Will there be any competition amongst cement retailers?

Question

If we consider a cement manufaturer in a given country, say India, then will the cement retailers of that companies' product compete with each other? And if so, then what kind of a competition will it be?

As far as I think, since the prices and the product will be the same the retailers competition will be close the Perfect competition, however consumers in the case of cement do not have perfect knowledge about the product(Considering non-trade consumers). So it might be monopolisitic competition. It will be really helpful if one could give a solid argument regarding the existence and the kind of competition that might occur between cement retailers...

Thank You.

Answer 1

Since they are different retailers, their products are not perfectly homogeneous. The differences might be in delivery times, friendliness of representatives, packaging etc. So, their products are not strictly identical.

For the monopolistic competition, it is mentioned that there are multiple retailers. If we assume they do not collude, there will be a form of competition.

Taking these two characteristics, I would say there is a form of competition, more specifically "Differentiated Bertrand Competition".