A. There are hundreds of thousands of marketing intermediaries whose job it is to help move goods from the raw-material state to producers and then on to consumers.
1. MARKETING INTERMEDIARIES are organization that assist in moving goods and services from producer to industrial and consumer users.
a. They are organizations (formerly called "middlemen") in the middle of a series of organizations that join together to help distribute goods.
b. A CHANNEL OF DISTRIBUTION is the whole series of marketing intermediaries who join together to transport and store goods in their path from producers to consumers.
c. A WHOLESALER is a marketing intermediary that sells to other organizations.
d. A RETAILER is an organization that sells to ultimate consumers.
2. CHANNELS OF DISTRIBUTION enhance communication flows and the flow of money and title to goods.
3. The latest trend is to try to eliminate wholesalers and the need for retail stores by selling over the Internet.
B. WHY MARKETING NEED INTERMEDIARIES
1. Manufacturers don’t always need marketing intermediaries to sell their goods to consumer and industrial markets.
2. Intermediaries perform certain functions better than most manufacturers. These functions include transportation, storage, selling, advertising, and relationship building.
3. Companies often outsource distribution to others.
4. BROKERS are marketing intermediaries who bring buyers and sellers together and assist in negotiating an exchange, but do not take title to the goods.
B. HOW INTERMEDIARIES CREATED EXCHANGE EFFICIENCY.
1. Intermediaries CREATE EXCHANGE EFFICIENCY by decreasing the number of contacts needed to establish marketing exchanges.
2. Not only are intermediaries more efficient, but they are more effective than manufacturers.
3. Intermediaries were often better at performing their functions than a manufacturer or consumer could be.
4. Recently, technology has made it possible for