Without a good intermediary, a product cannot be offered in the best way. For this reason, companies must seek the ideal and thus guarantee that their goods reach the final consumer correctly.
Manufactured and promoted a product, the next step is to sell it, that is, take it to the final consumer who will be in charge of acquiring it. Most production companies gather intermediaries to bring their products to the market; This is when distribution channels emerge. But… what are they? Why are they necessary? The answer to these and other questions is below.
DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS
We are going to define them as a series of interdependent organizations that are part of the process of ensuring that a consumer can acquire or use a product or service. An intermediary is used since they know the market better, have more contacts and their experience can report to the company that hires them, a better job than they could do themselves.
It is also important to clarify that with an intermediary, distribution costs are saved since the contracting company would not have to contact all its clients directly, but rather through the channel.
The distribution channels have certain functions such as informing their contractors about the actors and forces in the marketing environment that will serve for the exchange; Likewise, they promote products, developing and disseminating information about an offer, and contact potential buyers and establish communication with them.
On the other hand, they also adapt the offer to the needs of each buyer; they negotiate on the price and terms of the consumer's offer; they distribute, that is, they transport and store the goods; they finance the exchange process to cover the channel's own operating costs, and lastly, they accept the inherent risks of assuming the role of interlocutor between the producer and the consumer (theft, fire, etc.).
Likewise, a channel can be short or long depending on the number of levels it has, that is, the layers of intermediaries who carry out some work to gather the product and bring its property closer to the final consumer. There is channel 1, which is direct marketing, where the producer himself sells his goods to the customer.
There is also channel 2 that has an intermediary. This is when a retail store buys merchandise from a producer and then sells it to the final consumer. We can see therefore that if there are 2 intermediaries the channel will be 3 and so on.
Definition: series of interdependent organizations that are part of the process of ensuring that a consumer can acquire or use a product or service
But not only are channels used to distribute tangible goods, there are also channels for services. This is when teachers need a school to provide education or doctors need a hospital to care for their patients. Likewise, these sites must be easily accessible so that many more people can participate in these services without investing a great deal of time or effort to reach them.
Other channels that we observe daily are television, where actors can be "promoted and sold", theaters where entertainment is "sold", radio, movies, festivals and all those places or media where it is promoted or sold. show something you want to offer.
Delegating the distribution of products to someone else can save money, time and effort
Finally, we can say that there is a symbiosis between intermediary and producer, since one depends on the other to survive and they can gain a lot if both do their best.
A distributor depends on a producer, since he must offer a product that meets the needs of customers, and a producer depends on a distributor, since the latter is in charge of getting the relevant contacts and attracting good customers.
As we could see, the distribution channels play an important role for the products to reach our power, without them, definitely acquiring a good or service would be a very long, expensive and too complicated process.
