[MUSIC] How are you today? Now, we are going to describe the main participants in the distribution channel and what different roles they play. The two main intermediaries in channel are retailing and wholesaling. Retailing includes all the activities involved in selling product and services directly to the final consumer for the personal and non-business use, and can be classified in terms of several carasteristics. It can be dependent on the amount of service they offer, the breadth and the depth of their product line. The relative prices that they charge and also how they are organized. However, we will cover this more in depth in lectures three and four. So that's why today, we are going to concentrate much more on wholesaling. What is wholesaling? It includes all the activities involved also selling goods and services. But in this case it is to those buying it for resale or business use. We buy it mostly from producers and sell it mostly to retailers, and industrial consumers, and other wholesalers. There are some examples. For example, in the USA, we have Grainger. That they are into the maintenance and repair type of services. Why should we use a wholesaler? We already covered it in another lesson. But in general, they do add a lot of value by performing one or more of the following channel functions. Like for example, selling and promotion. Buying an assortment building, bulk breaking. Warehousing and transportation, as we already saw. Financing, risk bearing, market information, management services and advice. So, how many types of wholesalers do we have? There are several. We have, on one side, the merchant wholesalers. This is the largest group. Usually, they take title of the goods and there can be two types. The full services and the limited services. Meaning that they can provide more or less services. There is another group called brokers and agents. In this case, they don't take title of the goods and they perform only a few functions. And they are specialized in general, either by product line or by customer type. If we talk about brokers, what do they do? They bring buyers and sellers together, and assist in the negotiations. Whereas the agents, they do represent buyers and sellers in a more permanent place. And finally, there is another type of figure that are the manufacturers, sales branches and offices. In here, the wholesaling is done by sellers and buyers themselves rather than by independent ones and if we have to talk about what the trends not in wholesaling are. What are they are constantly trying to do and are really fighting for are better ways to meet the changing needs in the supplier and target customers. They constantly offer additional services and many of them are also going global, and becoming global. So in this session, as you see, we have learned that there are different types of intermediaries with many different roles. And in deciding the distribution channel, we have to consider these different alternatives. I hope you've profited from this first session where we talk about the importance and what the main strategies in distribution channelare. I am looking forward to seeing you in the next session where we are going to cover how we manage from simple to complex distribution channels and the growing importance of trade marketing where channels, are evolving from client to partner. [MUSIC]