Ethical selling behaviour has become an important subject in the process of customer acquisition. Due to the level of cultural competition in the business environment. A lot of salespeople are likely to cut corners in the bid for a larger market share of the market for their individual firms. Thus, more emphasis is being placed on the need to become more honest, transparent, sincere, and ethical when salespeople are dealing with customers.
Integrity is an outstanding attribute in the art of selling. In fact, integrity is one prominent attribute that separates a salesman from a conman. In reality, the salesman and conman are both selling something. The different is that the salesman is selling truthfulness, real products and services – that will ensure repeat purchase, while the conman is selling deceit that will end in one-off purchase. Buyers don’t buy from conmen. If they eventually buy in error, they won’t try to buy again [Emetuche, 2027].
In personal selling, the attribute of integrity and high ethical standard enable customer acquisition and retention. Customer tend to avoid salespeople who conceal the truth just because they want to make sales. Salespeople who maintain a high level of integrity and ethical selling win more customers because people buy from people they trust. To further stress this point, customers have become wary of salespeople who conceal or withhold information, lie, and cut corners just to increase their sales (Kumar et al., 2025; Tseng, 2019). Customers in highly competitive market environments are usually faced with various alternatives that offer complementary and competitive products and prices, which means that trust is such an important factor to consider for them when selecting suppliers for their products.
Salespeople are regarded as representatives whose actions can speak well or badly about the organizations that they represent. The way they act and behave can move the initial perceptions and attitudes of customers regarding the reliability and credibility of the organizations that they represent. If ethical behaviour is high, then salespeople will exhibit respect for the interests of customers, transparency, fairness, truthfulness, and honesty, which minimizes the extent of purchase risk that customers feel about their products and their organization and creates an enabling environment for business relationships to be properly initiated. Ethical selling therefore enhances customer acquisition by improving the confidence that customers have in both the salesperson and the organization (Schwepker Jr & Good, 2022a, 2022b).
Ethical selling improves customer acquisition by facilitating needs alignment. Needs alignment is the degree to which the needs of the customer are met in line with the products that the salesperson is offering. Not only that, but need alignment is also the extent to which salespeople communicate exactly what the customer has shown that they need as a result of the series of interactions with the salespeople (Hansen & Riggle, 2009; Kennedy, Ferrell, Susan, & LeClair, 2001). Therefore, ethical behaviour entails that salespeople tell customers exactly what they need to hear regarding the products and services that will serve and meet their needs. This is important because need alignment prevents post-purchase regrets, and post-purchase regrets do not occur unless customers feel that they bought products which they do not need simply because salespeople convinced them to purchase those products. If salespeople are to be blamed for the purchase of products that customers do not need, then customers will not continue to buy those products in the future; neither will they recommend the product to any other person (Gáti, Bauer, & Mitev, 2019; Lussier et al., 2017).
Indeed, when ethical behaviour is practised by salespeople, the expectations that customers have about a product as a result of the actions and behaviours of salespeople would match the reality of purchasing and consuming the product. What better way to acquire more customers than to ensure that what customers ordered matches what they actually receive? (Lussier et al., 2017; Kadic-Maglajlic et al., 2019).
Evidence from extant literature suggests that the effect of ethical behaviour on customer acquisition is a positive one. For instance, Schwepker Jr and Good (2022b) found that while counterproductive work behaviours which negatively affect customer trust and relationship quality, are reduced by counterproductive work behaviours customer oriented selling is improved by ethical sales behaviours. Apart from being a strategic capability which salespeople can exploit to attract new customers, Ethical is a moral obligation which salespeople have to the customers that they are trying to woo into their firms (Amri, 2021; Matviiets & Kipen, 2021; Yi et al., 2021).
Moreover, Salespeople would find themselves in short-term traps when they exhibit unethical behaviours. This is because tricking customers and making false claims about products and services may close deals temporarily but would end up destroying future referral loops and word-of-mouth recommendations that would have offered a more sustainable competitive advantage for the firm in a cutthroat competitive market environment. In a highly digitalized environment, negative word of mouth spreads fast, and firms that find themselves in the middle of controversies regarding the quality, value and price of their products will end up taking the worst hit because the less people trust a product to deliver on its promises, the less they are likely to purchase those products (Kadic-Maglajlic et al., 2019). Salespeople who promote ethical selling, excel in their profession because more people trust them. In selling, the more people the salesperson wins to his side, the more he excels.