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Market
A market is "an authorized concourse of buyers and sellers of commodities, meeting at a place more or less strictly limited or defined, at an appointed time." (Hill 1966) The term "markets" varies widely. A market may or may not be enclosed, may or may not be permanent or semi-permanent stalls and may be rural or urban. There is no size criteria, as long as there is at least one potential buyer and one potential seller.
Function
A market has several functions, all of which are present to varying degrees in different market places. In a local exchange market, there is usually a subsistence economy where simple services are provided depending on a family's surplus and deficit. Central place functions include low-order manufactured goods, exotic foodstuffs and certain services that are paid fro with cash proceeds from internal trade. The third type of market function is internal trade is the most dominant type of market although glimpses of both local exchange and central place functions can be seen within it.
Location
A market is located in an area that serves both buyers and sellers efficiently. In a rural area, it is often in the center of the village, the focus where everybody converges. In a city, a market must be accessible to people, and is usually in areas of high population density, or highly accessible by car, bus or other form of public transport.
Markets are often in a fixed location, although sometimes the traders have to move around to different locations in order to reach all of their customers. Whether they remain fixed or move is a function of whether the maximum range of the a good is larger or equal to the minimum threshold of a good. The maximum range of a good is the farthest distance the population is willing to go in order to buy a good offered at a specific place. The minimum threshold of a good is the minimum amount of consumption needed to pay for production or offering of the central good. If the maximum range is larger or equal to the minimum threshold, then the market remains in a fixed location. If the range is smaller than the minimum threshold, the traders are forced to travel to reach their customers.
Periodic Markets