THE NATURE OF THE DISTRIBUTION COST PROBLEM.

The article presents a definition and analysis of distribution costs and marketing costs, with a focus on minimizing these costs. They broadly include all costs incurred between producers and customers, from producer to wholesaler to retailer. The need for improvement in distribution cost accounting, unit marketing costs, and functional cost research is presented. One of the most difficult tasks is breaking joint costs down into component parts; this means taking sales offices, advertising, warehousing costs, etc. and assigning a portion of this total cost to each unit which is sold. Additional topics include reducing time wastes, limiting wastes at point of origin and ideal marketing conditions.