People hold that marketing is expensive and causes products to be overpriced? agree or disagree and why?

Answer 1

Marketing can be expensive. However the increase in sales should offset the marketing cost. It should even result in much greater profits. Therefore, the seller really should not be upping the price of the item, as the advertising should bring much bigger profits.

Answer 2

True. Marketing IS expensive and does cause products' prices to go up.

But look at it this way - if the product(s) is not marketed, how can the general populace know that you have something to sell?

Marketing is a necessary evil. :-)

Answer 3

I disagree. Lots of factors affect price, such as:

-rising gas prices
-increased transportation/shipping costs
-weather/disease (for agricultural crops)
-immigration issues (migrant worker population is much less due to Homeland Security measures and border laws; also, many immigrants are working in construction instead of agriculture, so farms are paying real wages so their crops don't rot in the fields)
-shoplifting/crime (a loss to the store is still a loss and consumers usually have to shoulder that burden with higher prices)
-labor laws/increases in minimum wage (California's minimum wage increases in 2007, that makes it more costly for shops to run their business, that cost is also passed to the consumer)
-union strikes (affects production, e.g., manufacturing or automotive industries)
-rising interest rates, increase in consumer debt (costs people more to borrow money for purchases)

The increase in marketing expense is insignificant when compared with all the other factors affecting cost of products/services rendered.