Build Your Vocabulary: 37 Ways to Use the Word ’Market’
What is a collocation?
A collocation is a group of two or more words that often go together. Collocations explain why we often say “give a presentation” and “run a meeting,” but we don’t usually say “run a presentation” or “give a meeting.” In this article, you’ll learn some useful collocations with the word “market.”
What is a market?
A market, of course, is a place where people buy and sell things. It can be a real place, like a street market or a supermarket. Markets can also be events where buyers and sellers come together. For example, in many cities around the world, there’s a market once a week in the city’s market square.
More generally, markets can simply refer to all the people who want to buy or sell a particular thing. For example, the oil market consists of all the people and companies that buy and sell oil. The housing market includes everyone who wants to buy or sell a house. The job market is all the people who are looking for work and all the businesses that are looking for workers. A stock market is a group of buyers and sellers of stocks.
Which nouns often come before “market”?
In finance, a bull market is a situation where almost everyone wants to buy the same thing, causing prices to rise. The market traders are like bulls, running around and looking for a chance to attack (i.e. buy). The opposite situation is a bear market, where most people want to sell, causing prices to fall. Here, the traders are like bears, which spend the long cold winter safely in their caves, doing their best to avoid danger.
More generally, we can talk about a buyer’s market, where there are too many sellers, and buyers should be able to buy what they want for a low price. Similarly, in a seller’s market, there are too many buyers who want the same products, so the sellers can put their prices up.
Which nouns often come after “market”?
The market value of a product is the amount of money that people are happy to pay for it. If nobody wants to pay more than $7,000 for your car, that’s the market value, whether you like it or not. If you agree to sell it for $7,000, that becomes the market price — the price set by the market. This is an example of the power of the market forces (i.e. supply and demand) to decide how much money things are worth. The market forces push prices up when demand is higher than supply. And they push prices down when supply is higher than demand.
There’s not much that any of us can do to fight these powerful forces. But we can at least do some market research to find out what customers want — and what they don’t want. If we’re successful, we’ll increase our market share (i.e. sales of our products as a percentage of the whole market). We might even become the market leader (i.e. the business or product with the highest market share).
Which adjectives often come before “market”?
The black market is the part of the market where people buy and sell illegal goods and services, like drugs, fake products, and stolen property. The opposite is the white market, where everything is legal and official. Because the white market is the normal situation for most buying and selling, we usually simply call it “the market.” The grey market is somewhere between the black and white markets — a place to buy legal but unofficial or unauthorized goods. For example, Apple keeps tight control over where you can buy its products. If you buy your iPad from an unofficial store in the grey market, it might be legal, but Apple won’t be happy.
A free market is a market where all prices are set by buyers and sellers, not the government. Similarly, an open market is one where there are no limits on who can buy and sell, or what they can buy or sell. Of course, no markets are completely free and open, but some are a lot freer and more open than others. The opposite is a regulated, controlled, or protected market, where the government fixes prices and/or limits who can sell what.
What are some phrases with “market”?
If a product is on the market, it’s for sale. So if you put your house on the market for $1,000,000, you are trying to sell it at that price. If you change your mind later, you can take it off the market again.
If you’re in a market, you’re one of the buyers or sellers. It’s usually clear from the context whether you’re buying or selling. For example, if you say you’re in the market for a new car, it’s clear that you’re trying to buy one. But if you’re trying to break into a new market, you’re probably trying to sell your products there.
Penetrating a market can be extremely difficult, especially if older or stronger businesses already control or dominate the market. You might even find that there’s no market for your products at all. In that case, it’s a good idea to get out of the market as quickly as possible.
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Originally published at www.GetNewsmart.com
