Notes for owners · Channel and customer growth
A distributor onboarding pack for a consumer product: what goes in the folder
A short onboarding pack of price list, product notes, claim steps and one named contact answers the questions your sales team keeps repeating. Here is what goes in, page by page.
The GullySales team · Updated 17 Oct 2026 · 6 min read
On this page
A new distributor of a consumer product needs a folder of seven pages. They are the price and margin sheet, a product note and the order and delivery steps. Add the claims process, the scheme calendar, the display and branding page, and named contacts. Together they answer the questions your sales team otherwise answers one call at a time. Keep the folder small enough to read in one sitting. For the wider onboarding, see onboarding a new dealer or distributor; this post stays with what goes on the pages.
Why bother, when you can just call the distributor?
Because the same ten questions come back, and each one is answered a little differently by whoever picks up. One executive says the claim window is thirty days, another says forty-five. A salesperson at the distributor quotes last quarter's rate to a retailer. A written pack gives everyone the same answer and gives the distributor something to point to.
What goes into each page?
| Page | What it holds | Who at the distributor uses it |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Price and margin sheet | Distributor rate, the margin you expect for the retailer, the MRP, GST line, pack sizes, case quantities, with a date on the page | Owner, accounts, sales staff |
| 2. Product note | One page per range: what the product is, who buys it, two selling lines, three questions a retailer asks and the plain answers | Sales staff |
| 3. Order and delivery steps | How to place an order, the minimum lot, how stock is dispatched, who to call if it does not arrive | Accounts, godown |
| 4. Claims | What counts as damaged or expired stock, what proof to send, to whom, and how the credit note is raised | Accounts |
| 5. Scheme calendar | Current retailer and distributor schemes with start and end dates, and how the payout is made | Owner, sales staff |
| 6. Display and branding | What stands, posters or shelf strips you provide, what the distributor pays for, how to request more | Sales staff |
| 7. Contacts | One named person for orders, one for claims, one for the area manager, with phone numbers | Everyone |
Number 7 matters more than it looks. Give the distributor one person to call, a name and a mobile number, not "the office". If that person changes, replace the page.
What do you leave out?
Leave out the company history, the vision statement and photographs of the factory. A distributor does not need convincing now; the agreement is signed. Leave out anything you do not intend to honour. Three things come back as complaints. One is a scheme you might run. Another is advertising support with no budget behind it. The third is a delivery time the dispatch team has not agreed to. A claims process you have not decided yet is worse than a missing page, so draft it before you print.
For example: a Coimbatore grinder maker and a stockist in Jabalpur
Imagine a Coimbatore brand of table-top wet grinders appointing a new stockist in Jabalpur. Within a fortnight the stockist's accountant rings three times. How are drum breakages handled? When does the scheme end? Who approves a return? A different person at the brand answers each time, and the second answer contradicts the first on who pays freight for returns.
The brand writes the claims page. The stockist photographs the damaged carton before opening it, then sends the photographs and the invoice number to the named claims contact on WhatsApp. A credit note follows once the piece is received back. The page also says who pays return freight. The scheme page carries an end date. The accountant's calls stop, and the first reorder arrives with a question about a new colour, not a claim. It is not perfect: the first claim under the new page takes eleven days because the named contact was on leave, so a second name now sits beside the first.
The brand had treated claims as something to improvise. Writing the page forced its own accounts and dispatch teams to agree on the answer first, and printing the folder cost about ₹6,000 (all invented).
What a product note looks like
The product note is the page the sales staff actually carry, so give it a fixed shape. Using the invented grinder brand above as an illustration (the product claims below are made up for the example and are not a real product's):
- What it is: a 2-litre table-top wet grinder, two colours, with the warranty as printed on the card in the box.
- Who buys it: families replacing an older stone grinder, and small tiffin kitchens.
- Two lines to say: "Two colours, fits a small counter. Service point in your town, number on the card."
- Three things a retailer asks: Does it fit a small counter? Who repairs it? What if the drum arrives cracked? Each answer is one sentence.
Write it for a salesperson who has forty seconds in a shop. Lines you cannot back with the product or the warranty card do not go on the note.
Keeping the pack current
A stale pack does more harm than none, because a distributor quotes last season's rate with confidence. Put a date at the top of each page and name one person at your end who owns the folder. When a price, scheme or contact changes, replace the page the same day and tell the distributor which page changed. Ask the distributor to bin the old one.
How do you test the pack before you print it?
Give a draft to one distributor you already work with. Ask the accountant, a salesperson and the owner to find three answers each. These are today's rate for one pack, what to do with a damaged case, and who to call about a delivery delay. Whatever they cannot find in a minute needs rewording or moving. Then ask your own sales team to write down the last ten questions a distributor asked them. Check the pack answers each. Gaps in the pack show up faster this way than in a meeting.
Where to start
Write the claims page first, on one sheet, with your accounts and dispatch people in the room. That page settles the arguments the others only prevent. How makers of everyday goods choose and run distributors is on our page for consumer products manufacturers, and the channel partner recruitment checklist covers who to appoint. If you want the whole pack built with you, partner onboarding is the service, and you can tell us what you need.
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