How to Determine Required Minimum Distribution

Understand how available your product needs to be in order to sell profitably. Without some sense of the required minimum distribution, a business owner is working without any idea of how receptive the market is to a particular product. A few simple steps can help overcome this difficulty.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

1. Study other similar businesses in your field and determine their standard distribution plan. Ask yourself where they seem to make their product most available and why they choose the outlets they do.
2. Attend local business conferences and talk to distribution specialists in your field. Determine required minimum distribution easily by picking the brains of people who already have a great deal of experience under their belt.
3. Review your sales reports to see how close to a profit margin your current projected distribution plan puts you to meeting the kind of gain you expect to see. A little planning ahead on your required minimum distribution can help you determine a strategy to save headaches later.
4. Travel in person to retail outlets that carry your product and see how well your product is selling. This helps you determine whether your product is over or understocked and goes a long way into letting you know how well individual retailers can be expected to perform.
5. Join local business organizations. These associations not only help you by allowing you to network, but they can also offer cooperative distribution plans that increase your product's availability and places your product into more venues than you originally counted on.