Channels of distribution
Meaning and definition: a major focus of channels of distribution is delivery. It is only through distribution that public and private goods and services can be made available for use or consumption. Producers of such goods and services are individually capable of generating only the form or structural utility for their products and services. They can organize their production capabilities in such a way that the products they have develop can, in fact, be seen, analyzed and sold in the market. The emergence and arrangement of a wide variety of the distribution oriented institutions and agencies, typically called arrangement of a wide variety of distribution because they stand between production on the one hand and consumption on the other, can be explained in the following terms:
1. Intermediaries can improve the efficiency of the process.
2. They help in the proper arrangement of routes of transactions.
3. They help in the proper searching process.
4. They help in the proper sorting process.
Marketing channels are set of interdependent organizations involved in the process of making a product or service available for use or consumption.
According to the American marketing association, "a channel of distribution, or marketing channel, is the structure of the intra -company organization units and extra- company agents and dealers, wholesale and retail through which a commodity, product or service is marketed".
According to the P. Kotler, "every producer seeks to link together the set of marketing that best fulfil the firm's objectives". This set of marketing intermediates is called the marketing channel (also trade channel or channel of distribution)".
According to the William J. Stanton, "a channel of distribution or marketing channel for a product is the route taken by the title to the goods as they move from the producer to the ultimate consumers or the industrial user".
According to the Cundiff, Still and Govani, "marketing channel are the distribution networks through which producers, products flow to the market".