Whole Foods Market Structure

Whole Foods
When people think about market, they either think of a supermarket where everything is stocked with a wide range of products from foods to cleaning supplies, or a neighborhood farmer’s market where retailers set up booths, tables or stands and sell fruits, vegetables, meat and sometimes prepared foods and beverages. Either way, when people talk about market, they think of a physical location. In economics terms, a market does not need to have a physical location. A market essentially means where there are buyers and sellers for a particular product, there is a market.
Economists believe there are four different types of markets structures – pure competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly and pure monopoly. According
Over time, the demand curve is considered elastic consumers will look for substitute product. The United States economy consists of pure competition, oligopoly and monopolistic market structures. Our government encourages and promotes pure competition. Whole Foods Market is an example of a business within the pure competition market structure. There are many supermarket chains operating across the 50 states. Other than chain stores, there are individually owned grocery stores in every city and town. The industry is wide opened for anyone to enter or leave. Supermarkets do not make their own products. They sell products made by other companies, and all supermarkets carry the same product lines from laundry detergent to cereal and milk.
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In a pure competition market structure, sellers are called price makers and buyers are price takers. Whole Foods can choose how many products and what to sell, but to be able to move the products off their shelves, the company must take into consideration how much the consumers are willing to pay. In a perfectly competitive market structure, the demand curve is perfectly