PCM Distribution & Channel Management Flashcards

A push distribution strategy involves a manufacturer:

Answer: Promoting products aggressively to intermediaries who then sell to consumers

A push strategy directs marketing efforts toward channel partners through trade promotions, sales incentives, and personal selling to motivate them to stock and promote the product.

Cross-docking in distribution refers to:

Answer: Transferring products directly from inbound to outbound transportation with minimal or no storage

Cross-docking reduces warehousing costs and speeds up delivery by moving products from receiving docks directly to shipping docks.

Which term describes the final step in a supply chain that delivers a product to the end consumer's door?

Answer: Last-mile delivery

Last-mile delivery is often the most expensive and complex segment of the supply chain because it involves high volumes of individual, dispersed destinations.

Drop shipping allows a retailer to:

Answer: Sell products without holding inventory—orders ship directly from supplier to customer

Drop shipping eliminates the retailer's need to manage physical inventory, reducing upfront capital requirements and warehousing costs.

Reverse logistics involves:

Answer: Managing the flow of returned, recalled, or end-of-life products back through the supply chain

Reverse logistics covers product returns, recalls, refurbishment, recycling, and disposal—increasingly important for customer satisfaction and sustainability goals.

Which distribution metric measures how widely available a product is across all potential retail outlets in a market?

Answer: Distribution coverage (numeric distribution)

Numeric (or distribution coverage) measures the percentage of relevant stores actually carrying a product, indicating how accessible it is to shoppers.