A merchant is a person or company engaged in trade, conducting sales through stores or online platforms, particularly one that engages in international import and export activities.
Merchants have been known for as long as humans have engaged in trade and commerce. Merchants and merchant networks operated in ancient Babylonia, Assyria, China, Egypt, Greece, India, Persia, Phoenicia and Rome. During the European medieval period, a rapid expansion in trade and commerce led to the rise of a wealthy and powerful merchant class. The European Age of Discovery opened up new trading routes and gave European consumers access to a much broader range of goods. By the 18th century, a new type of manufacturer-merchant had started to emerge and modernize for the purpose of generating profit, cash flow, sales, and revenue using a combination of human, financial, intellectual and physical capital with a view to fueling economic development and growth.
Etymology
The English term, merchant comes from the Middle English, , which is derived from Anglo-Norman , which itself originated from the Vulgar Latin or , formed from present participle of ('to trade, to traffic or to deal in'). The term refers to any type of reseller, but can also be used with a specific qualifier to suggest a person who deals in a given characteristic such as speed merchant, which refer to someone who enjoys fast driving; noise merchant, which refers to a group of musical performers; and dream merchant, which refers to someone who peddles idealistic visionary scenarios.
Types of merchants
Broadly, merchants can be classified into two categories:
A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between the producer and retail merchant, typically dealing in large quantities of goods.Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 2013. mer‧chant In other words, a wholesaler does not sell directly to end-users. Some wholesale merchants only organize the movement of goods rather than move the goods themselves. A retail merchant or retailer sells merchandise to end-users or consumers (including businesses), usually in small quantities. A shop-keeper is an example of a retail merchant.
However, the term 'merchant' is often used in a variety of specialised contexts such as in merchant banker, merchant navy or merchant services.
History
Merchants in antiquity
Merchants have existed as long as humankind has conducted business, trade or commerce.Demirdjian, Z. S., "Rise and Fall of Marketing in Mesopotamia: A Conundrum in the Cradle of Civilization," In The Future of Marketing's Past: Proceedings of the 12th Annual Conference on Historical Analysis and Research in Marketing, Leighton Neilson (ed.), CA, Longman, Association for Analysis and Research in Marketing, 2005Rahul Oka & Chapurukha M. Kusimba, "The Archaeology of Trading Systems, Part 1: Towards a New Trade Synthesis," The Archaeology of Trading Systems, Part 1: Towards a New Trade Synthesis," Journal of Archaeological Research, Vol. 16, pp 339–395Bar-Yosef, O., "The Upper Paleolithic Revolution," Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 31, pp 363–393Alberti, M. E., "Trade and Weighing Systems in the Southern Aegean from the Early Bronze Age to the Iron Age: How Changing Circuits Influenced Global Measures," in Molloy, B. (ed.), Of Odysseys and Oddities: Scales and Modes of Interaction Between Prehistoric Aegean Societies and their Neighbours, [Sheffield Studies in Aegean Archaeology], Oxford, Oxbow, (E-Book), 2016Bintliff, J., "Going to Market in Antiquity," In Stuttgarter Kolloquium zur Historischen Geographie des Altertums, Eckart Olshausen and Holger Sonnabend (eds), Stuttgart, Franz Steiner, 2002, pp 209–250Shaw, E.H., "Ancient and Medieval Marketing," Chapter 2 in: Jones, D. G. B. and Tadajewski, M., The Routledge Companion to Marketing History, Routledge, 2016, pp 23–24 A merchant class operated in many pre-modern societies. Open-air, public markets, where merchants and traders congregated, functioned in ancient Babylonia and Assyria, China, Egypt, Greece, India, Persia, Phoenicia and Rome. These markets typically occupied a place in the town's centre. Surrounding the market, skilled artisans, such as metal-workers and leather workers, occupied premises in alley ways that led to the open market-place. These artisans may have sold wares directly from their premises, but also prepared goods for sale on market days. In ancient Greece markets operated within the agora (open space), and in ancient Rome in the forum. Rome's forums included the Forum Romanum, the Forum Boarium and Trajan's Forum. The Forum Boarium, one of a series of fora venalia or food markets, originated, as its name suggests, as a cattle market. Trajan's Forum was a vast expanse, comprising multiple buildings with shops on four levels. The Roman forum was arguably the earliest example of a permanent retail shop-front.Coleman, P., Shopping Environments, Elsevier, Oxford, 2006, p. 28
In antiquity, exchange involved direct selling through permanent or semi-permanent retail premises such as stall-holders at market places or shop-keepers selling from their own premises or through door-to-door direct sales via merchants or peddlers. The nature of direct selling centred around transactional exchange, where the goods were on open display, allowing buyers to evaluate quality directly through visual inspection. Relationships between merchant and consumer were minimal often playing into public concerns about the quality of produce.Stabel, P., "Guilds in Late Medieval Flanders: myths and realities of guild life in an export-oriented environment," Journal of Medieval History, vol. 30, 2004, pp 187–212
The Phoenicians became well known amongst contemporaries as "traders in purple" – a reference to their monopoly over the purple dye extracted from the murex shell.Rawlinson, G., History of Phoenicia, Library of Alexandria, 1889 The Phoenicians plied their ships across the Mediterranean, becoming a major trading power by the 9th century BCE. Phoenician merchant traders imported and exported wood, textiles, glass and produce such as wine, oil, dried fruit and nuts. Their trading necessitated a network of colonies along the Mediterranean coast, stretching from modern-day Crete through to Tangiers (in present-day Morocco) and northward to Sardinia. The Phoenicians not only traded in tangible goods, but were also instrumental in transporting the trappings of culture. The Phoenicians' extensive trade networks necessitated considerable book-keeping and correspondence. In around 1500 BCE, the Phoenicians developed a script which was much easier to learn than the pictographic systems used in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Phoenician traders and merchants were largely responsible for spreading their alphabet around the region.Daniels (1996) p. 94–95. Phoenician inscriptions have been found in archaeological sites at a number of former Phoenician cities and colonies around the Mediterranean, such as Byblos (in present-day Lebanon) and Carthage in North Africa.
The social status of the merchant class varied across cultures; ranging from high status (the members even eventually achieving titles such as that of Merchant Prince or Nabob) to low status, as in China, Greece and Roman cultures, owing to the presumed distastefulness of profiting from "mere" trade rather than from labor or the labor of others as in agriculture and craftsmanship.Oka, R. and Kusimba, C.M., "The Archaeology of Trading Systems, Part 1: Towards a New Trade Synthesis," The Archaeology of Trading Systems, Part 1: Towards a New Trade Synthesis," Journal of Archaeological Research, Vol. 16, p. 359 The Romans defined merchants or traders in a very narrow sense. Merchants were those who bought and sold goods, while landowners who sold their own produce were not classed as merchants. Being a landowner was a "respectable" occupation. In contrast, the Romans did not consider the activities of merchants "respectable".Tchernia, A., The Romans and Trade, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016, Ch 1 In the ancient cities of the Middle East, where the bazaar was the city's focal point and heartbeat, merchants who worked in bazaar enjoyed high social status and formed part of local elites.Ashraf, A., "Bazaar-Mosque Alliance: The Social Basis of Revolts and Revolutions," International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol. 1, No. 4, 1988, pp. 538–567, Stable URL: , p. 539 In Medieval Western Europe, the Christian church, which closely associated merchants' activities with the sin of usury, criticised the merchant class, strongly influencing attitudes towards them.
In Greco-Roman society, merchants typically did not have high social status, though they may have enjoyed great wealth.Barnish, S.J.B. (1989) "The Transformation of Classical Cities and the Pirenne Debate", Journal of Roman Archaeology, Vol. 2, p. 390. Umbricius Scauras, for example, was a manufacturer and trader of garum in Pompeii, circa 35 C.E. His villa, situated in one of the wealthier districts of Pompeii, was very large and ornately decorated in a show of substantial personal wealth. Mosaic patterns in the floor of his atrium were decorated with images of amphorae bearing his personal brand and inscribed with quality claims. One of the inscriptions on the mosaic amphora reads "G(ari) F(los) SCO[m]/ SCAURI/ EX OFFI[ci]/NA SCAU/RI" which translates as "The flower of garum, made of the mackerel, a product of Scaurus, from the shop of Scaurus". Scaurus' fish sauce had a reputation for very high quality across the Mediterranean; its fame travelled as far away as modern southern France.Curtis, R.I., "A Personalized Floor Mosaic from Pompeii", American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 88, No. 4 (October 1984), DOI: 10.2307/504744, pp. 557–566, Stable URL: Other notable Roman merchants included Marcus Julius Alexander (16 – 44 CE), Sergius Orata (fl. c. 95 BCE) and Annius Plocamus (1st century CE).
In the Roman world, local merchants served the needs of the wealthier landowners. While the local peasantry, who were generally poor, relied on open-air market places to buy and sell produce and wares, major producers such as the great estates were sufficiently attractive for merchants to call directly at their farm-gates. The very wealthy landowners managed their own distribution, which may have involved exporting.Bintliff, J., "Going to Market in Antiquity," In Stuttgarter Kolloquium zur Historischen Geographie des Altertums, Eckart Olshausen and Holger Sonnabend (eds), Stuttgart, Franz Steiner, 2002, p. 229, https://books.google.com/books?id=IAMK1952av4C : "The kind of model that Morley and other specialists in Greco-Roman marketing have been developing [...] sees the local market-town as primarily serving local peasantry. Here they unload their small surplus and purchase minor amounts of farm equipment and luxuries for their barns and homes; some of their needs are already met through travelling pedlars and non-urban periodic fairs held at long intervals. Major producers – the great estates – would be attractive enough foci for merchants to consider travelling directly to purchase commercially-focussed harvests 'at the farm gate', and some landowners were wealthy enough to handle their own distribution to urban markets in the country of production and even to other countries. These latter processes are documented both in the ancient sources and archaeological case-studies." Markets were also important centres of social life, and merchants helped to spread news and gossip.Millar, F., "The World of the Golden Ass", Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 71, 1981, pp. 63–67