Market management and planning

Abstract

‘Market’ can be described simply as a group of people able and willing to buy a particular product or service. While with consumer goods and durables ‘people’ means the consumers, with industrial products and capital equipment the ‘people’ are in fact commercial firms and business enterprises. Modern usage has given several meanings to the word ‘market’. There are definitions based on the type of person buying the product or service (e.g. above, the ‘consumer market’ and the ‘industrial market’). Markets may also be defined by the type of service used (e.g. the ‘electrical contracting market’) and the product in the selling-buying exchange process (e.g. the ‘refrigerator market’ or the ‘car market’). It can also be designated in money terms (e.g. the market for Product X is £Y million).