England as Importer

Abstract

MERCHANTS traded in order to make profits, and they did so by either importing or exporting, or more commonly by a combination of both. It would be wrong to suppose that penetration to new trading areas was always a search for new markets; commonly its purpose was more direct access to the sources of imported foodstuffs or materials. Indeed, the best opportunities for securing more than routine gains from trade were usually to be found in importing. Most exported cloth was sold in great international markets (especially in the sixteenth and the early seventeenth century), where there was a concourse of buyers and sellers. There was competition not only between English and foreign merchants who sent out English cloth, but also with foreigners selling foreign cloth; and the buyers were usually large wholesale merchants with resources and skills at least equal to those of the exporters. There were many wealthy traders on both sides, whose capacity to hold stocks evened out price fluctuation. Though imported goods were sold in England under competitive conditions, the merchants faced much weaker and less well-informed buyers. Mercery wares were often sold retail, or to small chapmen stocking up their packs to carry through the countryside, or to modest merchant intermediaries who took them round the fairs.