Allan Fetters, a Verdelis Investments Affiliate Consultant with several decades of past experience in the ag retailer sector, has a bracing message for suppliers aspiring to reach farmers via the all-important retail channel: “sell-in” is the easy part, while “sell-through” is the real work.
What does this mean? As Fetters explains in a website post for his consultancy AGceleration Advisory Service: “With the right terms, a lot of suppliers can get an initial order placed through extended dating, stocking incentives, or program support. The real test comes a season later when the reorder conversation starts. Too often, the answer is some version of, ‘We still have product left.’”
Why is the product not moving to either the supplier’s or retailer’s satisfaction? The answer, Fetters says, “is pretty simple.” Any supplier wanting to win through the ag-retail channel will “have to build for the channel as it actually works, not how you wish it worked.” After all, he writes, “retail does not exist to move product for suppliers. It exists to run a business.”
Read Fetters’s full post here to learn his four critical factors to ensure products are successfully pulled through the channel.