Every scheme costs money. Very few of them tell you what they sold.
Gully Sales plans your trade promotions the way finance would read them: which outlets, which mechanic, what it costs at full uptake, what proof comes back from the field, and what actually sold through after the scheme closed.
- A scheme calendar the channel sees months ahead, not an evening announcement.
- Every mechanic costed at full uptake before you announce it.
- Sell-through and claims reported scheme by scheme, not lumped into the year.
Gully Sales Private Limited plans trade promotions for manufacturers, brands and distributors selling through dealers and retail counters across India.
In one paragraph
What is Trade Promotion Planning for Distributors?
Trade promotion planning decides which schemes run, in which outlets, on what mechanic and at what cost, before the money is committed. Gully Sales builds the promotion calendar, costs each mechanic against your own margin, sets execution and evidence standards at outlet level, and reports sell-through against a stated baseline. You learn what a scheme actually sold.
The problem
You know what the scheme cost. You do not know what it sold.
The quarter is slow, so a scheme is announced. Ten percent extra on a slab, or one case free on ten, decided in a Monday meeting and sent out by evening. Dispatch jumps. Everyone relaxes. Then the following quarter is worse than usual, because half the channel bought forward, and the claims start arriving with photographs nobody asked for and totals nobody can check. By the time the accounts are settled, the scheme is four months old and the next one is already running.
You will recognise it as
- Schemes are decided in the same week they are announced, and the channel hears by forwarded message.
- You can state what a scheme cost in credit notes, but not what it sold at the counter.
- Dispatch rises during the offer and falls for two months after it, every single time.
- Claims arrive late, in different formats, and settling them takes longer than running the scheme did.
- The same three distributors take most of the scheme money, and they were already your strongest.
- Nobody can show you a display or a stocked shelf from the outlets the scheme was meant to activate.
What it costs the business
- Promotion spend turns into a standing discount. Dealers wait for the next scheme instead of ordering, and the offer stops changing anyone's behaviour.
- Stock moves into the channel rather than out of it, so a strong quarter is paid for by a weak one and the forecast keeps missing.
- Claim settlement becomes an argument. Trust drops on both sides, and your commercial team spends its month on reconciliation instead of on counters.
- Money goes where it is easiest to spend, not where growth is still available, because no outlet priority was set before the scheme opened.
Why it persists. Trade promotions are usually a response, not a plan. A competitor moves, a month falls short, a distributor asks, and a scheme is the fastest thing you can do about any of it. Each one is judged on the dispatch it produced that month, which always looks healthy, so nobody goes back to read the two months after. And the figures that would settle the argument, sell-through by outlet and claim value against uptake, sit in a distributor's own book rather than in yours.
If it stays unresolved. Your channel gets trained to wait. Base price loses meaning, because the real price is whatever the current scheme makes it, and margin is negotiated downward one quarter at a time. Meanwhile the outlets that could grow stay untouched, because the money keeps landing where the loudest partner is, and you have no record with which to argue otherwise.
What changes
Promotions you can defend at the end of the quarter.
In the first weeks
- A promotion calendar for the next two to four quarters, visible to sales, finance and the channel.
- Each mechanic costed at full uptake, so the worst case is known before the scheme is announced.
- An outlet priority list saying where each scheme runs and where it deliberately does not.
In how the work runs
- One scheme document per promotion: mechanic, period, eligibility, evidence required and claim route.
- A field checklist with dated photographs, so activation is proven at the outlet rather than assumed.
- A claim format and settlement timeline that your team and your partners both work to.
In sales and marketing
- Sell-through read beside dispatch, so forward buying shows up instead of hiding inside a good month.
- Promotion cost per unit sold, tracked scheme by scheme, so weak mechanics are retired on evidence.
- Budget shifted towards outlets with headroom rather than towards partners who ask most often.
In what management can see
- One scheme-wise report that sales and finance both accept, in place of three separate spreadsheets.
- Outlet-level evidence you can open in a review: what ran, where, and what came back from the field.
Over the longer term
- A house style for promotions: fewer schemes, planned earlier, judged the same way each time.
- A record of which mechanics work with which outlet tier, built from your own trading history.
Gully Sales controls the planning, the mechanic costing, the execution standard and the reporting. Uptake at the counter depends on your product, your pricing and the partners who run the scheme, so we report movement against a stated baseline rather than promising a lift.
Who it is for
Trade promotion planning suits some businesses better than others.
The businesses it suits
- Manufacturers and brands selling through dealers, distributors or retail counters in one or more states.
- Companies already spending on schemes and trade offers without a settled way of judging them.
- Businesses whose channel covers many outlets of very different sizes, currently treated the same way.
- Distributor-led businesses where sell-through data sits with the partner and never reaches you.
- Franchisors and brand owners running periodic offers across outlets they do not own.
- Teams whose claim settlement has become a monthly argument with the channel.
What usually prompts the call
- A scheme-heavy quarter closed well and the next one collapsed.
- Finance asks what the year's trade spend actually bought, and nobody can answer with numbers.
- A competitor's offer has started setting your prices for you.
- You are entering a new state or a new retail format and need a launch offer that does not become permanent.
- Outstanding claims have grown large enough to strain the relationship with a key distributor.
What Gully Sales does
The work, component by component.
Promotion calendar and budget
A calendar of the promotions you intend to run across the next two to four quarters, with money set against each one and a reserve held back for competitor responses. Seasons, festival demand, dealer cash cycles and your own production plan sit on the same sheet, so schemes stop colliding with each other.
- Why it matters:
- A scheme decided in the week it is announced can only be judged by the dispatch it produced. A scheme planned two quarters ahead can be funded, prepared for, and compared with the one before it.
- You receive:
- A dated promotion calendar with budget, owner and objective against each scheme.
- Business value:
- Sales, finance and your channel work from one plan, and reactive schemes come out of a planned pot instead of the year's margin.
Outlet priorities
A tiered view of your outlets by volume, category share, headroom and current coverage, which decides where each scheme runs. Some outlets get the full offer, some a reduced version, and some are deliberately left out because they would have ordered anyway.
- Why it matters:
- Trade money usually follows the partner who asks most often, not the outlet with the most room to grow. Tiering makes that choice explicit and reviewable.
- You receive:
- An outlet priority list, tiered, with scheme eligibility set against each tier.
- Business value:
- Spend moves towards growth that is still available, and you can show a partner why an outlet was included or left out.
Promotion mechanics and costing
The offer itself: slab, free goods, display support, price off, credit terms, or a combination, chosen against what you want the outlet to do. Each mechanic is costed at expected uptake and at full uptake, in your own margin, before it is signed off.
- Why it matters:
- Most schemes are approved at the cost of expected uptake and settled at the cost of actual uptake. Knowing the ceiling in advance is what stops a good quarter turning into an expensive one.
- You receive:
- A mechanic costing sheet per scheme, showing full-uptake cost and cost per unit sold.
- Business value:
- You approve a promotion knowing its worst case, and weak mechanics are retired on evidence rather than on opinion.
Visibility standards
What the scheme looks like where the customer sees it: which material goes to which outlet tier, where it is placed, how long it stays up, and what a correctly executed counter looks like in a photograph.
- Why it matters:
- A scheme the retailer knows about and the customer does not is only a discount. Visibility is what turns trade money into demand at the counter.
- You receive:
- A visibility standard per outlet tier, with a reference photograph and a material list.
- Business value:
- Field teams and partners work to one picture of what finished looks like, so execution stops varying with whoever visited.
Field execution
The route from a scheme going live to it being present at the counter: who briefs the distributor, who visits which outlets in which week, what they check and what they record. Built as a checklist a sales officer can complete on a phone during the visit.
- Why it matters:
- Execution is usually assumed and rarely evidenced. A checklist completed at the outlet is the difference between believing a scheme ran and knowing that it did.
- You receive:
- A field execution checklist with visit plan, check points and photograph requirements.
- Business value:
- You can see which outlets were activated in week one and fix the ones that were not while the scheme is still open.
Compliance and claim settlement
The rules of the scheme written down before it opens: eligibility, exclusions, the evidence a claim must carry, the window in which it must be submitted, and the timeline for settlement. Plus the checks that sit between a claim and a payment.
- Why it matters:
- Most disputes with the channel are not about honesty. They are about a rule nobody wrote down, argued over months later with incomplete records on both sides.
- You receive:
- A scheme document, a claim format, and an agreed submission and settlement timeline.
- Business value:
- Claims are settled faster and questioned less, and your commercial team stops losing its month to reconciliation.
Sell-through reporting
One report per scheme that reads what left the outlet against what was dispatched into it, across the promotion window and the two months after it. Outlets activated, cost per unit sold and repeat ordering sit on the same page.
- Why it matters:
- Dispatch during a scheme always looks healthy. The figure that says whether the money worked is what moved out of the outlet, and what happened once the offer closed.
- You receive:
- A scheme-wise sell-through and cost report, plus a short post-scheme review note.
- Business value:
- The next scheme is designed from the last one's evidence, and finance gets an answer to what the year's trade spend bought.
What you will have at the end.
- A promotion calendar covering the next two to four quarters, by scheme type, region and budget.
- One scheme document per promotion: mechanic, period, eligibility, exclusions, evidence and claim route.
- A mechanic costing sheet showing full-uptake cost and cost per unit sold, in your own numbers.
- An outlet priority list, tiered, naming where each scheme runs and where it does not.
- Visibility standards per outlet tier, with a reference photograph and a material list.
- A field execution checklist for the sales officer, with visit dates and photograph points.
- A claim format, a submission window and a settlement timeline agreed with your channel.
- A scheme-wise sell-through report template that sales and finance both sign off.
- A post-scheme review note per promotion: what ran, what it cost, what moved, what to change.
- A sample pack of the same documents, filled in, so your team can see the finished form.
- A one-page approval route, so a scheme is signed off before it reaches the channel, not after.
How it runs
The engagement, step by step.
- 1
Read the last year of trade spend
We take twelve months of dispatch, the schemes that ran against it, and what each one cost in credit notes, free goods or material. Claims raised and settled are read beside them. The point is not to judge past decisions but to fix the baseline that everything after this is measured against.
- You provide:
- Dispatch by region, partner and product group; the scheme list; claim and credit note records.
- We produce:
- A baseline note: what was spent, on what, and what your current data can and cannot show.
- Done when:
- You and we agree the numbers this engagement will be measured against.
- 2
Map the outlets and set priorities
Your outlet list is tiered by volume, headroom and coverage, using order history alongside your field team's knowledge of the ground. We then decide, tier by tier, where promotion money should go and where it should not, and write the reasoning down so it can be argued with.
- You provide:
- The dealer or outlet master, order history, and time with your regional sales managers.
- We produce:
- A tiered outlet priority list with scheme eligibility set against each tier.
- Done when:
- Sales leadership signs off the tiers and the eligibility rules.
- 3
Design and cost the mechanics
For each objective, whether activating a quiet outlet, answering a competitor, launching a new line or clearing seasonal stock, we choose a mechanic and cost it in your margin at expected and at full uptake. Mechanics that cannot pay back at full uptake are changed or dropped before they ever reach the channel.
- You provide:
- Landed cost, margin structure, price list, and any limit finance places on trade spend.
- We produce:
- A mechanic costing sheet per scheme and a shortlist of mechanics by objective.
- Done when:
- Finance accepts the ceiling cost of every mechanic on the calendar.
- 4
Write the scheme and claim rules
Each promotion is written as one document: mechanic, period, eligible outlets, exclusions, evidence required, claim format, submission window and settlement timeline. The wording is plain enough that a distributor's accountant and your regional manager read it the same way.
- You provide:
- Commercial and accounts input on claim routes, credit note practice and approval limits.
- We produce:
- A scheme document template, a filled document per planned scheme, and a claim format.
- Done when:
- Commercial, sales and finance approve one scheme document as the standard.
- 5
Set the execution and visibility standard
We define what the scheme looks like at the counter for each outlet tier, what material goes where, and what the sales officer checks and photographs on the visit. This becomes a short checklist rather than a manual, because a manual does not survive a two-minute counter visit.
- You provide:
- Existing point-of-sale material, field team structure and current beat plans.
- We produce:
- Visibility standards with reference photographs, and a field execution checklist.
- Done when:
- Your field team completes the checklist correctly on a pilot round of outlets.
- 6
Run one scheme together
The first promotion on the calendar runs with us alongside your team: briefing the channel, watching week-one activation, catching the outlets that were missed while the scheme is still open, and putting the first claims through the new route. Problems found here are cheap to fix.
- You provide:
- Access to the field team, the distributor briefing, and the live claim queue.
- We produce:
- A live scheme run to the new standard, with issues logged and the documents corrected.
- Done when:
- The scheme closes, claims settle through the agreed route, and the report is produced.
- 7
Review, report and hand over
Two months after the scheme closes we read sell-through against dispatch, outlets activated against outlets eligible, cost per unit sold and repeat ordering. The review note says what to keep, what to change and what to stop, and the calendar is updated on that evidence rather than on memory.
- You provide:
- Post-scheme dispatch and, where available, distributor sell-through returns.
- We produce:
- A post-scheme review note, an updated calendar, and the working files your team keeps.
- Done when:
- Your team plans and costs the next scheme itself, using the same documents.
Ways to work with us
Plan one quarter's schemes, or take on the whole year's calendar.
Trade promotion audit
We read your last twelve months of schemes and spend, then report what the numbers already show: which mechanics worked, where the money concentrated, and what your data cannot yet tell you. A short, self-contained piece of work.
Promotion plan build
The full planning work: baseline, outlet priorities, mechanic costing, the scheme calendar, scheme and claim documents, and the execution and reporting standard, handed to your team to run.
Plan and first-scheme run
The plan, plus running the first promotion alongside your team from channel briefing to claim settlement and post-scheme review, so the process is tested on real outlets before handover.
Ongoing planning and review
A standing arrangement in which we plan each quarter's promotions with you, review the last quarter's schemes against their baseline, and keep the calendar, mechanics and reporting current as the channel changes.
Why Gully Sales
What you are actually choosing when you choose us.
We plan the promotion and its proof at the same time.
The evidence, the claim rules and the report are designed with the mechanic, not bolted on when the first dispute arrives. That is the reason a scheme planned this way can be judged at all.
Your numbers, not a template.
Mechanics are costed in your landed cost and your margin, and outlet tiers come from your own order history. Nothing here is a framework applied to your business from the outside.
We work the channel side and the marketing side.
Gully Sales works across sales, marketing and revenue operations, so a trade scheme is planned with the field team, the material at the counter and the reporting in one conversation.
We run one scheme with you before we hand over.
Documents survive a workshop easily and a live claim queue rarely. Testing the process on a real promotion is what makes it usable after we leave.
We will say when a scheme is the wrong answer.
Some slow quarters are a distribution problem, a pricing problem or a product problem. A promotion will not fix those, and we would rather tell you than sell you one.
Where it applies
The same service, in different businesses.
Building materials and hardware
- The situation:
- A fittings brand sells through dealers in three states and runs a slab scheme most quarters. Dispatch spikes each time and falls for two months afterwards.
- How it applies:
- Mechanics are recosted at full uptake, the flat slab is replaced with tier-specific offers for smaller counters, and sell-through is read for two months past the close.
- Likely benefit:
- Forward buying becomes visible in the reporting, and scheme money starts reaching counters that were never ordering.
Packaged foods and FMCG
- The situation:
- A snack brand reaches retail only through distributors and can see what leaves the depot, but never what moves off the shelf.
- How it applies:
- A simple sell-through return is attached to claim settlement, and field officers photograph display standards at a sample of outlets each week.
- Likely benefit:
- The brand can separate stock sitting in a distributor's godown from stock a customer actually bought.
Electrical and industrial products
- The situation:
- Scheme money concentrates on four large distributors who would have hit their numbers with or without an offer.
- How it applies:
- Outlets are tiered by headroom, the offer to established partners is reduced, and activation offers are directed at quiet counters instead.
- Likely benefit:
- Trade spend moves towards growth still available, with the reasoning written down for the partner conversation.
Consumer durables and appliances
- The situation:
- Festival offers are announced late, material reaches stores after the season starts, and claims arrive for months afterwards in different formats.
- How it applies:
- The calendar fixes festival schemes two quarters ahead, visibility standards are set per store tier, and one claim format with a submission window replaces the free-for-all.
- Likely benefit:
- Stores are ready when the season opens, and claim settlement stops running into the next quarter.
Agricultural inputs
- The situation:
- Season-bound schemes must be decided before demand is known, and a wrong call leaves stock stranded with dealers until the next season.
- How it applies:
- Mechanics are pre-costed against two or three season scenarios with a reserve held back, and release is tied to early-season movement rather than to a fixed date.
- Likely benefit:
- The business can respond within the season without committing the whole trade budget before it starts.
Questions buyers ask
Before you enquire, the answers you will want.
How will you check that a scheme actually ran at outlet level?
Every scheme carries an execution standard before it opens: what the outlet must display, stock or offer, and what evidence proves it. Your sales officer records that on a checklist with dated photographs during the visit, not from memory afterwards. We sample those records against claims, so an outlet claiming a benefit also has a visit and a photograph behind it. Where evidence is missing, the claim is queried before settlement rather than after.
How long does an engagement like this take?
It depends on the number of states, outlet tiers and partner types involved, and on whether any sell-through data exists today. We do not quote a fixed duration before seeing your scheme history, because a single-state dealer network and a four-state distributor business are different pieces of work. What we do commit to is the sequence: baseline first, then calendar and mechanics, then the execution and claim standard, then one scheme run together and reviewed.
What inputs do you need from us to start?
Twelve months of dispatch by region, partner and product group. The schemes that ran in that period, with the mechanic and what each cost in credit notes or free goods. Your current price list and partner terms. Claim records, however untidy they are. An outlet list with tiers if you keep one. If some of this does not exist, say so, because building the first version of it is part of the work.
How is success measured?
Against the baseline we fix at the start, not against a target invented for the proposal. Each promotion is read across its run and the two months after it: sell-through against dispatch, outlets activated against outlets eligible, cost per unit sold, and how many activated outlets order again without support. Sales and finance see one report, so the question of whether a scheme worked is settled with a single set of numbers.
What is excluded from this scope?
We do not set your list price or rebuild partner margin structures; that is compensation and incentive design, and it sits beside this work rather than inside it. We do not run your field team or place merchandising material ourselves. We do not audit distributor accounts. And we do not create the consumer advertising that runs beside a trade scheme, though we make sure the two do not contradict each other.
Our distributors will not share sell-through data. Then what?
That is common, and it is usually about effort rather than secrecy. We start with what can be collected without an argument: outlet-level order lines, field visit records and claim submissions, which together give a workable read of movement. Then we make the data part of the scheme itself, so a claim settles against a simple sell-through return. Most partners accept that trade, because settlement becomes faster for them too.
Will this reduce our trade spend?
It may, but that is not the aim we work to. The aim is that every rupee of trade spend has a stated purpose, a costed worst case and a reported result. Some businesses find the total stays similar and simply moves, away from partners who always ask and towards outlets with room to grow. Others retire two weak mechanics and fund a stronger one. We report the shift; we do not promise a saving.
Can you work with a distributor-led model where we never meet the retailer?
Yes, and it is the more common situation in India. The plan then works at two levels: the scheme you offer the distributor, and the scheme the distributor is expected to pass on to the counter. We write both, along with the proof of the second one that you should receive. Your field team samples outlets rather than covering all of them, which is enough to say whether the pass-through is real.
3 more questions
How do we stop dealers buying forward and then going quiet?
By costing the mechanic properly and reading the result over a longer window. A slab offer that pulls three months of stock into one is not growth, and the two-month view after the close shows that plainly. We also vary the mechanic by outlet tier, so a large dealer who would have ordered anyway is not paid to do it, and smaller outlets get the offer that changes their behaviour.
Do you handle claim settlement for us?
We design the claim route, the format, the submission window and the settlement timeline, and we build the checks that sit between a claim and a payment. Settlement itself stays with your commercial and accounts team, because it touches your ledgers and your credit notes. During the first scheme we work alongside them, so the process is tested against real claims before it is handed over.
What if a competitor announces a bigger offer in the middle of a quarter?
Your calendar should already hold a reserve for exactly that, which is why we plan budget as well as dates. A reactive scheme then draws from a planned pot through an agreed approval route, instead of being invented on a Monday morning. We also keep a short list of pre-costed responses, so a counter-offer takes a day to release rather than a week, and its ceiling cost is already known.
Talk to us
Plan your channel growth programme before the next quarter opens.
A first conversation is a working one. Bring last year's scheme list and we will tell you what those numbers already show, whether or not you go on to engage us.
- No obligation and no sales script
- A reply from someone who does the work
- Your details are never sold or shared