Chapter 18. Sales Promotion and Personal Selling by Nokia.

Nokia just announced the results of this year's third quarter sales report.  The numbers showed that the net sales for this period were EUR 8 980 million. 57% of this figure represent sales of mobile and smart devices. Lets have a better look at what helps the company to generate such profits.

Nokia sells most of its products via retailers, wholesalers and online Internet stores. Company does not invest in opening of new retail stores either due to the lack of profit or recession hardship. The company pushes its products with the popular service carriers from Verison, T-Mobile and AT&T in the US to the Orange, Life :), MTS in Europe and to the Aircel and China Mobile in Asia. Even though the manufacturer is willing to provide the retailers with all the necessary training about the product it has little to no influence on the consumer. For instance lack of companies retail stores in the US makes it harder for Nokia to compete with the growing force of the Apple Inc.

Nevertheless, Nokia is engaged in different activities for promotion of its products. The most common tools used by Nokia are rebates, coupons and loyalty programs. Mail in rebate and free shipping are offered to customers who are renewing their contracts and subscribing to particular service providers. Customers can receive Nokia's coupons and promotional codes from such websites as retailmenot.com or goodshop.com. By buying Nokia's products you can also contribute to some cause. Company promises to donate 4.5 % of the sale to charities, which makes costumers feel involved in making this world into a better place to live.

Nokia's loyalty program invites its customers to join Nokia's Club and receive assistants with any questions and concerns and be first ones to receive news on the recently launched devices and the future plans on innovation of companies products.

Even though Nokia is saying that they are on a way of a good improvement since 2008 (year of introduction of IPhone) I believe that the lack of personal selling is the milestone for the company. They are one step away from launching Windows Phone and the product of such magnitude will require a lot of customer support, which can be provided only at specialized stores.