Marketing Mix: Distribution

Product distribution is one of the four elements of the marketing mix. “A marketing channel or distribution channel is a set of independent organizations that helps make a product or service available for use or consumption by the consumer or business user.”(Armstrong and Kolter. Introduction to Marketing. 10^th Edition. Printed page 311). Companies many times pay little attention to their distribution channels and sometimes end up with damaging results. “A company must design its distribution channels carefully, and keep an eye on tomorrows market as well as what is going with today’s.”(Armstrong and Kolter. Introduction to Marketing. 10^th Edition. Printed page 312). Yesterday the market was only beginning to use online sales, today it is becoming the fastest way to buy products. By tomorrow it may be the only way to purchase an item. So a company of today has to keep a close eye on what is happening in the world today and the upcoming future. Things are rapidly changing as the computer world grows.  It is easy for a company to change the other three elements of the marketing mix (product, price, and promotion) at any time or any day. But when distribution channels decisions are made with a particular firm and contracts set up for a long term commitment, many times they are not easily broken or changed.

At Clinique we are going to use the indirect marketing channel. “An indirect marketing channel contains one or more intermediary channels.”(Armstrong and Kolter. Introduction to Marketing. 10^th Edition. Printed page 314). This basically means we sell our products to different places like Sephora, Dillards, Macys and Saks Fifth Avenue.  They will sell our products to their consumers for us and also run marketing ads. On our official Clinique website we will be selling our products using the direct marketing channel. “A direct marketing channel is one that has no intermediary levels.”(Armstrong and Kolter. Introduction to Marketing. 10^th Edition. Printing page 314). Consumers will be buying our products straight from our company through the web and we will be distributing it to them ourselves