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“One of the funny things about the stock market is that every time one person buys, another sells, and both think they’re astute.” William Feather
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It’s been a while since I wrote a post on English word partnerships, especially ‘collocations’.
Collocation, what?
For starters, let me remind you what ‘collocation’ means.
Cambridge Dictionary defines ‘collocation’ as “the combination of words formed when two or more words are often used together in a way that sounds correct”.
According to Liz Walter of Cambridge Dictionary, “one of the best ways (perhaps the best way) to improve your English is to learn how words go together in phrases, idioms, or other patterns such as verb/noun or adjective/noun pairs (often called ‘collocations’)”.
I totally agree with Liz. Words cannot and should not be learned in isolation. They are not lone items. They like to live with other words like wolves in a wolf pack.
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Listen to the post
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It’s all about the markets.
In this week’s post, I want to explore the words and phrases you’ll commonly find with the word “market”.
In the financial world we often think of markets in terms of the stock/share market and that can be split between a bear market (when people are cautious about the future) or a bull market (where people feel optimistic of good growth).
The word “market” can be a noun or a verb.
As a verb, you would market a product or market your services or even market yourself.
Tina really knows how to market herself and her services.
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In fact, many people believe that you can sell practically anything if you market yourself well.
Have you ever heard people saying “it’s all down to good marketing?”
Did you notice how “marketing” derives from “market” to form another word?
What words can you think of that go with “marketing”? Why not tell me in the comments box and I’ll let you know if they’re right.
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10 Words and Expressions with “market”
Let’s take a look at the 10 words and expressions in this image and explore how to use them in sentences.
#1: Market Value
Most products have a market value. In other words, they have a price at which the market (consumers) is willing to pay for them.
For example, a company could have a market value of £300m.
If my house has a market value of £500,000 that means it’s the price buyers are prepared to pay for my house. However, if I ask for more and sell it for £700,00, I have sold it at above market value. Lucky me.
Similarly, if I sell it for £300,000, I’ve sold below market value.
#2: Market Share
If you are a business that sells a service or product with many competitors in the same industry or field, the chances are you’ll want to capture as much market share as you can from your competitors. After all, the more people buy your products instead of the competition, the more money and, hopefully profit, you’ll make.
In the competitive world of business it’s all about increasing your market share. Whatever you do, you don’t want to lose market share to your competitors.
#3: Market Price
Most products and services have a market price. In other words, they have a price a buyer is willing to pay for the product.
We also use the average market price to decide salaries. Otherwise, how would we know what salary a certain job or profession should attract?
For example, if you want to attract good people to your company, you’ll need to pay them the market price or even above the market price especially if there’s competition.
So, if the average salary for a PR manager with XXX years experience in your industry is £40,000 per annum, you’re going to have to offer the market price or more if you want to attract good talent.
#4: Market forces
“Market forces have forced us to raise our prices”.
How annoying is that when companies tell you the reason they raised their prices was not because they wanted a stronger balance sheet but because of market forces. In other words, it’s down to supply and demand or oil prices, energy prices and so on.
#5: Market Research
We’re often told that we should carry out or conduct market research if we want to understand what our customers want or need.
Effective market research can give us some valuable insights into customer behaviour and customer preference which allows businesses to design products customers would buy.
Once the market research is done, it’s important for businesses to know how to use the research to improve their products, customer experience and profitability.
#6: Market Conditions
Have you ever been in a situation where your company wanted to launch a new product but the market conditions were just not right and it meant you had to delay the launch?
Getting the right market conditions is crucial for any business if they are not to lose money or customers.
#7: The Bottom Has Fallen/Dropped Out of The Market (idiomatic expression)
Oh wow, if that’s the case…it’s bad news.
It means that the demand for a particular product or service has disappeared and there is no longer a market (buyers or sellers) for it.It could be a permanent or temporary situation.
Do you know of a product where its bottom dropped/fell out of the market? What happened?
#8: Marketable (adjective)
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to design a product or service that is easily marketable? In other words, it is a product or service that people want to buy and is easy to sell.
When you think about your skills as a business professional, what would you say are your marketable skills? What skills do you have that people want and need and would make you highly attractive as an employee?
Sometimes, companies need to make changes to their business model if they want to be more marketable (attractive) to potential buyers.
#9: On the Market (Idiom)
I have put my house ‘on the market’. I hope I sell quickly and at above my asking price.
The business is not on the market (available for sale) despite the rumours.
#10: Corner The Market (idiom)
I don’t know how they’ve done it but in the space of a few years, they’ve managed to corner the organic food delivery market. There’s nobody as big as them now.
Over to you
What other words or phrases can you think that go with “market”?
I can think of market average, upmarket, market economy. This post would be far too long if I added these too.
Why don’t you create some examples with these words and others and share them in the comments box? I’ll correct them if needed.
Before you go,
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Ciao for now
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Shanthi
