A distributor took your stock and has gone quiet: how to follow up without begging

A distributor who bought your first lot and has not reordered is often sitting on stock that is not leaving the shops. So do not open with "when is your next order?". Open with a question about what moved. Ask which retailers have sold the pack, which have not, and what the shopkeepers say when they are asked about it. Then offer something that helps the slow ones sell, and go and see the stock if you can. The reorder follows from the answers.

Why do distributors go quiet after the first order?

Four causes come up, and each needs a different reply.

The stock reached shops but nobody asked for it. Shoppers do not know the brand. A shopkeeper has no reason to push a new name over one that sells itself.

The pack is in the godown, not on the shelf. Salespeople carry a hundred lines. A new one gets left off the order book if nobody reminded them.

The price does not leave the retailer enough. If the retailer's margin on your pack is lower than on the pack beside it, yours will not get the eye-level shelf.

The distributor's money is tied up. A credit period that has run out, or a bigger lot than the beat could absorb, makes a distributor hide.

You cannot tell which of the four it is from your desk. That is why the first call is about information, not orders.

When should the first call be?

Fix it when you ship, from how long the pack takes to sell through at a shop. If a retailer would normally clear a carton in three weeks, a call at about five weeks asks about something that has happened. A call two days after delivery asks about nothing, and a call after a quarter of silence finds a distributor who has stopped thinking about the brand. The weeks here are only an illustration; use your own pack's sell-through.

What do you ask on the call?

Keep it to four questions and write the answers down.

1. Which routes or retailers have you cleared the pack in, and which have not touched it?
2. What does a retailer say when your salesperson offers it?
3. How many pieces are left of the lot we sent?
4. What would make it easier for your salespeople to carry it?

Do not argue with the answers. A distributor who says "it is not moving" has just told you something useful. One who says "it is moving fine, just not yet" is telling you to check, so say you would like to come by.

What do you offer, and when not to?

A scheme should have a start and an end date and be written on one page the distributor can show a retailer. Skip schemes entirely if the pack is not selling at any shop, because then the problem is the product or the price, not the push.

For example: a Kanpur distributor and a container brand

Imagine an invented plastic storage container brand whose first lot of 40 cartons went to a distributor in Kanpur. Six weeks later there is no reorder and two calls have gone unreturned. The brand's field executive finally visits and counts: 22 cartons still stacked at the back of the godown, 12 with retailers and 6 sold through.

The salespeople had pushed the brand's cheaper bucket set and ignored the containers. The retailer margin on the containers was a rupee or two below the competing brand's. The distributor was not unhappy with the brand. There was simply no reason to carry it.

The brand does not cut its price. It raises the retailer margin on the containers through a printed scheme valid to the end of the festive season. It puts display stands in six shops the distributor names, and spends one morning with the salespeople. The scheme and stands cost the brand about ₹18,000 (invented). The distributor reorders only 10 cartons once the six shops have sold through, and asks for the scheme to be repeated. That is a smaller second lot than the first, but it is a reorder.

Should you visit or call?

Visit if you can. A call tells you what the distributor chooses to say. A visit lets you count the cartons, meet the salespeople and look at the shops.

Bring a one-line count sheet and fill it in on the spot:

The row shows where the stock is stuck. Cartons piled in the godown often point to the salespeople. Full retailer shelves often point to the shopper. A distributor who will not let you count tells you something as well.

If the distributor is two states away, a visit is expensive. Send a field executive instead, or ask for photographs from two shops. Our note on measuring dealer and distributor performance lists the figures worth asking for before you go.

Turning one quiet distributor into a record

Know in advance when you give up: when two visits and one scheme have changed nothing, and the distributor cannot say what is moving, take back or swap the unsold stock on agreed terms and look at a better-fitting distributor in the area. Keep a line for each distributor: date shipped, cartons sent, cartons cleared at the last visit, what they said, and what you promised. After a few of them, the pattern in your own network will tell you more about your pack than any survey. Start with the quietest distributor on your list: block a day this week to visit, count cartons and fill in the sheet above. How this channel behaves is described on our page for consumer products manufacturers. If you want every distributor reviewed against one checklist, dealer and distributor audits is that work, and you can tell us what you need.