Optimum Sales – The Development of Efficient Multichanneling
In today’s markets across almost all sectors, multichannel is an already established reality. The products reach the end customers through different sales channels. It is also known that establishing a channel strategy that is coherent and does not generate conflicts is increasingly complicated but not impossible.
In the 1990s, the traditional channel was threatened by the emergence of large distribution chains that no longer sold only cheap food products but began to sell all kinds of products, including regular ones. The traditional channel suffered, and the channel managers of the manufacturers or suppliers had to establish distribution policies by channel and try to avoid conflicts between channels.
At that time, the traditional channel stopped distributing to those manufacturers who did not bet on them, but in the end, the only thing they achieved was to sell different models from the large distribution.
In the first decade of the 2000s, the first e-tailers emerged, some of which became consolidated and have now become preferred channels for certain products and services. Now, in the middle of the second decade of the 2000s, in addition to the e-tailer channel, we have the marketing of products that are sold exclusively on Smart Phone platforms, and e-tailers are starting to feel threatened and are beginning to consider traditional or transactional distribution, such as that carried out through Smart Phones, in their distribution strategies.
Given this multichannel scenario that we have briefly described, our clients often ask us the same question.
What should I change in my commercial distribution?
The answer is simple, but obtaining the answer “forces” companies to make innovation decisions in the development of their distribution channel, which they have not yet implemented. The answer is another question.
What are your customer’s buying behaviors?
The response we provide is always nuanced by the markets in which our clients operate, whether they are B2B or B2C or e2B or e2C.
Based on your customers’ purchasing behaviors, you should “evaluate” which channels you should be on. Long multi-level transactions? Digital channels that generate offline sales for me? Two-level digital channels combining online purchase and sales as e-tailers?… In that same evaluation, you must define the optimal number of distributors, both in the conventional channel and in the large distribution channel, as well as in the digital channels. Next, you must establish the optimal reach that your customers need and how digital channels should be combined with transactional ones.
And then, we must not forget to establish an attractive value proposition for each of the different channels.
Once we have the entire channel development strategy defined, we must not forget to implement the tactics, that is, to recruit, activate, and retain distributors.
Ultimately, we must always apply the Optimum A3 Analyze Before Acting model.
| David Galve | General Director www.linkedin.com/in/davidgalve |  |
