考博网提供 kaobo.net 1 考博英语阅读资料 Unit One Passage 1 The physical distribution of products has two primary aspects: transportation and storage. Both aspects are highly developed and specialized phases of marketing. The costs of both trans-porting and storing are built into the prices of products. Transportation can be by truck, rail- way, ship, or barge. For some items, such as exotic plants and flowers, or when rapid delivery is essential, air freight may be used. Storage, or warehousing, is a necessary function because production and consumption of goods rarely match: items generally are not sold as quickly as they are made. Inventories build up, both in warehouses and at retail establishments, before the foods are sold. The transporta-tion function is involved in bringing goods to a warehouse and taking them from it to retail stores. Storage performs the service of stabilizing market price. If, for example, no agricultural product could be stored, all food would have to be put on the market immediately. This would, of course, create a glut and lower prices drastically. There would be an immediate benefit to consumers, but in the long run they would suffer. Farmers, because of low prices, would be forced off the land, and the amount of food produced would decrease. This, in turn, would raise consumer prices. Warehouses for storage are of several types. Private warehouses are owned by manufactur-ers. Public warehouses, in spite of their name, are privately owned facilities, but they are in-dependent of manufacturer ownership. General-merchandise warehouses store a great variety of products. Cold-storage warehouses store perishable goods, especially food products. Grain ele-vators are a kind of...
