Ковальчук К. Ф., Хименко О. О., Михайленко В. І.

Дніпропетровський національний університет імені Олеся Гончара

THE VALUE OF INTERMEDIARY ACTIVITY IN THE MARKET CONDITIONS

Ukrainian industry is characterized by the presence of numerous intersectoral, regional and interregional relations in the modern business environment. Modern economic system effective functioning depends on the creation of a developed market infrastructure that brings together various forms of commodity circulation channels. The central subject of any distribution channel of goods and services is an intermediary company, and for the industrial sector it is a wholesale intermediary. The presence and the need of intermediary organizations is determined by the necessity to solve the fundamental economic conflict between the efficiency of mass production and efficiency of individual consumption.

Important role in solving these tasks belongs to the wholesale trade. On the one hand, the wholesale trade has to organize the active promotion of domestic and foreign products, and on the other hand, has to provide retail trade with the necessary volume and range of commodity supply, by accumulating scattered commodity resources. Wholesale plays the role of market organizer, balancing the interests of its members. Efficiency of the wholesale is a compulsory condition of sustained functioning of market economy.

Wholesale turnover increased by 2.2 times from 2005 to 2011 and amounted to 1,107,289 million UAH in 2011 in Ukraine. It should be noted that 65% of total wholesale turnover of Ukraine is created by Kyiv (35%), Donetsk region (21%) and Dnepropetrovsk region (9%) in 2011.

Several factors determine the growth of wholesale trade, such as: the growth of mass production in large enterprises, which are remote from the main consumers of finished products; increasing amounts of uninterrupted production instead of meeting specific orders; escalation of the necessity to adapt the goods to the requirements of intermediate and end-users in terms of quantity, packaging and range.

Any mediation activity is carried out in order to get the profit. But a reasonable necessity for the existence of intermediary organizations can be traced through a number of advantages that are achieved through their involvement in activities:

- intermediaries can orient the manufacturers in advance in which direction they should develop the production of goods and services, so in fact the intermediaries perform continuous market monitoring;

- intermediaries put into circulation sphere own capital, so they finance the producers of goods and services, creating for them conditions to increase profits by saving turnover of productive capital;

- intermediaries accept the financial guarantees of execution of payment obligations and other obligations of the parties, increasing the reliability of commodity exchanges. Also intermediaries can arrange transportation of the goods, their customs and insurance;

- intermediaries increase the competitiveness of goods on technical level and quality, by making presale preparation of goods and their maintenance during the warranty and post-warranty periods;

- intermediaries enhance the effectiveness of goods advertising by accounting regional and other features of the market;

- capital of the intermediaries is used to finance deals based on both short-term and medium-term loans;

- the manufacturer is exempted from the big number of functions associated with the sale of goods (delivery, sorting, packing, selection of range, adapting to the local market) and thus saves its money.

In summary, we can make a conclusion that the wholesale intermediary is the reliance of the manufacturer; a mediator professional activity leads to making goods cheaper and raising its quality, because the manufacturer is not involved in providing functions that are not typical for him. Intermediary activity makes the market more competitive and adapts it to the consumer requirements.