Say, if you are a new in the business. You may have the best product but how do you compete? How do you reach out to your consumers?
You either reach out to some distributors/sellers/retailers/e-com yourselves to sell your product through their medium and in return, you share some of your profit as well. In nutshell, you’re kind of pushing your product to your consumers. Ex: Reliance Jio sim (during its launch). Or, you come with a different option. You start performing certain gimmicks like advertising, marketing, mouth of word, etc that distributors/retailers or even consumers themselves start reaching out to you. That is, your product is so in demand that it itself is getting pulled from the market. Ex: Reliance Jio sim (after a month or two its launch)
Former is the Push Strategy while latter the Pull Strategy. Let’s discuss the two in detail today!
Push and pull distribution strategy is all about directing your promotional route to market. Either by the product being pushed towards customers or your customers pulling the product through the retail chain towards them.
This method is crucial for supply management for manufacturers, brands, and online retailers planning promotional strategies.
PULL Strategy
We often get mesmerized by ads so much that no matter we need it or not, we go ahead to buy it. Common examples : Alia Bhatt endorsing Frooti, Banner of Flat 40% off Puma, etc.
Under this strategy, a product is shown such a way that it motivates the customer to seek out their brand. So, any product that involves tactics which compels the customer to demand directly from retailers is sold via pull strategy. It may involve techniques like Advertising, Word of mouth, Sales promotion, Social Media, Blogging, Newsletter, etc.
Classic example of same is Intel, the computer chip company created ‘Intel Inside’ their brand ingredient programme by persuading manufacturers that their computers would have higher perceived value if they featured Intel in their own marketing, resulting in customers wanting to know if the PC they were buying included an Intel chip.
PUSH Strategy
Remember the old days? A salesman would often visit your door to promote and sell his product at any cost. Well, that is where a business is pushing his brand to you! Common examples: Salesman performing stunts like making flowers out of coloured chart papers. You weren’t aware of these papers but this magic made you bought the same. Under this strategy, the product is taken to the customer by any of the means and ensured that it is well promoted at point of purchase.
If we talk about today, usually the push strategy is adapted by those manufactures who can’t afford to sell each of their product only through advertising. So, in such cases, they push the finished product to their distributors so that they can easily reach to their consumers through retailers/shopkeepers. For ex: Mars who manufacture chocolate bars, sell via distributors. It would impossible to manage requests to buy single bars of chocolate! They have a large product portfolio and sell ranges into their distributors.
Practically, a business barely works on any one strategy. They usually adapt the merger of two. As markets, the environment and customers change, it’s wise to consider both strategies. Household brand, Thornton’s Chocolates, operate both strategies in different ways. They have an own label option and sell to specific retailers and package their goods using the retailers’ own brand packaging and they sell direct to customers via high street stores, online and in other retailers.
By the way, what pulls you to buy that thumbs up or coke? Obviously, it’s endorsing event. Not to forgot, it is also being pushed down to its distributors through their manufacturers.
Next time you buy anything, try figuring out the strategy in same. Follow us on Linkedin for more such insights.
By the way, what strategy does our SuppChainTalks follow? Do tell us in comment 🙂
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