carbon Emissions Trading

Five Consumer Benefits You Need To Sell Green | Carbon Emissions Trading — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:32:28 +0000

[...] the talk about benefits vs. features in last week’s post, Green Consumers Pull Back- Now What? Recession Strategies For Eco Businesses, reminded me of an NAHB article on green homes in which William H. Kreager, an architect at Mithun [...]

By: Leah Edwards

Leah Edwards — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:17:04 +0000

Thanks for the great post, MC, and for collecting all of these articles and studies.

By: Five Consumer Benefits You Need To Sell Green : Ecopreneurist

Five Consumer Benefits You Need To Sell Green : Ecopreneurist — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:01:48 +0000

By: mcmilker

mcmilker — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 11:06:34 +0000

Brian,

Agreed – the masses won’t buy green unless there is a small price differential …OR a clearly defined superior benefit.

Why does any branded product sell…ever when cheaper store brands are available? That’s really my point with this post…green companies need to go beyond just selling their products as “green” and define what about their product meets a basic need for the consumer that traditional products cannot.

For some organic and natural products that may be feel, taste, comfort, etc. For others that don’t provide a direct physical benefit, the benefit may be emotional – a “feel good” unique benefit.

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 02:18:15 +0000

That is one thing that keeps green products marketable. There is a demand for them but in a recession the demand priorities change to cost-effective green solutions. It is just like diet food. Healthy food is more expensive than junk food. People do want to buy green and eat healthy, but when you lose your job and gas goes up choice goes out the door. If the green companies want to keep or even gain market share in this economy the best thing to do would be to lower prices to that of the cost saving unhealthy ungreen alternatives. Then there is absolutely no reason not to buy green. The masses won’t buy green unless there is a small price differential.

Brian

By: mcmilker

mcmilker — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:18:22 +0000

Great perspective. I agree some of the drop in the difference in price differential is currently just… in theory.

Which, makes it even more necessary for green companies to reassess your marketing strategies.

By: cchiovitti

cchiovitti — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:04:23 +0000

20% higher?

Not from this consumers experience. What I see in just items which we use personally pegs it closer to 50-75% higher – IF I can find things on sale. My green back to school shopping list went out the door when I didn’t have the extra $400 to buy the green stuff. And that’s just the supplies, there is absolutely NO way we can afford the organic clothing. We have cut back to the bare minimum here and still really can’t afford to be as eco-friendly as we’d like to be.

By: cchiovitti

cchiovitti — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:00:36 +0000

20% more. Yes, I can handle that. And I do. Unfortunately, *most* eco-friendly products that I have found are priced WAY more than just 20%. I just finished back-to-school-shopping for my kids and we had to make some tough decisions. If I had gone with the best deals I could find on environmentally alternatives, I would have spent nearly $400.00 more. That is considerably more that 20% higher. And we cannot afford it.

In our stores organic produce is at least twice the price of non-organic. What I, as a consumer, am seeing is a rough average of 50% to 75% more for green products. Sometimes even higher. We simply do not have the means to “cut back” in other areas, so we just try to do whatever we can that doesn’t cost anything. Every little bit helps.