Designer, packager and merchandiser, three professionals for a single marketing scene.

The supermarket brings into play not just supply and demand but also a whole series of 'middlemen' who are go-betweens among each other in the marketplace: those who design products, those who enhance products through packaging, and those who are experts in presenting products on store shelves. The roles these three professionals play between products and consumers are analysed; and light is shed on how fragile the market turns out to be as they have conditioned it. These go-betweens ground their decisions on products in their ideas of consumers. They are faced with problems of co-ordination since their interventions are staggered in time and space with, as a result, maladjustment and conflict, all of which tend to diminish the effectiveness of marketing arrangements. Despite being professionals in manipulating objects, they do not manage to condition purchasing behaviours or to force consumers to make certain choices. (C) 2000 Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS.