Wikipedia
Trading companies are businesses working with different kinds of products which are sold for consumer, business or government purposes. Trading companies buy a specialized range of products, maintain a stock or a shop, and deliver products to customers.
Different kinds of practical conditions make for many kinds of business. Usually two kinds of businesses are defined in trading. Importers or wholesalers maintain a stock and deliver products to shops or large end customers. They work in a large geographical area, while their customers, the shops, work in smaller areas and often in just a small neighbourhood.
When talking about "trading companies", today we refer mainly to global B2B traders, highly specialized in one goods category and with a strong logistic organization.
Changes in practical conditions such as faster distribution, computing and modern marketing have led to changes in their business models.
The Winding-up and Restructuring Act, an act of the Parliament of Canada, uses the following definition"
“trading company” means any company, except a railway or telegraph company, carrying on business similar to that carried on by apothecaries, auctioneers, bankers, brokers, brickmakers, builders, carpenters, carriers, cattle or sheep salesmen, coach proprietors, dyers, fullers, keepers of inns, taverns, hotels, saloons or coffee houses, lime burners, livery stable keepers, market gardeners, millers, miners, packers, printers, quarrymen, sharebrokers, ship-owners, shipwrights, stockbrokers, stock-jobbers, victuallers, warehousemen, wharfingers, persons using the trade of merchandise by way of bargaining, exchange, bartering, commission, consignment or otherwise, in gross or by retail, or by persons who, either for themselves, or as agents or factors for others, seek their living by buying and selling or buying and letting for hire goods or commodities, or by the manufacture, workmanship or the conversion of goods or commodities or trees;
Japan has a special class of "general trading companies" ( sogo shosha), large and highly diversified businesses that trade in a wide range of goods and services. Trading Companies are mostly b2b business services and they trade by other companies invested money and takes commission.
Usage examples of "trading company".
They had their own trading company here and in Shanghai, Casey, but got more or less wiped out in the Great War and joined up with Struan's in '19.
Stephen had shipped out to the Reaches for the first time aboard a vessel of the Mostert Trading Company.
The boardroom of Doormann Trading Company was on the top level of the crystal spire in the center of the family estate.
M'Dougal, who was somewhat vain of his official rank, had given it to be understood that they were two chiefs of a great trading company, about to be established here, and the quick-sighted, though one-eyed chief, who was somewhat practiced in traffic with white men, immediately perceived the policy of cultivating the friendship of two such important visitors.
It was only in this way, he believed, that the company could compete effectively for the spot of the emperor's house-the name traditionally given Hong Kong's most respected trading company.
The master reckoned the trading company that chartered us knew how to get the door open again.
Mara's feeling a little hemmed in, and Karrde offers a solution - put Mara into business for herself with a small trading company.
That was the go down and office of the Courtney Brothers Trading Company and he knew the light shone from the window of his father's office on the second floor of the sprawling warehouse.
Next, the Yoshi coal concession that he had heard might be transferred from Struan's to Seratard through the late Andr`e Poncin's trading company, might still be available to offers.
The English Parliament found itself ruling over a London trading company, which in its turn was dominating an empire far greater and more populous than all the domains of the British crown.