Sales channels to reach your customers
Selling through retailers, wholesalers and other distributors
Selling through an intermediary may be a more cost-effective way of reaching your end-customers than selling to them directly.
If you are targeting business customers who prefer to deal with large suppliers, selling directly to them may not be a realistic option. Instead, you might aim to supply wholesalers who have existing relationships with those businesses.
If individual consumers buy low value quantities of your products, the best option might be to target retailers that sell similar products. Or you might choose to focus your efforts on a relatively small number of wholesalers who can in turn supply your products to many retailers.
Other distribution channels may also reach your end-customers. For example, technology suppliers often sell to resellers who can configure and install the technology to suit end-users’ particular needs.
Managing your distributors
You need distributors who will value your product. If they sell competing products, what will make them push yours?
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Think about how you set your prices. Distributors will be more enthusiastic if they can make a large profit – but setting too low a price will eat into your own margins.
Effective advertising and promotions can be vital. As well as marketing to the distributor, you can promote your products directly to end-customers. Distributors will be keener to stock and sell products that their customers are asking for.
The key terms of the supply relationship should be covered in a written contract. Key issues might include:
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how much stock the distributor will hold
what the distributor will do to promote your products
how quickly you can resupply and minimum order levels
whether the distributor has exclusive rights to your product (for example, in a particular territory)
what happens if either you or the distributor want to end the relationship
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Vibha and Sanjay Rishi … most interesting couple !!
Vibha grew up in Bombay, Delhi and Corporate India. She joined the Tata Administrative Services right out of business school and became one of the nucleus group that worked on the birth of Titan Watches. She greatly enjoyed the creativity and freedom of expression as she worked on the marketing and design of the first range of watches.Life, and baby, took her to Delhi where she joined the start up team on the Pepsi project in early 1989. A 14 year roller coaster ride later, during which Brand Pepsi became the #1 cola and Mirinda and 7UP gained leadership in their categories, she moved with her family to PepsiCo Headquarters in Purchase, NY.Her current responsibilities include managing a clutch of PepsiCo brands internationally, primarily 7UP, Mirinda and Mountain Dew. She loves to read, garden, travel and listen to young people around the world.Along with Vibha, her husband, Sanjay Rishi, too shifted to New York on a huge promotion: from being vice president and general manager in charge of the American Express service centres in Asia since early 2001, he has been made senior vice-president, service network partners.In his expanded role, Rishi is directly responsible for overseeing service partners globally for American Express’ US operations, while continuing to manage American Express’ customer processing operations across Asia.The list of Indian expat managers is getting longer by the week. And the trend is visible across sectors like FMCG, banking, pharmaceuticals, information technology, publishing, consulting etc.Vibha and Sanjay have proved that a balance between personal and professional life is very much possible.
