Early Adopters - the group in a market second only to innovators in the speed with which they adopt a new product. See Diffusion of Innovation; Early Majority; Innovators; Laggards; Late Majority.

Early Majority - the group in a market who are more deliberate than the innovators and the early adopters in making purchase decisions, but less conservative than the late majority and laggards. See Diffusion of Innovation; Early Adopters; Innovators; Laggards; Late Majority.

Economic Environment - factors in the economy, such as inflation, unemployment, interest rates, etc., that influence the buying decisions of consumers and organisations.

Economic Forecast - a prediction of the likely impact on the business environment of factors such as inflation, interest rates, unemployment, government and consumer spending, etc.

Economic Order Quantity - the optimum quantity of each product that must be ordered to balance the inventory holding costs against the order processing costs; holding costs increase with more inventory, while order processing costs decrease.

Economic Utility - the ability of a good or service to satisfy a customer's needs or wants; the five kinds of economic utility are form utility, time utility, place utility, information utility and possession utility.

Economies of Scale - reductions in the price per unit of marketing or manufacturing a product as the quantity marketed or produced increases.

EEC - abbrev. European Economic Community.

Effective Buying Income - an individual's disposable income, consisting of salary and wages, dividends, interest, profits, etc., less all government taxes. See Disposable Income.

EFTPOS - abbrev. Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale.

Ego States - a proposition in transactional analysis that every person has three mental conditions - parent ego state, child ego state and adult ego state, and that at any particular time one of these states is dominant in the personality.

Ego-Drive - the need of one individual to persuade another to a particular point of view and feel satisfaction in having done so.

Eighty-Twenty Principle - see Pareto's Principle.

Elaboration Probes - questions posed by salespeople when positively encouraging prospects to provide additional information about their needs.

Elasticity of Demand - a measure of the degree to which any change in the price of a product will affect the demand for it. See Inelasticity of Demand.

Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale - a system commonly used in retailing in which a consumer pays for purchases by means of an electronic transfer of funds from his or her bank account to that of the store.

Electronic Retailing - the use by customers of computer terminals in conveniently located shopping kiosks to call up product information and then to place orders using credit cards.

Electronic Shelf-Talkers - see Shelf-Talkers

Embargo - a total restriction on a particular good leaving or entering a county; any restriction imposed in the release of information, advertising, etc before a given date.

Embedding - a form of subliminal advertising; the concealing of imagery in various products and advertisements to appeal to the subconscious drives of potential customers. See Subliminal Advertising.

Emergency Goods - a category of consumer goods consisting of items purchased quickly in necessity. See Consumer Goods; Convenience Goods.

Emotional Appeals in Advertising - advertising messages, usually based on imagery rather than information, which attempt to achieve the advertiser's objectives by evoking strong emotionsl feelings (fear, anger, passion, etc) rather than by a rational appeal. See Rational Appeals in Advertising.

Emotional Close - a closing technique in which the salesperson attempts to get a favourable response from a buyer by appealing to his or her fear, pride or similar emotion. See Close.

Emotional Risk - the concern or uncertainty felt by a prospective buyer that he or she will feel bad about the purchase afterwards; also called Psychological Risk. See Risk.

Empathy - the ability of an individual to project his or her own personality into a situation and understand it; a quality deemed desirable in salespeople who must be able to see the product from the buyer's point of view.

Employee Poaching - the act of enticing key employees from one competing firm to another.

Employee Publics - the part of a company's public consisting of its employees. See Publics.

Empty Nesters - those in the stage of the family life cycle where the children have all grown up and left home; typically, empty nesters are at the peak of their earning potential, and are an excellent market for travel, leisure and sporting goods, and home improvement merchandise. See Family Life Cycle.

Encirclement Attack - a competitive strategy used by a strong challenger to attack the market leader; the market challenger launches an attack on several fronts at once in an attempt to break the leader's grip on the market.

Encoding - the translation of a message into code by a sender so that it can be relayed through a medium to a receiver. See Communication Process; Decoding.

Encouragement Probes - question posed by salespeople to get additional information from a prospective buyer.

Endless Chain Method - a prospecting method in which a salesperson asks each customer called upon to suggest the names of other likely purchasers of the same product. See Prospecting.

Endorsements - recommendations to purchase a particular brand of product made in advertisements by well-known personalities or experts.

ENP - abbrev. Expected Net Profit.

Enterprise Competitors - firms of similar type vying for a consumer's business. See Competitors.

Entertainment Marketing - promotion of a product by means of movie tie-ins, endorsement by entertainment industry celebrities, or similar. See Movie Tie-ins; Endorsement.

Entry Barrier - see Market Entry Barrier.

Envelopes and Stubby Pencil - a rough method of calculating the size of the market for a given product, based on the known size of an overseas market.

Environmental Assessment -

Environmental Forecasting - attempting to predict the nature and intensity of the microenvironmental and macroenvironmental forces that are likely to affect a firm's decision making and have an impact upon its performance in a given period.

Environmental Management - see Megamarketing.

Environmental Scanning - the process of examining the internal and external factors which influence the firm's operations and decision making in order to identify market opportunities and threats.

EOQ - abbrev. Economic Order Quantity.

Equipment-Based Services - Services in which machinery or equipment plays a significant role in delivering; for example, automatic telling machines play a significant role in the delivery of banking services. See People-Based Services.

Error Rate - the percentage of errors (wrong items, wrong quantity, wrong address, etc.) made in shipping merchandise to customers.

Escalator Clause - a clause in a contract which allows a tenderer to adjust the final amount charged to take account of price rises in component parts between acceptance of the bid and completion of the delivery, installation, etc.

ESP - see Envelopes and Stubby Pencil.

Esteem Needs - the desire to feel important in the eyes of others. See Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Ethics - see Marketing Ethics.

European Economic Community - a group of European nations acting as a trading block, limiting trade barriers among members and applying common tariffs to products from non-members.

Evaluative Criteria - features of a supplier, product, etc. considered by a buyer when choosing between alternatives; evaluative criteria may be objective or subjective.

Evaluative Probes - questions posed by salespeople to help their understanding of a prospective customer's feelings on a subject.

Evoked Set - brands that a buyer is aware of, and thinks well of, when considering a purchase ; also called the Consideration Set. See Inept Set; Inert Set.

Exchange - the transfer of an object, idea, service, etc. from one person or organisation to another in return for something desired. See Centralised Exchange Processes; Decentralised Exchange Processes.

Exclusive Agreements - agreements between manufacturers and middlemen in which the latter are granted sole rights to distribute a product within a defined territory.

Exclusive Assortment - an assortment strategy in which a reseller decides to carry the product line of only one manufacturer. See Assortment Strategies; Broad Assortment; Deep Assortment; Scrambled Assortment.

Exclusive Dealing Agreement - an arrangement in which a manufacturer prohibits a marketing intermediary from carrying competitors' products.

Exclusive Distribution - restricting the availability of a product to one particular outlet. See Distribution Intensity; Intensive Distribution; Selective Distribution.

Exclusive Sales Territory - a region in which a distributor has been given sole rights to a manufacturer's product.

Exclusivity - see Exclusive Agreements; Exclusive Distribution.

Expectancy-Value Model (of Brand Evaluation) - a model used in the study of consumer decision processes to evaluate alternative brands. In this model, brand attributes are weighted; a consumer's beliefs about each brand's attributes are multiplied by the respective weights to produce a preference ranking of the alternatives. Other models of brand evaluation include the ideal brand model, the conjunctive model, the disjunctive model, the lexicographic model and the determinance model.

Expected Return Model - a forecasting technique used to predict future profits where firms bid for business in an uncertain situation; a method of determining the expected value of a set of alternative outcomes. Total expected return in a given period is the sum of the profit from each job bid for, after each profit has been reduced by a factor corresponding to the degree of probability of the bid being accepted. Also called the Expected Value Method and Expected Value Analysis.

Expected Value Analysis - see Expected Return Model.

Expected Value Method - see Expected Return Model.

Expense Account - a budgeted amount of money advanced to a salesperson for food, travel, accommodation, entertainment of clients, and other items of expenditure considered necessary to make sales.

Expense Quota - the amount budgeted for a salesperson for expenses associated with making sales in a territory; used as a cost control measure by sales managers.

Experience Curve - see Learning Curve.

Experience Curve Pricing - the pricing of a product at a lower than average-cost level on the basis that costs will decrease as production experience increases.

Experimental Research Method - a systematic and scientific approach to marketing research in which the research manipulates one or a number of variables and measures any change in other variables.

Experimental Variables - the variables a researcher manipulates in conducting an experiment; also called Explanatory Variables. See Dependent Variables.

Expert Forecasting Survey - a sales forecasting method in which outside specialists or industry experts - economists, academics, management consultants, advertising executives, etc. - are asked to assist in the preparation of the sales forecast.

Explanatory Variables - see Experimental Variables.

Exploratory Research - desk research undertaken before primary research is commenced in a marketing research study, including an informal search for material from internal, external and secondary sources, interviews and discussions with informed sources, etc. See Marketing Research; Primary Research; Secondary Research.

Exponential Smoothing - a quantitative technique for sales forecasting using historical data weighted to favour the most recent information.

Export-Import Agent - an independent marketing intermediary bringing together buyers and sellers from different countries and taking a commission on sales.

Express Warranty - a manufacturer's guarantee, stated in written or spoken words, that the product offered for sale will satisfactorily perform the task for which it is intended, and to the buyer's reasonable expectations. See Warranty; Implied Warranty; Promotional Warranty; Protective Warranty.

Expressive (Social Style) - one of four social styles (with Amiable, Analytical and Expressive) commonly used to classify salespeople and their customers; Expressives are characterised by high assertiveness and high responsiveness.

Extension Approach to Pricing - an approach to global pricing in which a firm sets the same price for its product around the world and expects purchases to pay whatever additional freight and import costs apply. See Adaptation Approach to Pricing; Geocentric Approach to Pricing.

Extensive Decision Making - see Extensive Problem Solving.

Extensive Problem Solving - buying situations which require considerable effort because the buyer has had no previous experience with the product or suppliers; also called Extensive Decision Making. See Limited Problem Solving; Routine Problem Solving.

External Marketing Environment - relatively uncontrollable factors outside the firm which influence its decision making. See Internal Environment.

External Stimuli - advertisements, posters, coupons, point-of-purchase materials, store displays, etc which give rise to a drive. See Learning Process; Drive.

Extrinsic Rewards - rewards for doing a job which are external to the individual, such as wages, bonuses, incentives, fringe benefits, job promotions, and so on. See Intrinsic Rewards.

Eye Pupil Dilation Test - a physiological method of objectively pre-testing advertisements in which involuntary eye pupil dilation is used to measure the level of interest shown by a particular consumer.