What is marketing? What functions does it play with process of exchange of goods and services? Explain.

Marketing refers to the process wherein the buyers and sellers interact with each other for purchase and sale of goods and services. Earlier, marketing had different approaches with respect to its definition. It was sometimes described as a post-production process that involves purchasing of the final products and sometimes, as a pre-production process that involves merchandising (designing) of the product. In reality, marketing is a much wider concept than this. It consists of all those activities that are involved in the process of exchange of the goods and services between producers and consumers. These activities are basically the functions performed under marketing. It involves planning, designing the product, packaging and labelling of the product, standardising, branding, warehousing, transportation, advertising, pricing and distribution. It also includes activities that are performed even after the sale of product such as, maintaining customer relations and collecting feedback. Thus, marketing plays an important role in the process of exchange of goods and services.

Marketing is a total system of business activities designed to plan, price, promote and distribute want satisfying goods and services to present and potential customers. 

Marketing is concerned with exchange of goods and services from producer to consumers which involves many activities.

1. Gathering and Analysing Market Information: This is done to identify the needs of the customers and take various decisions for the successful marketing of the products and services.

.2. Marketing Planning Another important activity or area of work of a marketer is to develop appropriate marketing plans so that the marketing objective of the organization can be achieved.

3. Product Designing and Development The design of the product contributes to making the product attractive to the target customers. A good design can improve performance of a product and also give it a competitive edge in the market.

4. Standardisation and Grading: Standardisation refers to producing goods to a predetermined specification which helps in achieving uniformity and consistency in the output which reduces the need for Inspection, testing, and evaluation of the products.

Grading is the process of classification of products into different groups, on the basis of its features such as quality, size, etc. It ensures that goods belong to a particular quality help in releasing higher prices for high-quality output.

5. Packaging and Labelling: Packaging refers to designing the package for the products. Labelling refers to designing the label to be put on the package. Packaging provides protection to the product and also helps in its promotion. Labelling helps in self-service.

6. Branding: Brand names help in creating product differentiations i.e., how the product can be distinguished from its competitors.

7. Customer Support Service: Marketing management relates to developing customer support services such as after-sales services and handling customer complaints. All these aims at providing customer satisfaction which is a key to marketing success.

8. Pricing of Product: Price is an important factor affecting the success or failure of a product in the market. The marketers have to analyse properly the factors determining the price of a product.

9. Promotion: Promotion of products and services involves informing the customers about the firm’s product, its features etc and persuading them to purchase these products. It includes four methods: advertising, sales promotion, personal selling and publicity.

10. Physical Distribution: The important decision areas under physical distribution include managing inventory, storage, warehousing and transportation of goods from one place to another.

11. Transportation: Transportation involves physical movement of goods from one place to another. A marketer has to perform this function very efficiently keeping in mind the nature of product, cost, location of target market etc.

12. Storage or Warehousing: In order to maintain a smooth flow of products in the market, there is a need for proper storage of the products. Further, there is a need for storage of adequate stock of goods to protect against unavoidable delays in delivery or to meet out contingencies in the demand. Wholesalers and retailers play an important role in this.