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.