L

Laggards
those who are the last to buy a new product

Lead time
the time gap between one event and another

Legitimate power
power based on legitimate authority, such as line management

Licensing
a contractual arrangement in which a licensor provides a licensee with certain rights, e.g. to technology access or production rights

Life cycle
the stage people have reached in their life, from single at home through young parents to solitary retired

Life cycle costs
all the components of costs associated with buying, owning and using a physical product or service

Lifestyle
the pattern of living as expressed in a person’s activities, interests and opinions

Lifestyle segmentation
the grouping of people according to their pattern of living as expressed in their activities, interests and opinions

Lifetime value
the lifetime value of a customer is the profit made on a customer’s purchases over the customer’s lifetime

Limited problem solving
information search which may be mainly internal through memory

List broker
an organization which acts as an intermediary in the supply of lists of names and addresses for direct mail purposes

List owner
an organization which own a list of customers or prospects

List price
the price quoted by a company before any discounts

Local consumer culture positioning
positioning a brand as associated with a local culture (e.g. local production and consumption of a good)

Location gap
the geographic separation of producers from the customers they serve

Low involvement purchase
a purchase decision in which the customer does not become highly involved and does not seek detailed information

Loyalty card
usually a plastic card which is issued by a company to a customer and is used to record the frequency of the customer’s purchases and calculate resulting discounts, rewards or allowances

Loyalty scheme
an arrangement whereby customers apply for a loyalty card which entitles them to discounts for continued purchases