Markets Around Us

Class 7 Social Science · Chapter 12: Understanding Markets · NCERT Exploring Society: India and Beyond section 12.3

Learn

In a physical market, buyers and sellers meet in person: weekly haats, local shops, street-food stalls and malls. In an online market, they need not meet: apps and websites let you buy books, groceries or laptops for home delivery, take online classes, and pay online. Some services, like tailoring, still need a physical meeting. In a domestic market, trade happens within the country; in an international market, goods cross borders as exports and imports. India exports software to North America and engineering goods to Europe, and imports crude oil from West Asia and palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia.

Goods travel along a chain. Producers turn raw materials into goods; wholesalers buy in bulk, store goods in godowns or cold storage and sell through mandis; distributors carry goods to distant shops; retailers sell small quantities to consumers like us. Online, manufacturers send stock to an aggregator's warehouse, which packs and delivers orders. In Surat, raw cotton from mandis becomes fabric through power looms and dyeing units, moving through markets at each stage before wholesalers send it across India and abroad. Surat is also home to the world's largest diamond-cutting industry.

Explore: the chain of supply.

1. Put the chain in order, from raw materials to the consumer.

Remember

• Markets may be physical or online, domestic or international.
• Goods flow from producers to wholesalers, distributors, retailers and consumers, as in Surat's textile trade.

Quick check

Who buys goods in bulk from producers and stores them in godowns?

1. wholesalers
2. consumers
3. retailers
4. aggregator apps only

Think about it

What are the pros and cons of online shopping for buyers and sellers?

Practice

Practise with fresh questions at three levels (easy, medium, hard), some answered hands-on, with hints and worked answers. Get 4 of your last 5 right to finish the topic.