？Read this text taken from an article about wholesaler marketing decisions.？Choose the bes

？Read this text taken from an article about wholesaler marketing decisions.

？Choose the best sentence to fill each of the gaps.

？For each gap 9--14, mark one letter (A--H) on your Answer Sheet.

？Do not use any letter more than once.

Wholesaler Marketing Decisions

Wholesalers, like retailers, must make decisions on their target market, product assortment, pricing, promotion and place. Many wholesalers make the mistake of serving too many customers. They need to define their target market. H

On the other hand, they need to discourage the customers who are not profitable enough by requiring larger orders or adding surcharges to smaller ones. The wholesaler's product is his assortment. Unfortunately, many of them carry too wide a range of goods. (9) . They need to identify the more profitable lines and vary inventory levels accordingly. Wholesalers usually mark up the cost of goods by about 20 percent to cover their expenses. This often leaves a margin of about 3 percent profit. (10) . They are cutting margins on some lines in order to win new customers, and on other lines they are asking for special prices when they can increase the supplier's sales.

(11) . Their use of trade advertising, sales promotion, publicity and personal selling is largely haphazard. (12) . They certainly need to develop an overall promotion strategy. Finally, wholesalers typically locate in Iow- rent, low-tax areas and put very little money into their physical setting and offices. In many cases they don't invest enough in material- handling and order-processing systems. (13) . Progressive wholesales have already moved over to the automated warehouse where orders are fed into a computer, items are picked up by mechanical devices and conveyed on a belt to the dispatch area for packing. (14) .

A They should not carry too many lines or too much stock.

B Many wholesalers are now using computers to carry out accounting, billing, inventory control and forecasting.

C They need to adopt some of the image-making techniques used by retailers.

D Most wholesalers are not promotion-minded enough.

E They need to adopt some methods used by sellers.

F Wholesalers are beginning to experiment with new approaches to prices.

G To meet rising costs, they need to study the advantages of automated handling procedures.

H They need to identify the more profitable customers and design stronger offers and build relationships with them.

(9)