Retail Chronicles- 1 to 15 sept

03
Sales and Distribution:
For a company to hold such a diverse portfolio
and to sustainably grow its profits the sales
and distribution system plays a crucial role.
Company’s responsibility is to ensure optimal redistribution
of the products among the retailers in
the assigned area. They must ensure that all the
brand-packs of all the products
manufactured/marketed by the company are
available in as many
retail outlets as possible in their area. If stock
exhaustion happens in any of the outlets,
company is
likely to lose end-consumers. The Indian
consumer rarely marches a mile to buy a product
- he is
likely to switch, and even if he is not inclined to
do so, the retailer will instigate the switch as he
would hate losing a customer to his competitor
down the street. This implicitly means
distributors
should be stocked with sufficient quantity of all
brand-packs, gearing them for seasonal
fluctuations
and production vagaries.
At Adani Wilmar the distribution channels are
segmented according to the target market, dividing
it into two categories:
General Trade:
Traditional trade is associated with a spread-out
distribution network of small retailers,
dealers, stockists, wholesalers, and distributors. It’s
an intricate network which serves
localized customer demand through regular orders
with short lead times and varying fill
rates.
Modern trade:
Modern Trade (MT) consists of supermarkets and
hypermarkets that retail Fast Moving
Consumer Goods (FMCG). This route aims at
catering masses in urban location via one stop
shops.
These two distribution channels have several
stages depending on how many organisations are
involved:
Channel 1 contains three stages between producer
and consumer - a C&F agent, distributor and a
retailer. After a product is manufactured, it has to
be sent to the market for sales & distribution.
A
C&F (Carry & forward) agent acts as a link between
company and distributors and transfers the stock
from the former to the latter. The Distributors then
distribute the products in the market through
retailers.