Green products are typically durable, non toxic, made from recycled materials, or minimally packaged. An important rule in marketing green products is to minimize the sacrifices that consumers must make in order to buy and use 'green' products. Improvements must be substantive, and if possible backed by hard facts.
Different environmental attributes are important in different product categories. Nevertheless, consumers generally feel that the more attributes there are, the better. A good strategy is to offer environmental improvements in several categories at the same time, such as water pollution, solid waste, and manufacturing processes.
When consumers are faced with a trade-off between product attributes, the environment almost always loses. Many products that require consumers to make such trade-offs have failed to establish themselves in the marketplace.
The reason why environmental marketers fail to attract customers and consumers to switch to green products:
i. Not marketed align with green benefits
The top reasons consumers do not buy green products included beliefs that they require sacrifices such as inconvenience, higher costs, lower performance without significant environmental benefits. Ironically, despite what consumers think, a plethora of green products available in the marketplace are in fact desirable because they deliver convenience, lower operating costs, and/or better performance. Often these are not marketed along with their green benefits, so consumers do not immediately recognize them as green and form misperception about their benefits.
ii. Lack of information and education
Consumer heading off to supermarkets and health food stores in search of greener goods need to know to t ...