What is the trade industry structure? The trade industry structure refers to the quantitative ratio and mutual relationship between trade enterprise groups. The trade industry refers to a group of enterprises characterized by specialized operations formed by commodity producers and commodity operators with basically the same main business range.
Composition elements of the trade industry structure
The composition elements of the trade industry structure refer to the division of labor of various business elements that construct the specialization of trade activities. These business element divisions mainly include:
(1) Division of labor;
(2) Capital allocation;
(3) Technology input and intangible assets.
Factors affecting changes in the trade industry structure
(I) Trend of commodity division of labor
As an organizational connection method for specialized operations, the trade industry is the direct result of the trade division of labor and the commodity division of labor. The factors affecting the commodity division of labor include: (1) Commodity structure; (2) The natural attributes of commodities in circulation.
1. Commodity structural factors.
Tens of thousands of commodities with different uses and performances constitute the colorful commodity world and form commodity structures at different levels. The commodities of the whole society include two major parts: means of production and consumer goods. Based on the basic use value of the product, the means of production can be divided into metals, building materials, wood, electromechanical, fuel, metal recycling and other major categories; consumer goods are divided into textiles, general merchandise, grain, salt, local products, vegetables, hardware and other major categories, which constitute the first level of the commodity structure. According to the performance and specific use value of the commodity, these major categories of commodities can be further subdivided. For example, general merchandise can be subdivided into large general merchandise and small general merchandise with low value, thus forming the second level of the commodity structure. The specific types of commodities constitute the third level of the commodity structure. After the commodity types, the commodity varieties can also be subdivided one by one according to different specifications, styles and colors, so as to enrich the content of the commodity structure. Generally speaking, the business scope of the commercial industry can only be selected from the first to the third levels of the commodity structure, that is, the main variety direction is determined within the scope of the commodity types. This is because a type of commodity has constituted the use value of an independent unit and is a basic material consumption unit. Although the same commodity has a variety of different specifications, styles and colors, they cannot change the use value of the same commodity, but have different applicability to consumption.
The circulation and operation of various commodities have different technical requirements, operating characteristics, supply methods and service specifications. For example, the operation of non-staple food has a series of special requirements in terms of storage and capital turnover speed, and the operation of durable consumer goods has a series of special requirements in terms of maintenance and other after-sales services. The richer the commodity structure, especially those using new processes. The increase in the variety of products made of new materials, the more it is necessary to appropriately reduce the degree of comprehensive operation in the circulation of commodities, and implement specialized operations according to reasonable commodity division of labor, so as to give full play to advantages and improve efficiency. Once the specialized operation of a certain type of commodity is expanded and forms a group of enterprises operating similar commodities, a new trade industry will be born. It can be seen that the commodity structure is an important component of the trade industry structure, and the material objects on which the trade industry structure depends can only be determined by the first, second and third level commodity structures.
2. The natural attribute factors of commodities.
The division of labor of commodities is not only based on the commodity structure formed in the direct production process as a material premise, but also not affected and restricted by the natural attributes of commodities on circulation. The commodity circulation expressed in the form of use value is the movement of commodities in a substantial manner. In the process of circulation, various commodities have different physical and chemical properties, which restrict the operation of related commodities to varying degrees. Some commodities are not suitable for comprehensive operation by one unit, and their storage and transportation also have a series of special technical requirements; the operation of some other commodities requires unique circulation channels, which inevitably requires corresponding operation organizations to achieve a certain degree of commodity division of labor. As a result, the above-mentioned commodity operation is separated from the comprehensive operation and forms an independent trade industry.
(II) Enterprise Organization Factors
Enterprise organization (curbing segmentation) and commodity structure (deepening division of labor) together constitute the constraints on the formation and change of the trade industry structure. Including:
(1) Constraints on internal business risks of enterprises;
(2) Constraints on business connection between enterprises (between different circulation links in the vertical direction).
1. Constraints on internal business of enterprises.
Under the conditions of commodity economy, trading enterprises must participate in market commodity competition. The circulation field has strong active elements, which makes it full of business risks while there are a large number of market opportunities. Due to the limitations of various business conditions and external factors of enterprises, if the scale benefits achieved by operating a single commodity are lower than the cost of comprehensive operation, the operator hopes to share the business risks by using a variety of commodities with different values, reduce the probability of business failure, and implement comprehensive operation to a certain extent. This hinders the improvement of the degree of specialized operation. In real economic life, after the vegetable and pork markets were liberalized, some state-owned vegetable markets also operated commodities that were completely unrelated to the main varieties. In the small-scale operation of individual vendors, the above situation is more common and obvious. In this case, the growth of emerging commercial industries is very easy to be curbed. On the contrary, if an enterprise has superior operating conditions and can achieve obvious scale benefits, and competition forces the enterprise to concentrate its efforts on studying the market conditions of certain commodities, the characteristics of the enterprise’s comprehensive operation will be greatly weakened. A certain commodity has formed a professional operation group within the social scope, and a new type of trade industry will gradually be standardized.
2. Constraints on business connection between enterprises.
The trade industry needs to establish a relatively stable horizontal division of labor between trade enterprises, and also needs to establish a vertical enterprise organization in each link of commodity circulation according to the characteristics of the industry, forming an industry system composed of wholesale at the place of production, wholesale at the place of sale, transit wholesale and retail enterprises. On the one hand, it is necessary to ensure the formation and development of the industry division of labor relationship to obtain a stable source of goods; on the other hand, it is necessary to ensure that the industry division of labor relationship is finally implemented. The formation of the industry system mainly lies in the mutual connection of business operations between various links. Generally speaking, professional wholesalers operate fewer types of goods, but the specifications, styles and colors are relatively complete, while retailers operate more types, but the specifications, styles and colors are relatively few. Establishing a vertical industry system cannot guarantee that the commodity operation targets between wholesale trade at all levels and between wholesale trade enterprises and retail trade enterprises are completely the same. However, wholesale enterprises must ensure the needs of the necessary commodity catalog of the first level of retail enterprise commodity categories, and the main varieties of retail enterprises should also be determined according to the commodity catalog of wholesale enterprises. Of course, this does not deny the development of appropriate cross-operation by professional wholesale enterprises in the process of enterprise activities, nor can it exclude the significance of retail enterprises obtaining supplementary sources through flexible purchase and sales links. If the close relationship between wholesale and retail within the industry system is severed, retail enterprises that mainly obtain goods through wholesale links will lose stable purchase and sales relationships, and wholesale enterprises that aim to serve retail enterprises will also lose broad sales channels, so that the business mode of enterprises will return to comprehensive management, and the level of specialization of commodity management will have to fall into a low-level cycle, and emerging industries will find it difficult to achieve standardization in fluctuations.
The above two factors constitute completely different constraints on the formation of industries or changes in industry structure. That is, the change in commodity structure makes it necessary to segment the commercial industry and needs to continuously deepen the division of commodity labor; the internal and external factors of enterprise management require comprehensive management to a certain extent and curb the development trend of industry segmentation. Both factors are direct factors affecting the segmentation of industry structure. The latter is a more complex variable, and its role in promoting changes in industry structure is later than the former, making the changes in the structure of the trade industry relatively slow.
(III) Specialization of production and segmentation of consumption
are deep factors affecting changes in the structure of the trade industry. The specialization of production enables more new products to join the trade series, providing the basis for industry segmentation; the segmentation of consumption enables enterprises to obtain more economic benefits through the scale operation of single commodities, providing the conditions for the formation of industries. The diversification of consumption provides market conditions for the emergence of new trade industries.
The specialization of production and the segmentation of consumption are deep-seated constraints on the changes in commodity structure and enterprise management elements. The specialization of production makes the commodity structure more and more abundant, and the specialization of production is always accompanied by the reform of technology and the progress of technology, which makes the commodity structure undergo fundamental changes. For some commodities with complex sales and service technical requirements and more capital, specialized operations should be carried out to form new industries. For example, as the production of household appliances develops towards large quantities and specialization, the operation of household appliances will be separated from the hardware and electrical industry to form a new commercial industry, which is an inevitable requirement for production specialization.
Consumption segmentation is a gradual process. An important content of consumption segmentation is that while consumers have different demands for various commodities, they also greatly strengthen their tendency to choose different styles, colors and qualities of the same commodity. This selection tendency is not only affected by economic factors such as consumers’ monetary income, but also obviously subject to people’s psychological preference factors, especially in the process of modern material civilization, people’s psychological pursuit of the development of enjoyment materials. In this case, non-price competition, which mainly meets people’s higher requirements for commodity quality, corporate reputation and after-sales service, is introduced into market trading activities more. In order to occupy a larger market share, enterprises have to concentrate on studying the operation of a few varieties in order to win in the competition, thereby reducing the degree of comprehensive operation and developing appropriate commodity division of labor.
This shows that the specialization of production and the segmentation of consumption are deep-seated factors affecting the structural changes of the trade industry. On the one hand, the specialization of production refreshes the specific content of the commodity structure, enables more new products to join the product exchange series, and provides the material basis for the formation of emerging industries; on the other hand, the segmentation of consumption forms a relatively stable purchasing demand, which creates ideal conditions for the formation of emerging industries for enterprises to obtain better economic benefits through the scale operation of single commodities. At the same time, in the process of consumer segmentation, people’s selectivity does not allow operators to implement comprehensive operations that cover all kinds of commodities.
Rationalization of the structure of the trade industry
(I) Principles of optimizing the structure of the trade industry
1. One of the signs of rationalization: the degree of division of labor in the production of various commodities is consistent with the economic batch of a certain starting point.
The process of production specialization first shows the process of realizing mass production, and its condition is to realize mass sales. Therefore, it is inevitable that corresponding changes will occur in the circulation field. Since the specialization of production is the direct result of various types of production division of labor, and whether the production division of labor can achieve stable development through production specialization depends to a large extent on whether the production batch that can make the most full use of economies of scale, that is, the economic batch, is achieved. From the perspective of long-term dynamic processes, the division of labor in the structure of trade organizations that is consistent with production should not only be consistent with the degree of social division of labor in production, but also with the economic batch of a certain starting point. Because there is always an inherent economic batch in the stable social division of labor, the economic batch formed in the direct production process and reflected in the scale economy of the factory does not necessarily guarantee that the new division of labor in the trade industry formed on this basis can be implemented on a large scale and achieve significant circulation economic benefits. Obviously, the professional production line and business batch of home appliances have just been formed. It is impossible for a commercial industry to adapt to the circulation of home appliances. It can only carry out special distribution and other forms of promotion activities in various places to make it a part of comprehensive operation. Only when the output reaches a certain scale and professional operation is implemented throughout the society can a new commercial industry be formed. Therefore, an important sign of the rationalization of the structure of the trade industry is that the formation of the emerging trade industry should be adapted to the division of labor of the production of related products and the economic batch of a certain starting point.
2. The second sign of rationalization: it should basically meet the needs of the segmented market.
The segmented market demand makes the consumer’s purchasing intention have distinct personality characteristics, and separates various special consumer demands, and each consumer demand has a certain degree of linkage. Therefore, an independent sales agency is needed to provide special after-sales service. Under the conditions of commodity economy, the operating funds of enterprises will eventually be restricted by hard budget constraints. The trade industry facing consumers can only expand its business scale under the norms of the principle of diligence and fast sales. For example, in Western countries, department stores, which are based on the principle of increasing varieties and expanding sales, are gradually turning to the operation and service of high-end brand-name products and luxury goods that reflect the requirements of division of labor in the face of the impact of the wave of diversified consumer demand; the market, as a modern sales method, has turned from general and cheap mass services to high-end individual services for special accounts. In this case, the extent to which operators can implement division of labor, train sales personnel, provide credit, door-to-door delivery and other services to consumers, and then form how many independent trade industries within the society, is related to whether the segmented consumer needs can be fully realized. Therefore, whether the segmented consumer needs can be met is an important sign of the rationalization of the trade industry structure.
3. The third sign of rationalization: mutual coordination of internal industry configuration should be achieved.
The rationalization of the trade industry structure is not only manifested in the mutual adaptation of the trade industry structure and the external environment, but also in the mutual coordination of industry configuration within the trade department. To implement the mutual coordination of industry configuration, it is necessary to ensure that the industry operating new products is separated in time and implement specialized operation, and to reasonably allocate the proportion of the industry operating material products and the labor industry, and to make the logistics industry keep pace with other trade industries.
(II) Guarantee system for rationalization of trade industry structure
1. Implement different degrees of professional management in wholesale and retail links. Under the original commodity circulation system, industry activities were organized according to the professional company system, and professional companies were used as administrative entities to manage commodity circulation, with wholesale companies as the “leader” and retail companies set up. This not only made the industry division too coarse, but also emphasized the counterpart setting of wholesale and retail companies. Retail companies hold the right to purchase goods in their own hands, making the professional management of wholesale and retail links at the same level, affecting the rationalization of industry structure. In the process of the new commodity circulation system, to determine the guarantee system for the rationalization of the commercial industry structure, we should first clarify the different degrees of commodity division of labor in wholesale and retail links.
Generally speaking, a higher degree of commodity division of labor should be implemented in the wholesale link. Specifically, wholesale enterprises in the production area mainly purchase products in the production area or receive imported goods in other places, and have a higher degree of professional management to adapt to production specialization, while wholesale enterprises in the sales area are second. Wholesale enterprises in the sales area not only purchase goods from wholesale enterprises in the production area, but also purchase goods from wholesale enterprises in various production areas through multiple channels, which will inevitably reduce the degree of commodity division of wholesale enterprises in the sales area. Unlike wholesale enterprises in the production area, retail enterprises certainly have the necessity to implement commodity division and meet diversified consumer needs, but the various demands faced by retail enterprises may belong to the same subject, that is, consumers. In order to meet the interconnected consumer needs, they need to implement a certain degree of comprehensive management, which offsets the degree of commodity division. The specialized production faced by wholesale enterprises in the production area is undertaken by different subjects, so they can implement a higher degree of commodity division, thus forming a ladder structure with different degrees of division of wholesale and retail links.
On this basis, a wholesale-retail institution system with different degrees of commodity division is realized, forming an organizational system for the rationalization of the trade industry structure.
2. Form an effective mechanism for labor allocation among industries. The key to the formation of the trade industry is a certain number of trade enterprise organizations, so the effective allocation of economic resources in the operation of various commodities characterized by professional division of labor is another guarantee factor for the rationalization of the industry structure. The following points should be achieved in determining this guarantee factor: (1) Use optimization methods to determine the target quota for resource allocation between industries, effectively allocate human resources with certain qualities, and realize the reasonable layout of commodity funds; (2) With the effective allocation of economic resources between industries as the goal, participate in the formation of commercial prices by controlling the gross profit margins of various industries, and adjust them according to the priority goals of industry development, so as to stimulate the resource stock and investment direction between industries and form an interest guidance mechanism for resource allocation between industries.
3. Establish industry associations to enhance the government’s macro-control capabilities in the development and layout of the trade industry. Industry organizations are a collection of various economic forms and economic organizations in the same industry. It is necessary to establish industry associations to maintain the integrity and coordinated development of enterprises. Under the conditions of diversified economic forms in the circulation field and deepening horizontal economic alliances, industry associations can coordinate the development of the commercial industry in the whole society, which is difficult for government departments to replace. It realizes the government’s macro-intentions for enterprise development through the functions of liaison, coordination, service and guidance authorized by the government and confirmed by enterprises in the industry, thereby greatly enhancing the government’s overall regulatory capabilities in the layout of industry development.
As an intermediary transmission link for national macro-control, industry associations have certain characteristics of macro-management, which is different from economic entities formed in horizontal alliances and composed of a few enterprises; as a tool for loose horizontal economic connections and exchange of market information among enterprises, industry associations also have the role of private coordination, which is different from the industry management agencies of government departments. Industry associations should clarify their service objects. Industry associations can be set up according to the first level of the commodity structure, and industry association branches or industry associations for single commodities can be set up according to the second level. The scope of service objects is narrowed in turn.