As a sales channel for production enterprises, middlemen are by no means passive. They also have their own marketing decisions and strategies. Moreover, some middlemen are so powerful that they can even control the manufacturers they do business with. Therefore, as managers of industrial and commercial enterprises, we must further analyze and study the types of middlemen and their marketing decisions and strategies.

1. Types of wholesalers

Wholesale refers to various trading activities of selling goods for resale, further production and processing or other commercial purposes. Wholesale in a broad sense includes all acts of selling goods or services to any buyer except the final consumer. Here, we only limit wholesale to companies mainly engaged in wholesale business, and call those companies that specialize in buying and selling large quantities of goods between industrial and commercial enterprises and other organizational markets wholesalers.

wholesalers are in the middle stage of the circulation process. They buy a lot of goods from production enterprises (also from other wholesalers) and then sell them to retailers, producers or other wholesalers. Its main functions are centralization (acquisition and warehousing), balance (allocation and sub-packaging), diffusion (sales and transportation), service (financing service, information service, management service, consulting service and promotion service) and risk taking.

there are many types of wholesalers, and their degree is closely related to the level of market economy development in this country (region). The types of wholesalers can be divided into many types from different angles, and the internationally accepted classification is based on whether they have the ownership of goods. According to the ownership of goods, wholesalers can be divided into independent wholesalers and agent wholesalers.

1) Independent wholesalers

Independent wholesalers, also known as "merchant wholesalers" or "commercial wholesalers", refer to those wholesalers who first buy the ownership of the goods they distribute and then sell them. Independent wholesaler is the most important type of wholesaler. According to the items that they provide services in marketing, they are divided into full-service wholesalers and limited service wholesalers.

(1) full-service wholesaler. Refers to wholesalers who provide almost all wholesale services. They have fixed institutions, facilities and personnel, have inventory in hand, and can provide services such as credit, delivery and assistance in management. According to the different service scope, it can be divided into three types:

① comprehensive wholesaler. This kind of wholesaler distributes a wide range of products, involving different industries, with various varieties and specifications, mainly for retailers. Products usually include daily necessities, hardware and household appliances, stationery, medical and health care products, etc.

② professional wholesalers. This wholesaler only sells products of a certain industry. Such as hardware wholesalers, groceries wholesalers, medicine wholesalers, etc.

③ wholesalers of special products. This wholesaler only distributes some products on a certain product line. Such as frozen food wholesalers in the food industry and button wholesalers in the clothing industry.

(2) limited service wholesalers. Refers to those wholesalers who only provide a small number of wholesale services. This kind of wholesaler is generally small in scale, mainly serving retailers who buy small quantities. The specific forms are mainly as follows:

① Cash-and-carry wholesalers. This wholesaler distributes a small number of products with fast turnover, mainly serving small retail stores. Buyers must buy in cash and bring their own means of transport to take the goods away.

② freight wholesalers. Wholesalers who mainly provide sales and delivery functions. They mainly sell perishable goods, such as milk, bread and snacks. They send goods to grocery stores, supermarkets, restaurants, etc. by car every day, usually in cash.

③ mail order wholesaler. This kind of wholesaler sends the product catalogue to retail stores, enterprises, institutions and other customers, and then mails the products or delivers them after receiving the order. Their main customers are shops located away from the city center. The products distributed are cosmetics, special foods and so on.

2) agent wholesaler

an agent wholesaler refers to a wholesaler who is entrusted by a producer to engage in the marketing business of goods, but does not obtain the ownership of goods. Its main function is to provide trading services for buyers and sellers, and charge a certain percentage of commission as reward. The main types of wholesalers are:

(1) agents. Agents can be wholesalers or retailers. As wholesalers, there are mainly the following types of agents:

① Manufacturers' agents. This kind of agent sells complementary products on behalf of two or more manufacturers. They signed an agency agreement with each manufacturer, including pricing policy, sales area, order processing procedures, delivery service, commission ratio and various guarantees. This is the wholesale form adopted by small companies that want to expand their export but are understaffed or large companies that want to use agents to open up new markets.

② sales agent. This kind of agent is entrusted by the producer to sell all the products it produces. They play the role of producers' sales departments, and thus have a great influence on sales prices and trading conditions. Sales agents are generally not restricted by regions. This is the wholesale form adopted by those manufacturers who are unable to sell their products.

(2) brokers. The main function is to bridge the gap between buyers and sellers, and help to reach a deal. They charge their clients a certain commission, but they don't own inventory, and they don't participate in financing and take risks. Brokers are more active in the real estate and securities markets.

2. wholesaler's marketing decision

wholesaler's marketing decision is mainly reflected in six aspects, namely: target market decision, business scope decision, commodity purchase decision, sales price decision, promotion combination decision and sales location decision.

(1) Target Market Decision

Like manufacturers, a wholesaler can't serve all people, so in marketing activities, it is necessary to determine its own target market first. Because wholesalers serve retailers, manufacturers and other wholesalers, the demand characteristics of these buyers must be considered when choosing the target market; At the same time, because the service objects of wholesalers belong to intermediate consumption, the requirements of final consumers should be considered when choosing the target market. This way. Wholesalers should adopt various standards when making target market decisions, such as serving large buyers or small and medium-sized buyers based on the size of buyers; According to the geographical distribution of buyers, it can only serve local enterprises, and it can also serve local and foreign enterprises at the same time; According to the demand of buyers, it can serve both comprehensive buyers and professional buyers; Wait a minute.

In making target market decisions, wholesalers should not only determine the customer groups they serve, but also find profitable customers within the customer groups, and establish good relationships with such customers to ensure the marketing benefits of the enterprise. At the same time, you can also set up voluntary chain stores with small and medium-sized retailers you serve to expand product sales.

(2) business scope decision

business scope decision refers to deciding the product variety, specification and quantity and the services provided. From the requirements of retailers, it is always hoped that wholesalers can supply all the varieties they need so that they can buy all the goods at a wholesale station at one time, thus reducing the purchase cost. But from the wholesaler's point of view, it is very difficult. On the one hand, it is difficult to fully meet the funds, and there will be certain difficulties in storage equipment and supply; On the other hand, even if the inventory is really sufficient. To ensure prompt delivery, enterprises will also lose profits because of too much inventory. Therefore, wholesalers must carefully study how many product lines to operate in decision-making. In order to ensure the profit income and meet the needs of buyers, wholesalers usually adopt "ABC management method" in decision-making, that is, the products they operate are divided into three categories: A, B and C, where A stands for the most profitable variety, B stands for the moderately profitable variety and C stands for the least profitable variety, so as to ensure the profit of enterprises by controlling the inventory level of different varieties.

wholesalers should also consider the number of service items when making business scope decisions. Service is very important for establishing a good relationship with customers, so it is necessary to decide which service items should be developed and which should be abandoned or charged. Here, the premise of decision-making is to find the special service combination that customers value.

(3) Commodity purchase decision

The commodity purchase decision of a wholesaler mainly includes three aspects: purchasing commodities, purchasing channels and inventory.

the core of purchasing commodities is that the purchased commodities should be marketable. Marketable goods usually refer to those products with high quality, brand-name products and varieties suitable for the requirements of the place of sale. At the same time, when purchasing goods, we should consider the life cycle stage of the products. If the products are in recession, even high-quality products should not be purchased in large quantities, so as not to cause a backlog.

different purchase channels directly affect the price of products. There are two channels for wholesalers to purchase goods, one is from production enterprises, and the other is from other wholesalers. The purchase price of the former is lower than that of the latter. Therefore. We should try our best to purchase goods directly from production enterprises.

in order to ensure that retailers can meet the supply when they need goods, wholesalers must have a certain amount of storage, but this kind of storage is not unlimited, and too much storage will take up a lot of money, which is unfavorable to enterprises. Therefore, it is necessary to determine a reasonable inventory in order to meet the supply without causing backlog.

(4) Sales price decision

The traditional way for wholesalers to make price decisions is to add a certain percentage of gross profit to the purchase cost of goods, which becomes their own sales price-wholesale price. Because wholesalers have to sell their products to retailers, and retailers will sell them to consumers after increasing the price, the gross profit added by wholesalers should not be too high. This way. After deducting various expenses, the average profit rate of wholesalers is usually low and can only be maintained by expanding sales. In recent years, wholesalers are looking for new ways to improve their profits: first, they can win new important customers by cutting the profits of some product lines, so that they can increase their purchases; The second is to persuade suppliers to give special price reduction concessions in order to gain opportunities for suppliers to expand sales.

(5) Promotion combination decision

For a long time. Most wholesalers don't attach importance to promotion. They think that promotion is the business of manufacturers and retailers, because they want to sell their products to thousands of households. The number of their own sales targets is small. Therefore, there is no need to make any publicity, as long as the salesman talks with each customer. This way of thinking makes some wholesalers get into trouble in the fierce market competition. Therefore, wholesalers must change their ideas, improve their understanding of promotion and make a good decision on promotion combination.

The decision-making of the wholesaler's promotion combination mainly revolves around three aspects:

① Overall planning, so as to organically combine various promotion methods and activities. We should design the overall promotion strategy and plan according to the characteristics of our target customers.

② The promotion technology should focus on establishing a good corporate image. Because wholesalers handle too many kinds of products. We can't imitate the manufacturer's propaganda methods, so we can only focus on promoting enterprises instead of promoting products.

③ the promotion methods should be combined with the long and short ones. For example, advertising and personnel promotion can be used for a long time, and public relations and business promotion can be used for a short time. The key is to coordinate the publicity content.

(6) Location decision

The location decision of the wholesaler is mainly considered from two aspects: beneficial to itself and beneficial to the buyer. From its own point of view, the Mao Lijiao of wholesalers is low and fixed. Therefore, in order to increase profits, it is necessary to reduce costs, which determines that their sales locations are generally located in areas with low expenses such as rent and taxes, and less investment in storage conditions and office facilities. But from the buyer's point of view, they require convenient purchase, fast order processing, rapid delivery and convenient transportation. Wholesalers must coordinate the two. Due to the development of transportation conditions, geographical location is no longer the main factor affecting retailers' purchases, and wholesalers should mainly work hard on sales and office conditions. Therefore, the automation of warehouse transportation and office conditions will be the focus of decision makers.

3. Types of retailers

Retail refers to the activities of selling goods and services directly to the final consumers. All acts of selling goods and services directly to the final consumers for personal and non-commercial purposes belong to the category of retail. No matter which institutions are engaged in these activities, no matter how or where goods and services are sold. Those commercial organizations whose sales mainly come from retail are called retailers.

Retailers are in the final stage of commodity circulation. They buy goods from manufacturers or wholesalers. Then sell the goods to the final consumers. Its main functions are purchasing, storing, disassembling, sub-packaging, selling, transmitting information, providing sales services, etc. It is convenient to purchase and promote sales in terms of time, place and method.

the types of retailers are increasing with the emergence of new organizational forms. According to the marketing method, it can be divided into store-selling retailers and non-store-selling retailers.

(1) Store-selling retailers

Store-selling retailers refer to those retailers that have a fixed business place for customers to choose goods. At present, most goods in China are sold through store retailers. There are many types of store retailers, which can be divided into full-service retailers, limited-service retailers, self-service retailers and self-service retailers according to the level of service. According to the operating characteristics, there are mainly the following eight types:

① department stores. A comprehensive store mainly engaged in daily necessities, clothing, shoes and hats, food and beverages, stationery, household items, etc. It is characterized by a wide business scope and many service items, and customers can buy most of the goods they need when they go to a store and get good service, so it has become one of the main sales methods adopted in many places in China.

② professional shops. Specialized stores that sell a certain product category or meet the needs of a specific customer group, such as watch stores and women's goods stores. The store is characterized by a narrow range of products, but a complete range of colors and varieties of products within the business scope. There are many services, and there are good services before, during and after sale.

③ convenience store. Small shops located near residential areas. This kind of store is characterized by long business hours, and its main varieties are convenient commodities with high turnover rate. Because these stores have few facilities, the goods they operate do not need special packaging and only provide limited services, so the prices are slightly lower or similar to those of department stores.

④ supermarket. A self-selected retail organization with a large scale of operation, low cost, low gross profit and large sales volume. The retail organization is characterized by a large business area, a variety of products, low product prices and long business hours. With complete supporting facilities, customers can choose their own satisfactory products. This retail method is welcomed by a large number of low-income people.

⑤ warehouse store. A type of store that has no frills, gives customers discounts and offers few services. Its characteristics are large business area and few facilities; Located in the urban-rural junction, the products are selected by the buyers themselves, and the price of the goods is lower than that of other retail stores. This kind of store is attractive to those buyers who buy in large quantities.

⑥ discount store. A type of store that sells standard goods at a lower price. Its characteristics are far from the city center and low rent; Less business facilities and low equipment costs; Highlight the sales of national brands. Quality is guaranteed: customers serve themselves in sales, and the sales price is lower than that of traditional stores. This kind of store can attract a large number of distant customers to buy.

⑦ chain stores. By many retail stores in the same industry in accordance with the principle of unity to form an organic whole, in the same. Types of shops engaged in business under commercial image. This is a form of retail organization in which many stores are United.