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Meaning and types of trade, Categories of domestic trade and categories of retailers

Answer Text:
TRADE
- Buying and selling or exchange of goods and services.
- Before the invention of money, communities exchanged goods for goods, a transaction known as Barter Trade.
- Cultivators exchanged their surplus grain for
livestock from the pastoralists.
Types of Trade.
- They include:
(A). Domestic/ Internal/ Home/ Local trade.
(B). Regional Trade.
(C). International Trade.
(A). Domestic/ Internal/ Home/ Local trade.
- Buying and selling of goods within a country’s borders.
- Goods can either be produced locally or imported.
- It is classified into:
1. Wholesale Trade - Purchasing of goods in bulk
from producers and selling them to retailers.
- They operate from large premises where they stock their bulk purchase.
- They are mainly found in urban areas.
2. Retail Trade – Buying goods from wholesalers and selling them to individual consumers.
- Retailers stock variety of goods to sell to consumers, are basically small-scale traders.
Categories of Retailers.
1. Shopkeepers – Operate small shops from where they sell goods in prices set out by the producer.
2. Hawkers – Retailers who move from place to place with their merchandise.
- They sell their goods on streets, from house to house or from one market centre to another.
3. Kiosk Operators – Put up temporary structures from where they sell their wares.
- Majority of the kiosk operators deal with light goods.
4. Departmental Stores – Large retail organizations that sell specific goods with several branches of the organization in one town selling different goods.
5. Multiple Stores – Are similar to departmental stores, but they deal with a specific item or
assortment of goods in their shops.
- They operate several branches of their shops in the large towns like Nairobi and Mombasa.
6. Supermarkets – Large retail shops that stock a variety of items, usually household goods and sell them at a price lower than in the retail shops.
- They are normally “self-service”.
- The self service system is advantageous to the management as it employs fewer shop attendants.