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

The supermarket brings into play not just supply and demand but also a whol e series of 'middlemen' who are go-betweens among each other in the marketp lace: those who design products, those who enhance products through packagi ng, and those who are experts in presenting products on store shelves. The roles these three professionals play between products and consumers are ana lysed; 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 i n their ideas of consumers. They are faced with problems of co-ordination s ince their interventions are staggered in time and space with, as a result, maladjustment and conflict, all of which tend to diminish the effectivenes s of marketing arrangements. Despite being professionals in manipulating ob jects, they do not manage to condition purchasing behaviours or to force co nsumers to make certain choices. (C) 2000 Editions scientifiques et medical es Elsevier SAS.