The Business Ethics Blog

Ethics in Sales - Across the Organisation Walmart  recently announced  that it would raise the minimum age to purchase tobacco products at its stores across the United States, effective July 1. The ethics of sales involves many different issues, including what you sell, who you sell it to, the price you sell it at, and the information you provide in the process. But this Walmart story highlights another key aspect of the topic known casually as ‘the ethics of sales.’ And that’s the fact that the ethics of sales isn’t just about the behaviour of sales professionals. Of course, the behaviour of sales professionals — from the helpful 19-year-old on the floor at Best Buy, to the person who sold you that shiny new SUV, to the big pharma sales rep visiting physicians’ offices to promote the latest antidepressent — is crucially important. But not every company has ‘salespeople’ in that sense of the term, and not all sales work is done by people with the word “sales...