Route to market for a new product: direct, dealer or online first

You have a new product ready and three people in the room pushing three routes. Sales says take it to dealers. Marketing says list it online. You are tempted to call twenty buyers yourself. Pick one, and let the product choose it. The route that wins is the one where a buyer can say yes with the least help from you. Direct suits a sale that needs explanation to few buyers. Dealers suit a product people want to see and have supplied nearby. Online suits one that a page explains, a box delivers and a return can undo.

Three questions that point to a route

You do not need a scoring grid. Three questions, answered honestly, cover most of the decision.

Where does the buyer become sure? If the buyer is sure after a demonstration visit to a factory or office, you are in direct territory. If the buyer must hold it, try it or see it next to a rival, a shop does that job. If a photograph, a description and an easy return are enough, a listing does it.

What happens after the sale? Fitting, service and spares nearby point to dealers, or to your own people if the buyer is a factory. A product that arrives in a box and needs nothing afterwards can travel by courier.

How many buyers are there, and do you know their names? A few hundred buyers you could list on a sheet suggests direct. Thousands spread across towns suggests dealers. Many buyers you cannot name, anywhere in the country, suggests online, with the extra task of being found.

When the three answers point to different routes, the product may not yet be defined well enough, and that is a different problem from route.

What each route costs that you have not counted

Direct costs people: salaries, travel, and the months before a first order. Dealers cost margin and attention, because they may sell what is easiest for them. Online costs being found, through advertising or marketplace commission, and puts you one click from a cheaper rival.

None of these is a reason to avoid a route. Write the cost next to each one before you choose, so the plan is honest.

Why one route first

Because you need to learn what a sale looks like. With one route, a lost order can be traced to a price, a feature or a doubt. With three routes every loss has three possible causes, and you will pick the one you prefer.

The rule: add a second route only when the first has reached a result you wrote down beforehand. Decide the period and the numbers in your own terms. For dealers that might be how many reordered. For direct, how many repeated. For online, how many orders came without a discount code.

A test plan on one page

Product and route chosen:
Why this route (the answer to each of the three questions):
Cost we expect to carry in the test:
Period of the test:
Result that makes us add a second route:
Result that makes us stop or change the product:
Who decides at the end, and on what numbers:

Fill it before you spend.

An invented example: a brass pooja-lamp set from Moradabad

Take an invented brass maker in Moradabad that has sold decorative pieces to exporters for years and now launches a boxed pooja-lamp set for homes. The owner wanted all three routes: gift shops in town, a marketplace listing and personal calls to corporate gifting buyers.

The questions told a different story. Buyers become sure from a photograph if they can return a damaged piece. Nothing needs fitting or servicing. The buyers are many and unknown. Online fitted all three answers, while shops had one real argument, since people like to feel the weight of brass.

The owner's first plan had a hidden mistake. The owner assumed shops should lead because the firm's history was in trade. So the plan kept one route and one safeguard. The owner listed online first, with a clear return rule for dents and a printed care guide in every box, because brass tarnishes and unhappy buyers write reviews. The stated result was repeat orders with no discount code. Shops would be approached only when customers asked for the set near them, starting with two gift dealers with real footfall.

At the end of the test period the owner read the reorder numbers against the sheet written at the start. They fell short of the bar, so the box and the care guide were changed before any second route was touched. Corporate gifting went on a list for later, with no buyer's name on it yet and no salesperson to call.

When these questions mislead you

They mislead when the answers are guesses. If you do not know how many buyers there are or how they decide, spend a few days asking before you choose. Call ten likely buyers, or the best dealer you know, and ask how they would expect to buy.

They also mislead when your capacity is the limit. A firm of three cannot serve forty dealers or answer a thousand online questions in a day. Match the route to what you can staff, and use the questions to choose among those.

Entering a new state with a product you already sell is a separate case, covered in dealer first or direct first when you enter a new state.

Choose the route, then fill in the plan

Write the three answers, pick the route and complete the one-page plan before the first rupee goes out. Route to market and distribution strategy is the service that helps make the choice, and the rest of our sales work sits under sales. To talk through a launch, tell us what you need.