Supply Chain Management: A 'First Principles' Consideration of its Application to Wool Marketing

This paper examines the differential characteristics of commodities and products and their respective marketing systems. It identifies the circumstances under which wool and/or its derivatives might be classified as either a commodity or a product and argues that in today's dynamic consumer markets where intangible factors are increasingly important purchase drivers, consumer value may be lost through the use of inappropriate marketing systems. The paper examines the theory of supply chain management (SCM) and proposes that the adoption of SCM may be a useful mechanism for dealing with these problems under certain conditions.