What are the main differences between industrial buyers and consumers?

The main differences between industrial buyers and consumers could be described as follows: Industrialbuyers purchase goods are in bulk for long term and further production from Industrial market which are needed for business purpose whereas a consumer purchases goods to use for their household. Industrialbuyers purchase goods after a period of time and they purchase for making profit whereas consumers go for routine purchases in their everyday activities and they do not buy product for the purpose of making profit. Consumers are day to day consuming of small goods and industrial buyers are for industries that use the same goods in larger quantities.

A buyer is a customer---he is an individual or business that makes a purchase from a seller. The buyer is the party that gives or transfers money to the seller to secure a product. On the other hand, a consumer is a person who uses a product or service. The consumer is often called an "end user" because he is the last stop and does not usually transfer or sell the item to another party. From this differences, marketing decision are affected in the sense that, the producers in the industrial market can regulate their purchase and production having understood the consumer market according to the economic situation prevalent and vice versa.

 

 

 

The industrial customers are buyers who purchase products or services for resale, further their productions, and for resale. There is a variety of organizational buyers; including: producers of goods and services, intermediaries, government units, and nonprofit organizations. While individual Consumers buy for personal, family, or household usage.

The main difference in simple terms is that industrial buyers are not the end users of a particular commodity unlike consumers. Industrial buyers procure commodities to produce their products/brands to be offereded to end consumers. To explain consider FMCGs are industrial buyers with respect to the raw material they purchase and are sellers when they offer their produce to end consumers in market. 

 

Also, industrial buyers are bulk buyers unlike consumers. Industrial buyers are more rational/logical in their purchase decisions mainly due to the bulk quantities they purchase and do not base their purchase decisions mainly on the impulsive decision to buy a particular brand.

 

The terms B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Consumers) can also explain you the difference easily where B2B involves industrial buyers and B2C caters to consumers.

After analysing the question and most of the answers here, i'd not want to add to the existing answers, but would rather share a main difference between the two, which is, industrial buyers are more knowledgeable about what they are buying than direct consumers/customers. Industrials folks goes into the science and economics of the matter they buy, the other folks mostly reply on the factors which attracts them.

industrial buyers are traders and consumers are customers