Weighted index is a numerical means of measuring a price or volume series by allocating weights or values to the items comprising it and comparing current changes to a base year value equal to 100, e.g. Retail Price Index.

Examples are retail (RPI) and wholesale price indexes. The RPI tracks the price movement of over 600 items purchased by the 'average' family.

Wheel of retailing concept A concept of retailing which states that new types of retailers usually begin as low-margin, low-price, low-status operations but later evolve into higher-priced, higher-service operations, eventually becoming like the conventional retailers they replaced. (Philip Kotler)

Wholesaler Intermediary between manufacturers and retailers.

Wholesaling All activities involved in selling goods and services to those buying for resale or business use. (Philip Kotler)

World Bank (IBRD) is International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The current role of World Bank is to provide long-term capital for development purposes.

Wholly owned overseas production See Market entry methods.

Workload approach An approach to setting salesforce size in which the company groups accounts into different size classes and then figures out how many lespeople are needed to call on them the desired number of times. (Philip Kotler)

Working capital This is amount of funds required in a business to support debtors, purchase stocks and provide cash for wages etc. As it is partially funded by taking credit, the key calculation is to compare current assets by current liabilities.

World class manufacturing Term covering diverse issues such as JIT, TQM, Human resource management, etc.

World trade organization (WTO) Set up under the 1993 GATT agreement, the WTO is a body which adjudicates between countries who have disputes over trade. Voluntary Groups Buying associations such as Spar and VG where individual retailers affiliate themselves to a wholesaler and agree to take the bulk of their purchases from that wholesaler.

World Wide Web (WWW) Definition #1. World Wide Web is the web pages and sites that you view and interact with on screen.
Definition #2. World Wide Web is the multimedia element which provides facilities such as fullcolor, graphics, sound and video.

Web sites are points within the network created by members who wish to provide an information point for searches to visit and benefit by the provision of information and/or by entering into transaction.

Opportunities of using WWW: 1) Market research, 2) Competition information, 3) Advertising and promotion, 4) Sales and distribution services, 5) Customer service, 6) Data capture.

See also Electronic Mail (Email) and Internet.