Briefly describe a few ways the American marketing system is accused of harming the consumer

What will be an ideal response?

Many critics charge that the American marketing system causes prices to be higher than they would be under more "sensible" systems. Critics point to three factors — high costs of distribution, high advertising and promotion costs, and excessive markups. A longstanding charge is that greedy marketing channel members mark up prices beyond the value of their services. As a result, distribution costs too much, and consumers pay for these excessive costs in the form of higher prices. Modern marketing is also accused of pushing up prices to finance unneeded advertising, sales promotion, and packaging. Critics charge that much of this promotion and packaging adds only psychological, not functional, value. Critics also charge that some companies mark up goods excessively.

Marketers are sometimes accused of deceptive practices that lead consumers to believe they will get more value than they actually do. Deceptive practices fall into three groups: promotion, packaging, and pricing. Deceptive promotion includes practices such as misrepresenting the product's features or performance or luring customers to the store for a bargain that is out of stock. Deceptive packaging includes exaggerating package contents through subtle design, using misleading labeling, or describing size in misleading terms. Deceptive pricing includes practices such as falsely advertising "factory" or "wholesale" prices or a large price reduction from a phony high retail list price.