Partnerships that go places: How to successfully market products from vendor partners at retail stores from the vendors’ perspective

This study constructed a model using multiple attribute decision making (MADM) to evaluate the successful marketing of products from vendor partners at an on-campus training store. We used the 5Ps of marketing (people, product, price, promotion, and place) as the research framework and applied the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) to calculate the weight of each evaluation criterion. A gap analysis was performed on each evaluation criterion, using the modified VlseKriterijumska Optimizcija I Kaompromisno Resenje (modified VIKOR) to identify the important factors that students at an on-campus training store should prioritize for improvement when formulating marketing strategies from vendor partners. The results indicatae that when collaborating with the on-campus training store, vendor partners placed the greatest emphasis on promotion and the least on people. The results indicatae that when collaborating with the on-campus training store, vendor partners placed the greatest emphasis on promotion and the least on people. The evaluation dimensions were ranked according to their weights in descending order as follows: promotion(0.279), product(0.239), price(0.179), place(0.157), and people(0.143). Based on the overall weights of all evaluation criteria featured in present study, vendor partners placed the top five greatest emphasis on product quality and safety assurance(0.088), social media marketing(0.078), price promotion activities(0.071), product uniqueness(0.069), as well as brand advertising and promotion(0.066). The current research provides practical and appropriate strategies for planning successfully product marketing strategies from vendor partners, and further helping vendor partners increase product exposure and attract consumers to purchase their products at the on-campus training store. The findings may help vendor partners increase and improve product exposure and attract consumers to purchase their products.