A marketing channel performs the work of moving goods from producers to consumers. It overcomes the time, place, and possession gaps that separate goods and services from those who need or want them. Members of the marketing channel perform a number of key functions like forward flow of activity from the company to te customers and backward flow from customers to company.
FMCG major HUL is the subsidiary of UNILEVER with a market capitalization of $ 14 billion. HUL owns 35 of India’s 150 most trusted and powerful brands and is the market leader across categories.
The sales and distribution challenge of HUL
HUL caters to Seven million distinct outlets across India and 59% of these stores are in rural India. HUL directly services over 1 million stores and has a network of over 7000 stockiest and distributors.
Sales and Distribution of HUL in Delhi (NCR).
HUL in Delhi covers the consumers mainly with the combination of carriers and forwarding agents and stockiest who indirectly deal with the retail outlets. The company which is headquartered in Mumbai has appointed Hindustan Cargo ltd. as the C&F agent.
C&F agents can be classified as one’s with investment and one’s without investment. The without investment C&F agent then supplies the goods to the authorized stockiest. These stockiest are also classified into 2 categories called U1 and U2. U1&U2
The stockiest are classified as U1 and U2 stockiest on the basis of the product tat they stock. E.g. U1 stockiest generally stocks products like surf and ponds whereas the U2 stockiest deals with high profile products of HUL like Lakme and Dove.
The stockiest in HUL system are commonly referred to as Re Stockiest. In Delhi there are approximately 8 U1 stockiest and 6 U2 stockiest. These are appointed for a particular region of the city. Each stockiest is then responsible for distributing the goods to the retail counters in