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Commerce
 
 
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Commerce is a division of trade
Trade

Tradeis the willing exchange of goods, Service , or both. Trade is also called commerce. A mechanism that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter , the direct exchange of goods and services....
 or production
Production, costs, and pricing

In microeconomics, industrial organization is the field which describes the behavior of firms in the marketplace with regard to production, pricing, employment and other decisions....
 which deals with the exchange
Trade

Tradeis the willing exchange of goods, Service , or both. Trade is also called commerce. A mechanism that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter , the direct exchange of goods and services....
 of goods and services from producer
Production, costs, and pricing

In microeconomics, industrial organization is the field which describes the behavior of firms in the marketplace with regard to production, pricing, employment and other decisions....
 to final consumer
Consumer

Consumer is a broad label that refers to any individuals or household that use Good generated within the economic system. The concept of a consumer is used in different contexts, so that the usage and significance of the term may vary....
. It comprises the trading
Trade

Tradeis the willing exchange of goods, Service , or both. Trade is also called commerce. A mechanism that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter , the direct exchange of goods and services....
 of something of economic value
Value (economics)

The economic value of a good or service has puzzled economists since the beginning of the discipline. First, economists tried to estimate the value of a good to an individual alone, and extend that definition to goods which can be exchanged....
 such as goods, services, information
Information

Information as a Conveyed concept has a diversity of meanings, from everyday usage to technical settings. Generally speaking, the concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control system, data, form, instruction, knowledge, Meaning , stimulation, pattern, perception, and knowledge representation....
 or money
Money

Money is anything that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts. The main uses of money are as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value....
 between two or more entities. Commerce functions as the central mechanism which drives capitalism
Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system in which wealth, and the means of producing wealth, are private property and controlled rather than commonly, publicly, or state-owned and controlled....
 and certain other economic system
Economic system

An economic system or ?conomic system is a system that involves the Economic production, distribution and consumption of Good and Service between the entities in a particular society....
s (but compare command economy, for example). Commercialization
Commercialization

Commercialization is the process or cycle of introducing a new product into the market. The actual launch of a new product is the final stage of new product development, and the one where the most money will have to be spent for advertising, sales promotion, and other marketing efforts....
 or commercialisation consists of the process of transforming something into a product, service or activity which one may then use in commerce.

ommerce is very good primarily expresses the fairly abstract notions of buying and selling
Selling

Academically, selling is thought of as a part of marketing, however, the two disciplines are completely different. Sales often forms a separate grouping in a corporate structure, employing separate specialist operatives known as salespeople ....
, whereas trade may refer to the exchange of a specific class of goods ("the sugar trade", for example), or to a specific act of exchange (as in "a trade on the stock-exchange").

Business can refer to an organization set up for the purpose of engaging in manufacturing or exchange, as well as serving as a loose synonym of the abstract collective "commerce and industry".

History
Some commentators trace the origins of commerce to the very start of communication
Communication

Communication is commonly defined as "the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs...",, 1: an act or instance of transmitting and 3 a: "a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or beha...
 in prehistoric times.






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Commerce is a division of trade
Trade

Tradeis the willing exchange of goods, Service , or both. Trade is also called commerce. A mechanism that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter , the direct exchange of goods and services....
 or production
Production, costs, and pricing

In microeconomics, industrial organization is the field which describes the behavior of firms in the marketplace with regard to production, pricing, employment and other decisions....
 which deals with the exchange
Trade

Tradeis the willing exchange of goods, Service , or both. Trade is also called commerce. A mechanism that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter , the direct exchange of goods and services....
 of goods and services from producer
Production, costs, and pricing

In microeconomics, industrial organization is the field which describes the behavior of firms in the marketplace with regard to production, pricing, employment and other decisions....
 to final consumer
Consumer

Consumer is a broad label that refers to any individuals or household that use Good generated within the economic system. The concept of a consumer is used in different contexts, so that the usage and significance of the term may vary....
. It comprises the trading
Trade

Tradeis the willing exchange of goods, Service , or both. Trade is also called commerce. A mechanism that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter , the direct exchange of goods and services....
 of something of economic value
Value (economics)

The economic value of a good or service has puzzled economists since the beginning of the discipline. First, economists tried to estimate the value of a good to an individual alone, and extend that definition to goods which can be exchanged....
 such as goods, services, information
Information

Information as a Conveyed concept has a diversity of meanings, from everyday usage to technical settings. Generally speaking, the concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control system, data, form, instruction, knowledge, Meaning , stimulation, pattern, perception, and knowledge representation....
 or money
Money

Money is anything that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts. The main uses of money are as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value....
 between two or more entities. Commerce functions as the central mechanism which drives capitalism
Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system in which wealth, and the means of producing wealth, are private property and controlled rather than commonly, publicly, or state-owned and controlled....
 and certain other economic system
Economic system

An economic system or ?conomic system is a system that involves the Economic production, distribution and consumption of Good and Service between the entities in a particular society....
s (but compare command economy, for example). Commercialization
Commercialization

Commercialization is the process or cycle of introducing a new product into the market. The actual launch of a new product is the final stage of new product development, and the one where the most money will have to be spent for advertising, sales promotion, and other marketing efforts....
 or commercialisation consists of the process of transforming something into a product, service or activity which one may then use in commerce.

Word usage

Commerce is very good primarily expresses the fairly abstract notions of buying and selling
Selling

Academically, selling is thought of as a part of marketing, however, the two disciplines are completely different. Sales often forms a separate grouping in a corporate structure, employing separate specialist operatives known as salespeople ....
, whereas trade may refer to the exchange of a specific class of goods ("the sugar trade", for example), or to a specific act of exchange (as in "a trade on the stock-exchange").

Business can refer to an organization set up for the purpose of engaging in manufacturing or exchange, as well as serving as a loose synonym of the abstract collective "commerce and industry".

History


Some commentators trace the origins of commerce to the very start of communication
Communication

Communication is commonly defined as "the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs...",, 1: an act or instance of transmitting and 3 a: "a process by which information is exchanged between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or beha...
 in prehistoric times. Apart from traditional self-sufficiency
Self-sufficiency

Self-sufficiency refers to the state of not requiring any outside aid, support, or interaction, for survival; it is therefore a type of personal or collective Wiktionary:autonomy....
, trading
Trade

Tradeis the willing exchange of goods, Service , or both. Trade is also called commerce. A mechanism that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter , the direct exchange of goods and services....
 became a principal facility of prehistoric people, who bartered what they had for goods and services from each other. Historian Peter Watson
Peter Watson (business writer)

Peter Watson is an intellectual historian and author from London. He was educated at the University of Durham, University of London, and University of Rome La Sapienza....
 dates the history of long-distance commerce
History of international trade

The history of international trade chronicles notable events that have affected the trade between various countries.In the era before the rise of the nation state, the term 'international' trade cannot be literally applied, but simply means trade over long distances; the sort of movement in goods which would represent international trade in...
 from circa
Circa

Circa means "in approximately", generally referring to a year. It is widely used in genealogy and historical writing, when the dates of events are approximately known....
 150,000 years ago.

In historic times, the introduction of currency
Currency

A currency is a Medium of exchange, facilitating the trade of goods and/or Service s. It is coins and paper bills used as money. It is one form of money, where money is anything that serves as a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a standard of value....
 as a standardized money
Money

Money is anything that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts. The main uses of money are as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value....
  facilitated a wider exchange of goods and services. Numismatists have collections of these monies, which include coin
Coin

A coin is a piece of hard material, usually metal or a metallic material, usually in the shape of a Disk , and most often issued by a government....
s from some Ancient World large-scale societies, although initial usage involved unmarked lumps of precious metal
Precious metal

A precious metal is a rare metallic chemical element of high economics value. Chemically, the precious metals are less reactivity than most elements, have high lustre , are softer or more ductility, and have higher melting points than other metals....
.

The circulation of a standardized currency provides the major advantage to commerce of overcoming the "double coincidence of wants" necessary for barter trades to occur. For example, if a man who makes pots for a living needs a new house, he may wish to hire someone to build it for him. But he cannot make an equivalent number of pots to equal this service done for him, because even if the builder could build the house, the builder might not want the pots. Currency solved this problem by allowing a society as a whole to assign values and thus to collect goods and services effectively and to store them for later use, or to split them among several providers.

commerce includes a complex system of companies
Corporation

A corporation is a legal entity separate from the persons that form it. It is a legal entity owned by individual stockholders. In British tradition it is the term designating a body corporate, where it can be either a corporation sole or a corporation aggregate ....
 that try to maximize their profits by offering product
Product (business)

The noun product is defined as a "thing produced by labor or effort" or the "result of an act or a process", and stems from the verb produce from the Latin produce, lead or bring forth....
s and services to the market
Market

A market is any one of a variety of different systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby persons trade, and goods and services are exchanged, forming part of the economy....
 (which consists both of individuals and other companies) at the lowest production-cost
Production, costs, and pricing

In microeconomics, industrial organization is the field which describes the behavior of firms in the marketplace with regard to production, pricing, employment and other decisions....
. There exists a system of International trade
International trade

International trade is exchange of Capital , goods, and services across international borders or territories. In most countries, it represents a significant share of gross domestic product ....
, which some argue has gone too far.

See also