Wholesale

“ Such wholesalers are known variously as commission dealers and brokers.
While goods are being gathered together in wholesale quantities and made ready for distribution to the retail trade other factors in marketing frequently enter in, factors of a speculative nature. Well-standardized goods that are not readily perishable, such as grain, cotton, wool, silk, provisions, coffee, sugar and so on, are likely to be bought purely for speculative purposes. ”

“ Buying at wholesale collectively, to sell to themselves individually; they would be in a financial condition to pay remunerative prices, for whatever was genuine, pure, wholesome, good, reliable and lasting. ”

“ Where the number of workmen living on the same spot is large, it may be thought desirable that they should unite together and have an agent, to purchase by wholesale those articles which are most in demand, as tea, sugar, bacon, &c., and to retail them at prices, which will just repay the wholesale cost, together with the expense of the agent who conducts their sale. ”

“ The capital of the wholesale merchant replaces, together with their profits, the capitals of the farmers and manufacturers of whom he purchases the rude and manufactured produce which he deals in, and thereby enables them to continue their respective trades. It is by this service chiefly that he contributes indirectly to support the productive labor of the society, and to increase the value of its annual produce. ”

“ The ideal is that where a society exists the main raw materials of the industry shall be bought wholesale instead of retail, and the main products of the industry sold retail instead of wholesale; that thereby middlemen’s and other profits shall be reduced to a reasonable figure, and that the consumer shall get the most efficient possible service with regard to his supplies. ”

“ Accordingly exchanges are located in large wholesale centres for the sale of such commodities as grain, cotton, wool, farmers’ produce, sugar, coffee, iron and steel, stocks and bonds. At these exchanges, under established rules, wholesale transactions are effected with a minimum of difficulty and risk. In the case of highly perishable goods, such as fruits, where no time may be lost in effecting sales in order that they may reach the consumer before spoiling, the auction system is used. ”

“ The wholesale operations indeed are everywhere carried on by large capitals, where such exist; but the retail dealings, which collectively occupy a very great amount of capital, are sometimes conducted in small shops, chiefly by the personal exertions of the dealers themselves, with their families, and perhaps an apprentice or two ”

“ We draw such fine distinctions between the wholesale and retail traders that our cotton-spinners, calico-makers, and general merchants seem to think that they belong to a totally different sphere, from which they look down on the lady who has had sufficient brains, capital, and courage to open a shop. ”

“ The difference between the apparent profit of the retail and that of the wholesale trade, is much less in the capital than in small towns and country villages. Where ten thousand pounds can be employed in the grocery trade, the wages of the grocer’s labour must be a very trifling addition to the real profits of so great a stock. The apparent profits of the wealthy retailer, therefore, are there more nearly upon a level with those of the wholesale merchant. ”

“ Small orders require just as much trouble in their execution as large ones; and a wholesale business is, in all respects, more satisfactory than one in which private customers are supplied, as well as the trade. ”

“ The wholesale dealer, by affording a ready market to the manufacturer, by taking his goods off his hand as fast as he can make them, and by sometimes even advancing their price to him before he has made them, enables him to keep his whole capital, and sometimes even more than his whole capital, constantly employed in manufacturing, and consequently to manufacture a much greater quantity of goods than if he was obliged to dispose of them himself to the immediate consumers, or even to the retailers. ”

“ Whether they be wholesale dealers, who collect into large masses the commodities of various producers; or whether they be retailers, who divide out to those who want them, the masses of commodities thus collected together; all mercantile men are agents of transfer from the places where things are produced to the places where they are consumed. Thus the distributing apparatus of a society, answers to the distributing 407 apparatus of a living body; not only in its functions, but in its intermediate origin and subsequent position, and in the time of its appearance. ”

“ In addition to selling, functions frequently performed by wholesale establishments include maintaining inventories of goods; extending credit; physically assembling, sorting, and grading goods in large lots ”

“ Presently a farther sub-division of labour is introduced for carrying on exchange and distribution: markets are established: money is coined: foreign merchants will import and export commodities: dealers, men of weak body, and fit for sedentary work, will establish themselves to purchase wholesale the produce brought by the husbandman, and to sell it again by retail in quantities suitable for distribution. ”

“ The relation between the retail organizations and the American Wholesale Co-operative is the same as the relation between the consumers and the retail stores. A wholesale profit is made and declared in the same manner to the stores, as the stores declare their dividends to the consumers. ”

“ It is only people of a certain class, able to pay ready money and willing to go great distances to purchase, who frequent these large establishments. Those who live from hand to mouth, and those who prefer to buy at adjacent places, will maintain a certain proportion of shops, and the wholesale distributing organization needed for them. ”

“ Some, however, among them, more sanguine and adventurous than the rest, availed themselves of their credit with the importers and wholesale dealers, for purchasing quantities much beyond the estimated demand in their own business. As the purchases were made in the first instance ostensibly, and perhaps really, for the legitimate purposes and within the limits of their regular business, the parties were enabled to buy without the condition of any deposit; whereas speculators, known to be such, are required to pay 2l. ”

“ He has capital invested also in the raw material which he intends to convert into some article of utility. He works up his raw material; he makes advances for the labour required in working it up. The article is at length ready for the market. The wholesale dealer, who purchases of the manufacturer, sells to a retailer, who is in the habit of buying upon credit, long or short, because the article remains a certain time in his hands before it reaches the consumer, who ultimately pays for it. ”

“ Through Wholesalers and Retailers.—Most products of common use—such as foods, clothing, footwear, house furnishings, lumber, fuel and so on—are marketed through middlemen. The manufacturer of men’s clothing or of shoes usually sells his product to retailers scattered over the country who in turn sell to consumers. Manufactured food products, dry goods and notions, drugs, hardware and house furnishings are generally sold first to wholesalers, who in turn sell to retailers. ”

“ The only real saving which buying direct from producers insures is the eliminated profit of the wholesaler, with a possible reduction of the expense for salesmen whom wholesalers must employ. Competition in buying has forced the joint creation by small concerns of buying organizations which, united, represent as large a buying power as the chain or department stores. Coöperation in buying certain classes of goods has strong advantages both for dealers and consumers. ”

“ The association will buy wholesale, and at the manufacturing price (still upon my security, secured to me by their wages) , warm, good, strong materials, which a portion of the workmen’s wives will be able to make into clothes as well as any tailor. Finally, the consumption of caps and shoes being considerable, the association will obtain them at a great reduction in price.’ Well, Mdlle. Angela! what do you say to our speculator?”
“I say, M. Agricola,” answered the young girl ”

“ Likewise there is a lot of middle men and drummers, the buyers at the producer's end, the wholesalers or middle men at the consumer's end, with speculator and landowner at both ends. All of these have to be supported by the system, and the dear consumer pays for it. ”

“ I buy, dispense, and disperse human labor. I create wants, and I satisfy them. I will establish honest laws of trade. What I do shall be rated as commercial law. What I say shall be quoted as a way of equity and probity. That man is a King of Trade. His throne is set upon hills and seas. His subjects are all men with needs, and all men with products of the land, the coasts, the sea, or brain, or skill. This is the lawful King of Trade. He represents God's mart of exchange. Primarily, goods are not bought and sold in the market. They are first transferred in that man's brain. ”

“ The company were to be enabled to purchase lands, &c., and to exercise all the usual powers of bodies corporate; but were not to trade in the buying or selling of any goods or merchandise, except that they might deal in bills of exchange, and in buying and selling of bullion, gold, or silver, and in selling of any goods or merchandise which should be pledged to them for money lent thereon, and might also sell the produce of their own lands. ”

“ Of course, in all exchange of commodities between two countries, besides that supply of the respective wants of each which constitutes the foundation or sustaining element of the commerce, a certain portion of what the consumer pays must fall to the share of the persons by whose agency the commerce is carried on. It is this that properly forms the profits of the commerce, as distinguished from its mere advantages or conveniences. ”

“ Inasmuch as all material wealth was created by labor, and distributed by being bought and sold, it followed as a logical sequence, that there was but one way by which every useful worker could secure a just share in the distribution, and that was to take charge of the business of exchange (buying and selling) and divide the benefits equally among all who united their efforts to establish the largest possible round of exchange between producers and consumers. ”

“ In all commercial communities there is a commercial mart, or a capital, where exchanges are effected, cargoes disposed of in gross, and where all the great interests of trade concentrate, as the blood flows to and from the heart. In identified governments, like that of England, for instance, legislation may respect this natural tendency to concentration in commerce, and enact laws for its especial benefit and protection. ”

“ This is the constant multiplication of intervening agents—middle-men, factors, brokers, speculators, contractors, and distributors of every sort—between the producer and the consumer, or between the primary owner and the ultimate owner of almost everything which is the subject of ownership and trade. Those two, who are the actual persons brought chiefly into relationship by the thing in question, are put quite out of sight of one another in most of the transactions of modern industry and commerce ”

“ It is true, therefore, of every particular producer or dealer, that a great demand, a brisk circulation, a rapid consumption, of the commodities which he sells at his shop or produces in his manufactory, is important to him. The dealer whose shop is crowded with customers, who can dispose of a product almost the very moment it is completed, makes large profits, while his next neighbour, with an equal capital but fewer customers, gains comparatively little. ”

“ Legitimate trade, that is, the equitable exchange of the raw materials and the finished products between the producer and the consumer by means of a third person, the trader, who makes a profit on the goods he handles, giving them to the last buyer at a larger or smaller increase in the selling price over the cost, in these days rarely leads to the accumulation of great wealth. ”

“ The producer furnishes the goods, the consumer the money. Trade furnishes credit, [54] founded on little or no actual capital, and the different members of the commercial body are in no way responsible for one another. ”

“ The Distribution of Wealth, as well as its Production, is effected through Trade. As in the Productive Process from the very beginning of Labor specialization up to the point of delivery to ultimate consumers, so in the process of Distribution, Trade is the continuous and the culminating agency. It determines the kind of Wealth and the quantity that each factor in Production shall receive. ”

“ Ask how the rural people who here grow wheat and there pasture cattle, find it possible to occupy themselves in their special businesses? These groups can severally do it only if each gets from the others in exchange for its own surplus product, due shares of their surplus products. No longer directly effected by barter, this obtainment of their respective shares of one another's products is indirectly effected by money; and if we ask how each division of producers gets its due amount of the required money, the answer is—by fulfillment of contract. ”

“ Whether we were dealing with the price of an ordinary commodity, with joint products, land or capital, we came across relationships which seemed altogether more fundamental than our present industrial system ”

“ The trade thus carefully ordered and regulated, assumes, in the course of time, all the dimensions of a vast and increasing commerce. Abundant capital is invested in it, talent and ingenuity are exerted to make its resorts attractive and luxurious, and an insatiable demand arises for fresh young articles of commerce. ”