20SJCCC060

SHAM ARAVIND I

THE MIDDLEMEN CULTURE

A middleman is a person who buys the goods or service from the producer and sells it to the
consumer. In other words, the act as a distributor and complete the channel between the
channel of the producer and the consumer.
They adopt various techniques to make money by trying to sell the products to the customers
and make profit. To avoid this, businesses and customers try their best to “cut out the
middlemen” by directly dealing with each other or to the manufacturers themselves.
They help the producers in a way by providing constructive feedback so that they produce
those kinds of goods which are likeable by the consumers. Also, they help the consumers by
making goods available at the right place, right time and right quantity.
Despite the many advantages that middlemen can offer, middlemen do more harm than good
and should be eliminated. As goods exchange hands from one middleman to the other, their
prices inflate. Not only this, but they also adapt unethical ways to make profits and sells their
goods.
For example, in case of heavy competition among the middlemen they duplicate the genuine
products and try their best to sell them. The end duplicated product loses its originality and
seems to be a low-quality product which might affect the consumer in some or the other
ways.
This in turn influences the consumer market indirectly. The consumers themselves start
developing such unethical manners to buy these goods.

Another example is, they sell at a higher price rate than the Maximum Retail Price (MRP), as
they can manipulate the “local tax extra” to their advantages.
Consumers often get manipulated and cheated in a very subtle way by the middlemen.
Therefore, most of them, including me prefer an economy without middlemen which in turn
might eliminate the unfair circulation of goods and services.