CLASSIFICATION OF MARKETS Markets may be classified according to various factors.

They may be classified according to area such as local, regional, national and international. Another classification may be according to the type of business according to period such as long-term and short-term. Of all these classes, important factor which classifies markets is their nature. According to nature, division of markets is as follows: 1. Commodity Market. Commodity markets relate to the purchase and sale of goods. Goods may be divided into two categories. That is consumer goods and producer goods. Consumers goods are those which are required for consumption by consumers. On the other hand, producer goods are those which are required by manufacturers for producing more goods. Commodity markets can be divided as follows: a) Produce Markets. A produce market deals in agricultural products such as wheat, rice, cotton etc. The products dealt in these markets are either required for producing further foods or for consumption.

b) Manufactured Goods Markets. These are the markets where manufactured and semi-manufactured goods are purchased and sold. The commodities like sugar, clothes, leather etc. are traded in these markets. c) Bullion Markets. These markets deal in the trade of precious metals like gold, silver precious stone, etc. These markets are sensitive and are influenced by important happenings in any part of world. 2. Capital Markets. Capital is the essential requirement of any trade and industry. Capital is required not only for starting a business but also for its expansion and diversification. Capital markets are classified as follows: a) Money Markets. Money markets are those institutions which provide short-term funds to the business. Lenders, borrowers and middlemen are the important constituents of money markets. The middlemen bring together lender and borrowers. The price for lending money is interest which borrowers pay to lenders. b) Share Markets. These are the organized markets for purchase and sale of stocks, shares and debentures. Corporate sector is greatly helped by share markets. Joint stock companies get their shares

and debentures registered in these exchanges and investors trade in these securities. Stock Exchanges are important centers of channelising investments. c) Foreign Exchange Market. These markets trade in foreign currencies. They deal in purchase and sale of foreign exchange. The area covered by these markets is the whole world. The international trade is greatly helped by foreign exchange markets. These markets help in settlement of foreign debts.

Role of marketing

Marketing has taken a variety of forms as its developed over the years. A common and extremely incorrect view is that selling and advertising is marketing. Although these activities are part of the marketing mix and were generally perceived as the only outputs from a lot of marketing efforts that were measured, they are indeed only a fraction of this whole process. In addition to promotional activities, or the extended marketing mix as theyre more commonly known, marketing includes a much broader strategic and tactical set of functions including; auditing & analysis, planning, product development, packaging, pricing, distribution, customer service and evaluation. Many organisations and businesses assign responsibility for the marketing functions to a marketing manager or specific group of creatives within the organisation. In this respect, marketing is a unique and separate entity. Those who make up the marketing department may also include brand and product managers, marketing researchers, sales representatives, advertising and promotion managers, pricing specialists, and customer service personnel. A Marketer will typically take up the following roles, acting between the customer and the organisation; Strategic Partner, Guide, Deliverer, Communicator, Coordinator, Negotiator and Customer Voice. A Marketing role will also assume the following responsibilities; Understanding the economic and competitive features of a sector Identifying target markets Identifying segments within a target market Identifying most appropriate strategies Commissioning, understanding and acting upon market research Understanding competitors and their strategies and likely responses Developing new products Auditing customers brand experience Establishing environmental scanning for opportunities and threats Understanding an organisations strengths and weaknesses Creating a sustainable competitive advantage

 Understanding where a brand needs to be in the future Creating and delivering marketing plans to get there Establishing management information systems to identify progress What does marketing achieve? As a managerial process, marketing is the way in which an organisation determines its best opportunities in the market place, given its objectives and resources. Therefore the managerial philosophy of marketing puts central emphasis on customer satisfaction as the means for gaining and keeping loyal customers. Therefore, Marketers urge their organisations to carefully and continually gauge target customers expectations and to consistently meet or exceed these expectations. In order to accomplish this, everyone in all areas of the organisation must focus on understanding and serving customers; the business will find it hard to succeed if marketing occurs only in the marketing department and does not involve everyone.