Commerce

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This article is about the business concept. For other uses, see Commerce (disambiguation).

Commerce is the trading of something of economic value such as goods, services, information or money between two or more entities. Commerce is the central mechanism which drives capitalism and other economic systems. Commercialization or commercialisation is the process of transforming something into a product, service or activity which may be used in commerce.

[edit] History

Commerce has its origins from the very start of communication in prehistoric times. Trading was the main facility of prehistoric people, who bartered what they had for goods and services from each other. Peter Watson dates the history of long-distance commerce from circa 150,000 years ago.^[1]

Later, currency was introduced as a standardized money to facilitate a wider exchange of goods and services. Numismatists have collections of these monies which include coins from the earliest large-scale societies, although these were initially unmarked lumps of precious metal^[2]. The major advantage to commerce of circulating a standardized currency is that money overcomes the "Double coincidence of wants" necessary for barter trades to occur. For example, if a man who makes pots for a living needs a new house, he must hire someone to build it for him. But he cannot make an equivalent number of pots to equal this service done to him, and even if he could the house builder might not want the pots. Currency solved this problem by allowing values to be assigned to things so that goods and services can in a way be effectively collected and stored for later use, or split among several providers.

Today commerce involves a complex system of companies that try to maximise their profits by offering products and services to the market, which consists both of individuals and other companies, at the lowest production cost. There is a system of world wide or foreign commerce, which some argue has gone too far (see main: Free trade).

[edit] Foreign commerce

Globalization marks the rhythm of business. Companies need to reach further and further away, and spread their sales all over the world in order to get revenues.

Nature of commerce

It is an organized system for the exchange of goods and services.

See also: Empire of Japan (foreign commerce and shipping), foreign commerce

[edit] See also

• Advertisement
• Agriculture
• Business
• Capitalism
• Distribution (marketing)
  • Wholesaler
• Harvesting
  • Retailer
• Industry
• Economy
• Electronic commerce
• Fishery
• Laissez-faire
• Manufacturer
• Manufacturing
• Marketing
• Mass production

[edit] References

1. ^ Watson, Peter (2005). Ideas : A History of Thought and Invention from Fire to Freud. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-621064-X. Introduction.
2. ^ Gold was an especially common form of early money, as described in Origins of Money and of Banking Davies, Glyn (2002). Ideas : A history of money from ancient times to the present day. University of Wales Press. ISBN 0-70-831717-0.