Channel Partner Portals – Available Distribution Channels

Any vendor should clearly define his or her channel distribution network before anything else. This will have a big effect later on when its time to create a marketing plan and programs followed through via the company’s partner portals. The key is to understand each available channel or route that one may employ. Everyone knows the basic channels of distribution: the retailer, the wholesaler, and the broker. One should also be familiar with the following other channels. Remember also that the best route will be determined by the kind of service or product one is providing.

Original Equipment Manufacturer
Original equipment manufacturers are companies that either manufacture or distribute a kind of supplementary or complimentary product that will be built in to or used in concert with another company’s product. Therefore, what these channels produce are products created for other manufacturers and businesses that will be bundling your items with other items to be sold directly to the end user. They could also use a vendor’s product parts in order to bundle into a much bigger product. Those vendors that only produce one or a limited product line partner with original equipment manufacturers. As part of their network, the original equipment manufacturer will diversify one’s product thus reaching further along the market.

Manufacturer Reps
Manufacturer reps or representatives are people whose role is to represent various businesses that all manufacture similar goods. The representative will allocate his time and effort among the various businesses that he represents but also tries to push for sales of multiple products and items to their targets. Most of the time, they get their cut via commissions. Therefore, the parent company pays reps for how many items of yours that they are able to sell. Giving them membership to companies’ partner portals is a top priority.

Direct Selling and Direct Contact
The direct contact or sales companies include all the methods of marketing and sales. In these methods, the vendor will be in direct contact with the customers, however, not via a retailer storefront. Direct contact methods include sales through phone, email, and snail mail as well as any other possible direct contacting. These people work on leads and lead generation. One of the best examples of these is telemarketers.

Online Sales
Strictly speaking, online sales entails both direct selling as well as retail. The internet provides a lot of new avenues and modes of selling any product, especially downloadable software. Businesses are now flourishing online and more and more new avenues are being opened up. The most popular model that the internet uses is providing free services and content while using pay per click ads. There are two important things when considering online sales. First one is the businesses which will give you income for posting their ads on your site. The second is the driving traffic into your money site (preferably not the same site where the partner portals are linked up to). It is important also to consider that one will have thousands and even billions of competition online so marketing your site is of utmost importance. This will take a lot of time, labor, and money on your part.

For more information about channel management, you can visit Channeltivity.com website.

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