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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Role of People skills in FMCG sector
Just think of a fresh graduate, 23 years old, entering into FMCG company like ITC, HLL, Nestle etc. What type of responsibilities can you expect? Most of us think that in sales in FMCG, its going to the outlets under the sun, sweat out etc. Thats not wrong !!Its just for a induction period mainly, because any manager should be sensitized with the working of different people in the hierarchy as mentioned in my last post – “Hierarchy in FMCG organization”. Its approximate half a year. But once you learn the hard realities, you have to manage the above mentioned people.Lets take a role of a manager at the entry level. He has around 4 circle heads, with each of them having 4 section heads. That means around 20 people. Apart from that you a huge sales force of around 500 people and 100 supervisor (Figures are mentioned just to give you an idea).Dont you require people skills?
