COMMERCE IN THE WORLD

DEFINITION OF TERMS:

Goods: Raw materials as well as tangible, manufactured products such as cars, mobile phones, books etc.

Services: This simply means the work that people do for others in order to earn their living. Examples are the civil service works, banking works, cleaning works etc.

Trade: This means the activities of buying, selling and exchange of goods and services.

Trade by Barter: This means exchange of goods for goods and services for services. It is an ancient system of buying and selling. It was used when money was not in existence.

WHAT THEN IS COMMERCE?

Commerce is the distribution of goods and services and includes all the ancillary services that make buying and selling possible. In other world, commerce is trade and aids to trade. Commerce is different from trade. Trade is the activity of buying and selling of goods and services while commerce includes all the activities that makes the distribution of goods and services possible. Therefore, trade has a very narrow meaning which includes buying and selling while commerce has a wider meaning which includes trade and all those ancillary services that facilitate buying and selling.

DIVISIONS OF COMMERCE.

Commerce is divided into two. They are: Trade and Aids to Trade.

Trade: Trade is the act of buying and selling of goods and services in home and foreign markets. Trade is sub-divided into home trade and foreign trade.

Home Trade: these are the activities if buying and selling of goods and services within a country. It can also be called domestic or internal trade. It can be divided into two. They are wholesale trade and retail trade.

Wholesale trade: this is the act of buying and selling of goods and services in a large scale or in bulk  by the wholesalers or distributors from the manufactures or producers and selling the goods in the small quantities to the retailers.

Retail trade: This trade includes buying goods from the wholesalers/manufacturers and selling the goods in smaller units to the final consumers or customers. People who are involved in thi trade are called retailers.

Foreign Trade: Foreign trade is the exchange of goods and services or buying and selling of goods and services between two or more countries of the world. Foreign trade can also be called international trade, external trade, bilateral trade, multi-lateral trade. Foreign trade is divided into import, export, intrepot, counter trade.

Import Trade: This involves buying goods from other countries and bringing the goods into your country. Import includes both visible goods like cars, shoes, television sets etc and the invisible goods like the services of the professionals from other countries into your own country.

Export Trade: This is the direct opposite of the import trade. Export trade involves producing goods and services from your own country and taking the goods and services produced into another country.

Counter Trade: This can be defined as the trade without exchange of money. You can also call it a bilateral trade.

Intrepot Trade: This type of trade involves importing goods from one country and re-exporting the goods to another country without adding any other value.

AIDS TO TRADE

Aids to trade are also called ancillaries to trade. They are the activities that help the act of buying and selling to be effective. They includes: advertising, insurance, transportation, banking, warehousing and communication.

Advertising: This is the process by which the members of the public are informed of the existence of a product or service. It stimulates the demand of the product and educates the members of the public on the uses and the quality of the commodity.

Insurance: This will enable the traders to obtain compensation in the event of any of the insured risks happening.

Banking: Banking provides financial services to the manufacturers and traders. The traders or the manufactures can request for the help of banks in the area of funds. Bank can now give the funds in form of loan and overdraft. Also, business men and women can take the excess of money in their cash till into the bank account for the safe-keeping of the money.

Transportation: This is the movement of people, goods and services from one place to another. Many commercial activities can not be performed without transport system.

Warehousing: This involves the storage of goods in the store until the time the goods are needed. Producers, agent, wholesalers, retailers usually have a very large quantities of goods for sale. They will need to store the goods in the store before the goods are sold.

Communication: Communication is the transmission of information from one end to the other. This can be achieved via telephone and other internet facilities, and face to face communication between sellers and the buyers.

THE FUNCTIONS PERFORME BY COMMERCE

The following are the functions perform by commerce:

1.      It is an occupation

2.      It improve the standard of living of the society

3.      It makes people rich

4.      It sustains good human relationship

5.      It helps international relationship as such reduces wars between countries

6.      It encourages production

7.      It facilitate exchange

8.      It create job opportunities

9.      It promotes educational development

10.   It facilitate technological development

OCCUPATIONS

Meaning:

Any productive activity in which a person engages in permanently in order to ear a living is known as occupation. Any thing you will do after schooling is your occupation. In business, anyone who is engage in occupation is a producer.

People prefer some occupation to others as a result of many factors.  Some of these factors are:

1.      Geographical location

2.      Natural resources available

3.      Climate and soil type

4.      Skill

5.      Education

6.      Large market

7.      Salaries and wages

8.      Sex type

DIVISIONS OF OCCUPATIONS

Occupation can be divided into three. They are:

1.      Industrial Occupation

2.      Commercial Occupation

3.      Service occupation

Industrial Occupations

These are the occupations which involve the extraction of raw materials and natural resources, changing them into finished products and assembling them into the form usable by men. Industrial occupation are classified into the following: extraction, manufacturing and construction

Extractive Occupation: These occupations are directed to the extraction of raw materials and natural resources from the soil and seas. Examples are the agricultural products like yam, cassava, timbers, oranges, also the hunters who deals with the hunting of animals. Mining which concerns with the mining of natural resources like crude oil, iron ore, gold, clay, slate etc.  Fishing which deals with catching fishes, whaling and catching of other sea creatures. Fishing occupation provides raw materials for industrial and commercial occupation.

Manufacturing Occupation

This occupation is concerned about changing the raw materials extracted by the extractive occupation into finished products with added value. For example, cassava tubers extracted by the farmers can be used to produce other things like gari and other products in Nigeria.

Construction Occupations

These occupations use the materials produced by the manufacturing occupation as raw materials. They deals with the assembling of the materials produced and make those products available to man in a usable form. Examples include construction of houses, bridges, roads etc.

Commercial Occupation

Commercial occupations include all activities of trading as well as the activities which facilitates trade. They include banking, warehousing, insurance, communication, transportation and advertising. Persons involves in commercial occupations are traders, wholesalers, bankers, insurance agents, transporters, shippers, communication providers e.t.c

Service Occupations

Service occupations involve all those personal and personalized services that are saleable to consumers who pay for them directly of indirectly. There are two categories of service occupation. They are:

1.      Direct Service

2.      Indirect Service.