Introduction

The word “Market” is derived from the Latin word “Mareatus” meaning goods or trade or a place where business is conducted.

Traditionally market refers to a physical located where buyers and sellers gather to exchange their    goods.

According to “Philip Kotter”,

A market consists of all the potential customers showing a particular need or want who might be willing and able to engage in exchange to satisfy the need or want.

Concepts of Market :

1. Place concept:  A market is a convenient meeting place of buyers and seller to gather together in order to conduct buying and selling activities.

Example:  Vegetable / Fruit market.

1. Area concept: A market develops in any area, small or large the moment there are three pre-requisites for exchange.
2. Two or more individuals have unmet wants.
3. They have products to meet the demand and
4. They have some means of communication such a telephone, fax, correspondence, electronic mail or internet.

Example: Money market is a highly organ market for the entire nation without any central meeting place for borrowers or lenders of money.

2.Demand concept: Today , a market is equated with the total demand. Hence, market means a group of people having unmet wants purchasing power and the will to spend their income to satisfy those wants.

Example:  The domestic market for Pharmaceutical products was rs. 40,000 crore (2010).

Features of the Market:

1. In a narrow sense, market refers to a particular place where as in a wider sense any convenient place, region, state, nation and world can be considered as market.
2. Buyers (demand) and sellers (supply) are the two sides of the market.
3. The needs of the people, their capacity to spend money, their willingness to part with money and the availability of goods and service are the requirements of the market.
4. The meeting of minds is more important than face to face meeting in order to create a market.
5. In the free market system, price is determined by interaction of forces of demand and safety.

Types of Market:

Types of market are as given below:-

1. Selling Area Covered: According to the area covered, the market may be classified as local, regional, national and international market.

2. Commodities Indeed:  The market is differentiated based on the product sold i.e. Cotton market, Tea market, Bullion market etc.

3. Nature of Dealing:  The market may be spot/cash market or future/forward market. While in spot market, goods are bought and sold immediately in the case of future market, actual buying and selling take place at a future time as agreed by the buyer and seller.

4. Nature of Goods Sold:  The market may be for consumer goods or for industrial goods. Consumer goods are meant for direct consumption/use of consumers where as industrial goods are generally needed by manufacturers in the process of production.

5. On the basis of times intervals: Markets may be classified into short term market and long term market.

Example: Money market for short term period and capital market for long term funds.

6. Volume of Business Transactions: The market may be a whole sale market or retail market according to the nature and volume of business.

7. Competition: On the basics of competition the market may be competition market or Monopolistic market.

8. Functioning of the market: The market may be a unorganized market or an organize market.

Example:  Regulated markets run by the state governments are organized markets for agricultural produce.

9. Dominance of the parties: The market may be sellers market or buyers market depending upon the demand and supply of product and services.

10. Sellers position: The market may be primary market where farmers sell the product to the traders or secondary market where buying and selling take place between traders. In the case of terminal market, the product is assembled for export or for consumption of the local population.

Classification of Goods:

1. Manufactured goods: It may be consumer goods needed for use or consumption by consumers or industrial goods needed for use by producers in the process of production.
2. Agricultural goods: It may be in the form of new materials for industry (cotton, sugarcane) or consumer goods for immediate consumption.
3. Natural raw materials: There are the free gifts of nature and they are the raw material of industry such as iron ore.