Evaluating the Effectiveness of Sales and Distribution Systems: A Study of Marketing Innovation

In the last decade increasing attention has been focussed upon the newer and creative areas of marketing such as consumer behaviour, new product development and the communications interchanges between producers and consumers. More recently, the subject of distribution has been receiving a wider conceptual treatment as “marketing logistics” than had been afforded to it earlier by operational researchers searching for optimum rather than acceptable solutions. Managers have come to realise that, not only can substantial cost savings be achieved in the physical distribution area but that the distribution function complements the selling activity at the interface between the company and its customers. In the case of consumer goods these customers are the channel intermediaries such as wholesalers, cash and carry operators, independent and multiple retailers as well as the voluntary chains.