Final answer:
Firms involved in buying in bulk, handling, and reselling goods to business users are known as wholesalers. They are key intermediaries in the goods market, different from producers, retailers, and institutions. The correct answer is option B.
Step-by-step explanation:
Firms involved in buying, often storing, and physically handling goods in large quantities and then reselling goods to business users are called wholesalers. Wholesalers play a crucial role in the goods market by acting as intermediaries between producers or manufacturers and the retailers or other businesses that sell to the final consumers.
They can buy in bulk, manage inventory, and distribute smaller quantities to firms or retailers, often providing significant cost savings and efficiency gains in the supply chain. In contrast, producers or manufacturers are entities that create products from raw materials.
Retailers sell goods directly to the general public for personal or household consumption rather than for resale or for business use. Institutions, in the context of this question, don’t align with the described business functions. In the financial market, firms and households operate, but they are typically involved in transactions with financial instruments, not physical goods. The correct answer is option B.