Financing and Marketing Management

Unit 10 - Market Structure and Types

10.2. Pure competition
The market consists of large number of buyers and sellers trading in a uniform commodity such as wheat, copper, or financial securities such that individual buyer and seller cannot influence by their marketing actions. No single buyer or seller has much effect on the going market price. A seller cannot change more than the going price, because buyer can obtain as much they need at the going price. Therefore in pure/perfect competition, they are only price takers but not price makers. A typical demand curve faced by the individual player will be parallel to horizontal axis reflecting that at a given level of price any amount quantity can be bought or sold. In a purely competitive market, marketing research, product development, pricing, advertising, and sales promotion play little or no role. Thus, sellers in these markets do not spend much time on marketing strategy.