ABSTRACT
The term market refers to an exchange of commodities between a supplier offering goods or services and a customer with a demand for those goods or services. Before the introduction of money as a means of payment, barter was the common format of trading: people gathered in a marketplace - a physical location - to exchange goods and services directly. Even though local commercial transactions remain important in many countries, nowadays markets and marketing have a much broader meaning. Individual steps involved in the exchange of commodities are complex and may occur at separate times and in different forms of communication between buyer and seller. As the universal means of payment, money plays a decisive role in the functioning of this exchange and is the predominant measure of the value of goods and services.
