Dealer Conflict Worth the Risk for Web Sales, Essay Example

Distribution strategy

Distribution strategies enable a business to deliver its product to the market. The existence of an organization largely depends on the organization of its distribution strategy. Selecting and managing a distribution channel is a key component in the marketing mix and integral to the success of the organization. Moreover, other more constituents of the marketing mix such as promotion are affected by channel of distribution chosen. It is therefore important to pay attention when selecting a distribution channel to use.

Some of the factors that a firm considers before deciding the distribution stagey to adopt include the nature of the product, intermediaries, and the nature of the market. In addition, a firm has to consider the size of the manufacturing unit, government regulations, and competition (Machlis 120).

Our new Robomow will be distributed through indirect strategies (simultaneous dual channel). In particular, the company will distribute the product to wholesalers who will then sell to retailers and then to customers. At the same time, the company will distribute the product directly to some selected agent retailers who will in turn sell the product to the customers

Justification for the selected distribution channel

Selecting an indirect distribution channel that involves several intermediaries, will enable the company to sell the product, Robomow to wider geographic areas. The channel that we have chosen for the product (simultaneous dual channel) will offer the company a number of benefits. For instance, since the company’s objective is to grow regionally and nationally, the strategy will be able to utilize the existing network of distributors and retailers. The advantage of using the existing networks is that the distributors and retailer provides a detailed knowledge of the local market and will enable the company to avoid making mistakes and loses.

Using the existing network will also help reduce the costs. The only costs that are involved in this strategy are discount to distributors, which are relatively low as compared to the cost of direct distribution strategy. Without the distribution channel, the company will have to commit resources to order processing, invoicing, stock holding and customer service. Choosing to use the indirect distribution will offer access to additional customer base with no direct sale and marketing costs. As mentioned before this distribution strategy will offer local market knowledge, enabling the company to establish new Robomow markets without incurring huge market entry costs.

Finally, establishing the type of customers to serve directly is important. Using the strategies the company will only have to deal with the consumers demand high level of technical support beyond the capability of the intermediary distributors, this segment of customer is relatively low. On the other hand, the distribution agents will be the one to deal with the larger small customers cost-effectively. This will enable the business to concentrate the resource in other Ares such as improvement of the products.

Robomow Marketing strategy – promotion

As mentioned earlier promotion is one of key element of the marketing mix. In simple terms, product promotion refers to method used to communicate the existence of a product and its feature to potential customers. The aim is to convince the existing customers to continue buying the product as well as attract new customer. There are different ways to promote the products. Deciding which strategy fits the company is one of the key roles of the marketing manager. It is important to note that regardless of the company product a strong set of promotion strategy will help to position a product in favorable light to the customers and thus increase the sale and business profitability. Some of the important factors to consider while making the decision include who are the customers, who are the customers, how to reach them, and what message to use. These questions are answered through the following technique, segmentation of the market, deciding the target groups, positioning the product and choosing the right message to influence the target group (Keenan 212). Advertising is the main promotion strategy that we will to convince customers to buy the new Robomow model. Advertising is one of the elements of marketing communication. It is a communication specifically designed to persuade potential consumers to buy a product or a service. In our adverts, we will communicate the new feature added to the product. To ensure that our promotion reach wide coverage we will use media such as newspaper and television. Most importantly, since our main target customers are homeowners, we will ensure that our advertisement are in the prestigious lifestyle magazines “good housekeeping” and “country side magazine”.

Messaging

The main message that we will communicate is the new added feature- a blade on the side to cut the grass on the sidewalks, making its performance exceptionally good. In our adverts we will also not forget to mention other benefit such as the ability of the machine to make life easier.  With the new product, it is possible to automate time and frequency. The role of the customer is to program when it should mow, then sit back and relax. The machine will automatically mow for you, plug itself back, and wait for the next schedule.

Catch phrase

“Usually we reap where we mow, however with the new model of Robomow, we reap where we do not mow. The model exceptional performance allow the owner to relax and put their feet up when mowing come into mind”

Works Cited

Keenan, Watson. “E-commerce impacts channel partners”.  Political Econ journals 14(2) 326–337, 2010.

Machlis, Shuller. “Dealer conflict worth the risk for Web sales”. Computerworld 32(18) 1–16, 2012.