GCSE Business: Marketing, People and Influences

Most of the marks on this half of the course go to questions that hand you a situation and ask you to name what is happening in it, or to say what a firm should do next and why. So every question here is a situation first: a console launched cheaply against established rivals, a florist selling from its own website, a board game whose sales have levelled off, a furniture maker buying imported wood as the pound falls, a coffee chain paying five pence more for a cup that will rot.

The wrong options are the terms students actually reach for by mistake. Skimming for penetration, because both are about the launch price. Growth for maturity, because both describe a product that is selling. Job rotation for job enrichment, because both change what someone does all day. Qualitative for quantitative, because the survey was about an opinion even though the answer is a count. Each explanation says why the right term fits the situation and why the near miss does not.

The set covers the marketing mix across price, place and product, primary and quantitative research, segmentation, internal and external recruitment, motivation through job design, tall structures and spans of control, and two influences from outside the firm — an exchange rate movement and an ethical choice with a cost attached.

Every business here is invented and every figure is inside the question, so nothing depends on a case study you cannot see. Exam board specifications, past papers and mark schemes are copyright material and nothing here is taken from them.

Zestly is an independent study tool. It is not affiliated with any exam board and it is not an exam centre.

• Identify a pricing strategy from the situation a firm is in, and say why a neighbouring strategy does not fit
• Place a product in the right stage of its life cycle and recognise an extension strategy
• Distinguish primary from secondary research and quantitative from qualitative data in a described study
• Identify the basis on which a market has been segmented
• Choose between internal and external recruitment, and recognise job enrichment as a means of motivation
• Describe a tall structure through its chain of command and span of control
• Explain how a fall in the exchange rate affects an importer, and identify the trade-off in an ethical decision

A board game has sold steadily for six years. Sales have stopped rising but have not begun to fall, and the publisher has just released an expansion pack to keep existing owners buying. Which stage of the product life cycle is the game in, and what is the expansion pack? — one of ten questions written for this set, alongside pricing, e-commerce, segmentation, recruitment, motivation, structure and outside influences.