Some geographers tend to confuse two different market areas; the buying market area of retailers, and the market area of wholesaling. Purchasing activity of retailers and selling activity of wholesalers are different each other in the business relations between merchants in the collection and distribution of goods. According to the analysis of the buying behavior of retailers in Miyagi Prefecture, wholesalers are not always the vendors selling for retailers, who are not always same as the vendees buying only from wholesalers. Therefore, two kinds of customers involved are not directly related each other, and the volume of transaction in their market areas is not equivalent between them (Tables 1 and 2). Neither, the two types of market areas are areally coincident (Tables 3 and 4).
Cities as the centers of the buying markets in respect to collection of goods by retailers are classified into three categories. The retailers in cities in Miyagi Prefecture purchase most of non-standardized goods in fashion such as some of personal belongings, clothing and shoes from Tokyo, the national economic center. The initiators of the distribution of goods of this type are some of wholesalers and department stores.
In the cases of durable consumer goods with nationwide known brands such as house-hold electrical appliances and bicycles and some of general consumer goods with widely known brands such as medicaments and cosmetics, many retailers purchase the goods from Sendai as a regional center of national network of distribution.
Many retailers dealing with perishable foodstuffs and standardized general consumer goods purchase the goods from Sendai and other small cities where the retailers are located.
However, the functional order of cities, in which vendors selling goods for retailers are located, can not be set by means of the classification of cities into three categories mentioned above. For the purpose of measuring the functional order or hierarchy of cities in relation to whole structure of circulation, it is necessary further to study the function of cities in each step of distribution channel concerning each type of goods.