| Course | MT202 Building Customer Sales and Loyalty |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 2 |
| Paper type | Buyer profile |
| Length | About 840 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MT202 Unit 2
Two Storefronts, Three Cafe Accounts and a Register That Never Balances: A Unit 2 Buyer Profile
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
MT202: Building Customer Sales and Loyalty
Unit 2 Buyer Profile
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Juniper Street Bakery, its owner, staff and every figure are composite and illustrative; bracketed figures stand where a real account file would supply the numbers; the sources cited are real.
Account Header
Juniper Street Bakery operates two storefronts in Des Moines and a wholesale side that supplies pastries to three cafes. Annual revenue sits in the range of [$1.1 to $1.4 million], about a fifth of it wholesale. It employs nineteen people, including a head baker, two shift leads and part-time counter staff. The owner, Celia Marsh, founded the first shop eleven years ago and opened the second four years ago.
Who Decides and Who Influences
Webster and Wind (1972) described organizational purchases as decisions made by a buying center, a group whose members play the roles of user, influencer, buyer, decider and gatekeeper. Juniper Street is small, but its buying center is real. Celia is the decider and signs every contract. The head baker, Tomas, is a user and an influencer: a new system would cost him a morning of training and change how he logs wholesale orders, and Celia trusts his judgment on anything that touches the kitchen. The outside accountant is an influencer with a near veto, because any system that complicates month-end reconciliation will be rejected on her advice. The shift leads are users who will run the registers every day. No one acts as a gatekeeper in the formal sense, but Celia screens all vendor calls herself, so a representative who cannot reach her reaches no one.
The Problem in Her Words
Celia describes three problems. Saturday lines at the original shop run out the door from eight to eleven, and she believes some customers leave. Cash drawers at both stores rarely reconcile at close, which costs a shift lead twenty to forty minutes a night. And the bakery throws out croissants and morning buns every afternoon because nobody can see what sold at which store by the hour.
Separating symptoms from cause matters here. The long line is partly a register problem, since the current machines are slow, but it is mainly a staffing and layout problem the system cannot solve. The drawer errors and the waste share one cause: the bakery has no item-level sales data. A system that reports sales by item, by hour and by store addresses two of her three complaints, and a representative who promises to fix the line will lose credibility when the line stays.
Budget
The bakery currently pays [about $140 a month] for an old register service with no reporting. A new system would cost [$2,500 to $4,000] in hardware for both stores plus monthly software fees of [$150 to $250] and card processing in the range of [2.6 to 2.9 percent]. Celia has said she could spend the hardware cost from savings, but she reacts strongly to any increase in processing fees, since card sales are about 80 percent of her revenue.
Why She Keeps Saying Not Yet
This section deserves the most attention, because her hesitation is not about price. Three years ago Juniper Street switched its online ordering vendor, and the new system failed on a Saturday in December. The bakery lost a weekend of preorders, and Celia spent Sunday calling customers to apologize. She now associates any system change with that weekend.
Her second concern is staff. Two of her counter employees are in their sixties and have used the same registers for a decade. She worries that a touch screen system will slow them down and embarrass them in front of customers.
Her third concern is control of her data. She has heard that some providers make it hard to export sales history, and she does not want to be locked in.
Sheth (1973) noted that industrial buyers weigh perceived risk alongside price and that past experience shapes how much risk they see in a new supplier. For Celia, perceived risk is the decision. Any proposal must show how the switch avoids a December failure, how her longest-serving staff will be trained, and how she can take her data with her.
Celia is not weighing a register; she is weighing whether December can happen again.
Buying Stage
Kotler and Keller (2016) describe buyers moving through five stages, beginning when a problem is recognized and ending with how the buyer feels after purchase; the second of those stages is searching for information. Celia is in the information search stage. She recognizes the problem and has asked two other bakery owners what they use, but she has not requested quotes. A representative who arrives with a proposal will be early. One who arrives offering a January installation, a parallel week with the old registers running, and a written data export guarantee will be answering the questions she is already asking.
References
Kotler, P., & Keller, K. L. (2016). Marketing management (15th ed.). Pearson.
Sheth, J. N. (1973). A model of industrial buyer behavior. Journal of Marketing, 37(4), 50-56. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224297303700408
Webster, F. E., & Wind, Y. (1972). A general model for understanding organizational buying behavior. Journal of Marketing, 36(2), 12-19. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224297203600204
Reading the MT 202 Unit 2 instructions
In Unit 2 the assignment is usually a profile of one buyer, either an individual or a person buying for a business, written as a working document rather than an essay. Most prompts ask for basic facts about the buyer or the organization, who takes part in the decision, the problem the buyer is trying to solve, what the buyer can spend and what stands in the way. Many sections teach the buying center roles of user, influencer, buyer, decider and gatekeeper, and expect each role assigned to a real person. A composite buyer is usually accepted when you are not in sales yourself. Separate the symptoms the buyer describes from their underlying cause, since later units build on that distinction. Close by placing the buyer in a stage of the buying process. Two pages is typical, with labeled sections and APA 7 references.
How this MT202 Unit 2 example is built
The profile begins with an account header covering two storefronts, a wholesale side serving three cafes, nineteen staff and a revenue range left in brackets. The buying center section assigns roles: the owner decides, the head baker is a user whose trust she values, and the accountant can veto anything that complicates month-end. The problem section quotes the owner on Saturday lines, drawers that never balance and croissants thrown out each afternoon, then shows that two of the three share one cause, the lack of item-level sales data. A margin note marks why the line problem is set aside as something the product cannot fix. Budget follows, with her sensitivity to card processing fees. The hesitation section covers the December failure, her oldest staff and data lock-in, with Sheth on perceived risk, and a closing paragraph places her in information search.
MT202 Unit 2 rubric: what earns full points
Marks on a buyer profile usually follow how real the buyer seems and how useful the document would be to a salesperson. Assigning each buying center role to a named position earns more than listing the roles. A problem section that separates symptoms from cause shows analysis rather than description, and graders tend to reward the writer who admits what the product cannot fix. The budget should be specific enough to plan around, even if figures are bracketed as estimates. The hesitation section is often weighted heavily, since it is the hardest part to write well and the part later units depend on. A buying stage placement, with a reason, closes the profile properly. Citations to Webster and Wind, Sheth and Kotler and Keller should apply the frameworks to this buyer, and APA 7 governs both in-text citations and the list.
Common MT202 Unit 2 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Thin buyer profiles describe demographics such as age, income and location and never reach the decision itself. Another frequent problem is a hesitation section of one line, such as worrying about cost, which gives later units nothing to answer. Some writers assign every buying center role to the same person, which hides the influencers who can stop a sale. Others list problems the product will solve without checking whether the buyer actually has them. Keep the details consistent, because graders notice when a budget does not match the size of the business. If your buyer is invented, build the profile from patterns you have seen in a real workplace. Tell us the kind of buyer and product your section allows, and our writers can draft a profile with a believable buying center and a hesitation section later units can draw on.
Get an MT202 Unit 2 example written to your instructions
Choose a buyer, from your own job, a business you know or a composite your section allows, and attach the Unit 2 instructions and rubric. The profile gets built in labeled blocks around that buyer's decision, hesitation included, and arrives in 24-48h. The first custom sample carries no charge, and identifying details stay changed. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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MT202 Unit 2 questions, answered
Should the buyer be a business or an individual consumer?
Follow the prompt, since sections differ. Business buyers make the buying center easier to show, because several people shape one decision. Individual consumers work too, particularly for large purchases where a spouse or family member influences the choice. Whichever you choose, the profile should describe someone who could realistically decline, which is what later units will build on.
Can the profile be of an invented buyer?
Many sections accept a composite buyer, especially if you are not currently in sales. Build it from real patterns you have seen, and keep the details consistent across blocks, since graders notice when a budget contradicts the business size. Label it as a composite if your instructor asks. Real buyers from your work need identifying details changed.
How much detail belongs in the hesitation section?
More than most students give it. A single line saying the buyer worries about cost leaves nothing for later units to work with. Describe what happened before, what the buyer fears will happen again, and who else shares that fear. That level of detail lets your objection script and presentation address a real concern later in the term.
Where can I find a free MT202 Unit 2 sample paper?
This page holds a full MT202 Unit 2 buyer profile of a composite bakery owner weighing a point-of-sale system. It maps her buying center, separates symptoms from cause, explains her hesitation and includes three sources and margin notes.
Why does the sample say the new system will not fix the Saturday line?
Because the line comes mainly from staffing and layout, not the registers. Promising to fix it would cost the representative credibility when the line stayed, so the profile limits the claim to the problems item-level sales data actually solves.