1. Description

Wholesale refers to all activities that occur when goods or services are sold to customers, and customers buy these goods or services for resale or enterprise use.

From this perspective, a bakery retail store sells cakes to a local hotel, and the bakery operates a wholesale business. However, the term wholesaler will be used to describe companies mainly engaged in wholesale activities. It does not include manufacturers and farmers, because they are mainly engaged in production, and it does not include retailers.

2. System

Wholesale is produced with the development of commodity economy. With the development of commodity production and commodity exchange, the number of commodities purchased and sold has increased, and the scope of circulation has expanded. It is often difficult or inconvenient to exchange commodities directly between producers and between producers and retailers. Therefore, there has been a wholesale business that specializes in buying goods directly from manufacturers and then reselling them to other manufacturers or retailers. There is a division of labor between wholesale and retail in the commercial sector.

Wholesale business is generally run by wholesale enterprises, and the quantity of goods sold in batches at a time is relatively large, all of which are sold at wholesale prices. The wholesale price of goods is lower than the retail price, that is, there is a wholesale-retail price difference, which is composed of circulation expenses, taxes and profits consumed by retail enterprises. Commercial wholesale is an intermediate link between production and retail.

Through commercial wholesale activities, social products will enter the circulation field from the production field, and play a role in organizing and mobilizing the circulation of goods between regions. It can also play the role of "reservoir" through commodity storage to balance the supply and demand of commodities.

3. Development prospect

As an important part of commodity circulation, the development of wholesale industry plays an important role in saving the cost of the whole society, reducing transaction costs, improving circulation efficiency and promoting economic growth. However, with the acceleration of the integration of manufacturers and retailers into the wholesale field, the development of China's wholesale industry is in trouble, and the whole circulation system presents a basic pattern of "active at both ends and shrinking in the middle", and the view of "wholesale uselessness" begins to prevail.

From the perspective of commodity structure, the main business income of mineral products, building materials and chemicals, food, beverages and tobacco products, textiles, clothing and daily necessities in China accounts for the largest proportion; The gross profit margin of wholesale business of beverages, tea, tobacco products, clothing, shoes and hats, sporting goods, books, Chinese herbal medicines and proprietary Chinese medicines, communications, radio and television equipment is relatively high, all above 65,438+00%.