12. Jobber.—A jobber or wholesaler is one who buys, usually in quantities, for the purpose of selling the same goods without alteration, to other dealers. These dealers may be either other jobbers or retail ers. When one who is otherwise a jobber sells goods to a consumer, so far as that particular transaction is concerned he ceases to be a jobber and becomes a re tailer. We have already suggested that there was formerly a clear distinction between the function of the jobber and the wholesaler. The jobber bought "jobs" or odd lots, at particularly favorable prices, and disposed of them either to wholesalers or to re tailers. Frequently, the jobber had no regularly es tablished market, while ordinarily the wholesaler sup plied a more or less permanent list of customers.
This distinction no longer exists in most lines of trade and the words jobber and wholesaler are usually employed interchangeably. Because jobber is the shorter word it is the more common, and we shall use it in preference to wholesaler.
13. Manufacturen—A manufacturer expends la bor upon raw materials or upon already manufac tured parts so as to change them into something dif ferent in form or use. He may either buy or con trol the supply of things upon which he works. If he buys his material, he differs from a jobber or re tailer in that he does not sell the things he buys ex actly as he buys them. Each of the following may be considered a manufacturer: (a) The farmer who raises wheat and puts the raw material on the market.
(b) The miller who purchases wheat and produces flour.
(c) The baker who purchases flour and uses it in the manufacture of bread.
The automobile manufacturer is no less a manu facturer if he purchases all his parts and simply as sembles them, than he would be if he built the entire car from the raw material. A publisher is a manufac turer. The man who runs a cigar factory without helpers is as much a manufacturer as a great cor poration like the American Tobacco Company.
The manufacturer who is important from the stand point of marketing is a business unit in charge of the combined activities of producing form utility and of marketing goods. If any factory owner solves his sales problem by making arrangements to dispose of his entire product to some individual, or to some com pany that is to take the responsibility of marketing it, the factory owner has no immediate problem of dis tribution, and the agency that handles the products in the open market has to meet the problems that the manufacturer would otherwise have to face. This is not an unusual situation. There are sales com panies that make a specialty of disposing of a fac tory's entire output, and in certain branches of the textile industry commission houses contract to dis tribute the entire output of the mills.
14. Selling problems of dealers and manyfactur ers.—In contrast with those of the manufacturer, the selling problems of the retailer and the jobber are comparatively simple. The retailer need give but little consideration to the kind of buyers to whom he can best appeal. He knows without any study that his field is in satisfying the wants of consumers. To be sure, within the consumer class there are many groups that he must study and select from before he begins business, but in general his chief problem is not to determine upon the proper market for his goods; it is mainly to find the best method of reach ing the market that is naturally his. The same thing is true of the jobber. If he is to remain a jobber only, Ile must confine his sales to dealers, and usually those dealers are retailers. True, he must find the right retailers, but, like the retailer, his chief prob lem lies in selecting methods of reaching the market rather than in selecting the market itself.
With the manufacturer the case is different, how ever. His first, and often his greatest, problem is to decide whether to sell his goods to jobbers, to re tailers, or consumers—whether to sell direct only to one, or to all, or to any combination of these classes. Only after this question is answered can he give con sideration to the other problems having to do with methods of reaching the class to which he has decided to appeal. In general, the retailer and the jobber have one great group of problems—the selection of selling methods; while the manufacturer has two- the selection of trade channels as well as the selection of selling methods.
15. Other aids in marketing.—We have referred to the manufacturer, jobber, retailer and consumer as the normal terminals and intersecting points in modern channels of trade. There are, however, other factors whose services are sometimes utilized, even tho they may not be typical of the entire marketing field. The term semi-jobber is ordinarily applied to a dealer who sells both to dealers and to consumers. His activities are those of both the job ber and the retailer. In some lines of trade semi jobbers are common. In many others, however, they are not regarded with favor either by manufacturers or by the so-called legitimate jobbers or retailers. The term manufacturing jobber is usually applied to one who is chiefly a jobber but who also sells goods that he manufactures himself, or that someone else manufactures for him under his own label. His ac tivities are both those of a manufacturer and of a jobber. We are to find that the rise of manufactur ing jobbers has been the cause of many complications in trade relations.