Distribution Strategies
In business, distribution strategies are the process of making a company’s product or service available to consumers either directly, through means such as an online website, an actual storefront, or the dreaded telemarketer, or indirectly, through multiple resellers.
Important to the process are channels and intermediaries. Intermediaries are organizations and individuals that are involved with making the product or service available for consumer consumption. Channels are sets of these intermediaries, classified by how many there are between the producer and the consumer of a particular good or service. Oftentimes, most organizations will use a mix of several different channels, so that they can reach a larger potential consumer base.
There are three different types of distribution strategies, a progression that depends on how many intermediaries are used.