Abstract
Independent negotiators — central players in the “long” distribution chain, acting as intermediaries between suppliers and distributors from whom they buy and resell goods — are now largely challenged by the break-up of the “wholesale function”. Wholesale has been distinguished from retail since Antiquity, which is also a distribution activity involving the purchase of goods for resale, presumably in smaller quantities, but the final transaction of which is mainly aimed at customers of consumers, natural persons not acting for business purposes. Wholesale trade consists, according to the definition of the European Communities, of the activity of ‘any undertaking whose economic activity consists exclusively or principally in reselling goods in its own name to traders, processors or professional users, including craftsmen or other users. The goods may be resold in the unaltered state or after processing, treatment or packaging as they are normally practised in these professions. However, this definition includes acts of processing, which appear to be an element in characterising suppliers who in the distribution scheme take place downstream, at the stage of production or processing of the goods.