The concept of wholesale trade includes all activities related to the sale of goods and services to retailers, for instance the high demand for wholesale bar supplies and liquor, just to name one of the many different wholesale products.
Wholesalers buy from manufacturers and sell to retailers, other wholesalers or industrial consumers. But why are they needed? Why not manufacturers sell directly to retailers and other end consumers?
Wholesalers fulfill one or more of the distribution channel functions:
- Sale and promotion
- Large variety of products
- Sales in variable quantities depending on customer needs
- Storage and inventory
- Transport
- Financing
- Taking risks
- Providing market-related information
- Management and advisory services
Being a part of a distribution process, which has become a very dynamic economic sector, wholesale trade knows and will continue to experience multiple transformations related to a series of features in its future evolution. These trends can be divided into three main categories below.
Trends in the evolution of wholesale trade
- Seeking to consolidate the current positions of the wholesale trade
- Looking for new solutions to improve the circulation of wholesale goods and ensure rational fluidity of product flow from producer to consumer
- Creating large wholesale companies capable of taking over the goods generated by the vast changes that will occur in the economy