Before we understand the meaning of marketing, we should know what a market is. Market is a place where buyers and sellers meet each other to enter into transactions. The transactions involve transactions of ideas, goods, services and information. The exchange of goods or services for money is a transaction.
Market comprises not only the actual buyers but also the potential buyers of a product or service. The potential buyers are those people who profess some level of interest in a good / service/ information and who can afford it. For example, a mill produces a cotton cloth. The mill (manufacturer & seller) and all the potential and actual buyers of the cloths will constitute the market.
The presence of sellers and actual & potential buyers of a products or services over the Internet is known as “Online market” or “web market”.
In a broadest sense: A market is any one of a variety of different systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby person’s trade, and goods and services are exchanged, forming part of the economy. It is an arrangement that allows buyers and sellers to exchange things”
Can Two Persons make a Market?
Two persons can trade. However to create a market it takes at least three persons to have a market, so that there is competition on at least one of its two sides.
The offerings may include physical products, Services, Ideas and information. These offerings have values for their customers.
“Exchange” is central to marketing. Exchange in which two or more parties give something of value to each other to satisfy felt needs is the core of the market place. Exchanges may include tangible goods for money or also intangible services.
Features of Markets
As mentioned above, two people can trade but cannot create a market. In markets, the buyers outnumber sellers.
An individual buyer is weaker than any individual seller is economically, but the total economic power of even a fraction of the buyers is enough to assure the survival or death of most businesses.
The sellers compete to sway the largest number of buyers they can to their, rather than another seller’s (competitor’s) offerings and attempt to meet competition and attract the largest number of buyers, are influenced as well, regularly modifying their behaviors so they will have more success, with more buyers, over time.