What do distribution, wholesale and retail mean respectively?

Distribution and wholesale refer to dealers or wholesalers.

Retail refers to all activities of selling goods and services directly to the final consumers for their personal and non-commercial use. Many organizations, such as manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers are engaged in retail business. Most retail business is carried out by retailers.

Retail trade refers to the trade activities of selling goods or services directly to the final consumers. In trade operation, retail directly faces the final consumer. Through retail operation, goods leave the trade field and enter the consumption field, and truly become the object of consumption, thus completing the process of social reproduction. In this sense, retail is the end of the trade process and the terminal in the middle of production and consumption.

Extended data retailing is at the end of trade operation, which embodies the goal of trade operation. The characteristics of retail industry determine that it has the following functions:

1. Realize the final sale of goods and meet the needs of consumers. Products in the hands of producers or wholesalers are only a conceptual use value, rather than a practical use value that may be consumed. Only when products enter the field of consumption can they become practical use value. In most cases, this needs to be achieved through retail trade.

2. Service consumption, promoting sales function. Consumers' demand for goods and services is extensive, diverse and complex. In order to meet these demands, retail trade should not only provide rich commodities to choose from, but also provide various services around commodity sales, such as information service, credit service, sales service and after-sales service, so as to expand commodity sales. Under the condition of developed market economy, the service function of retail is more important.

3. Feedback information to promote production function. Retail trade is directly oriented to consumers, which can timely and truly reflect consumers' opinions and changes in supply and demand prices of commodities in the market, provide market information for producers and wholesalers, assist wholesalers in adjusting their business structure, and promote producers to produce more and better marketable commodities to meet consumers' needs.

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