Mapping Channel Flows in the Music CD industry

In the harmony CD industry, the choice of the efficient market polity is ace of the crucial factors in the success of the particular brand. CDs are one of low-down-involvement products which asshole be bought by the customers out of the large selection. In swan to be successful, e genuinely particular manufacturing business in the music industry has to define the marketing mix of the product which allow ins product, price, promotion, and place. While the head start 3 components of marketing mix are really grievous, the last one which is place seems to catch all of the 4 Ps.Place is a actually complex component of marketing mix because it includes much(prenominal) important areas of marketing as decisions about channels, logistics, retailing, customer support and many other issues. The right choice of distri aloneion policy and channels are very(prenominal) important for the success of the maker, and those aspects brush asidenot be neglected.The easiest way for the producer to look at the products to the lowest customers is by direct selling. The dialog between the supplier and the buyer is the easiest way in which the product locoweed be purchased. However, well-nigh industries do not have such a luxury. It becomes inefficient for the producer to sell items directly to the customer, and he gives those functions to all types of intermediaries. In most cases, complex industries have a whole reach of intermediaries which bring the product to the end-user. This system of distribution represents a kind of a channel through which from the producer to the first intermediary and from the first intermediary to all others one by one product, wagess, and information precipitate are channeled.Whenever the chain is very long, its obvious that both member in the chain, as hale as the end-user has his specific unavoidably, which all have to be taken into account by the producer. Its very important to make sure that the information flow through t he channel does not break. The more intermediaries in that location are between the producer and the end-user, the more complicated the relationships inside the channel become, and more attention has to be paid by the producer so that the persona of the product remains high as in the very beginning of the chain. CDs industry deals with rights on a particular part of property, thusly its very important to note the chain of suitable distributors which provide the highest quality of the music disgrace companies products.The most widely-used forms of channels of distributions used by the companies include the followingv Selling direct (with the patron of salesforce)v Mail sound out (including telephone sales)v Retailerv Wholesalerv promoter (who acts on the behalf of the producer) (Mercer, 467)In order to maintain the quality of the production, its necessary for the producer to keep whatever pick up over the members of the distribution channel. Most music render companies pay close attention to that. Once the sway is entirely lost, it king be hard for the producer to monitor the sales and the quality. The most efficient body structure is when the producer structures the distribution channel by himself. Depending on what market the producer is in, this issue touches him in a different way. For example, when the producer produces mass consumer goods and in that location are many competitors in the market offering the like type of product, its not that important for the producer to control all the distributors who offer his product.The producers goal is to increase the number of distributors offering his product because he wants to have a large repair of the market. In the opposite case, when the goods produced by the lodge have some unique features and the company competes with competitors mostly in quality, it has to take responsibility over the quality of the products which it offers and may suffer losses if the quality of the products end-users r eceive is low. Therefore, the producer go out very much care in such a case about the quality of the goods which are offered to the end-users, and do his best to determine only very reliable distributors of his production in order to have a tight emphasize on quality. The mentioned approaches which can be used by the producer in the distribution policy therefore include1. Intensive distribution2. Selective distribution3. pocket distribution.In the case of the intensive distribution, the main emphasize is made on the number of distributors selling the companys product. The price competition is evident in such a case and quality of all the exchangeable goods offered in the market is pretty much the same.Selective distribution means that the producer selects suitable distributors to re-sell the product. Those distributors who have a good reputation get a chance to sell the companys products. The selection can be quite wide, and the producer in such a case in not very concerned abo ut the top quality of the products which he is offering. Exclusive distribution is common in such fields where companies offer products with unique characteristics and the main point of the marketing policy of the company is offering goods of the highest quality. all little detail of the product is important in such a case.Therefore, companies choose a very limited selection of distributors who will be re-selling their product in order to maintain the highest quality. The main partners of the company in the distribution channels include such establishments as specialty outlets, supermarkets, department stores, and discount outlets. strong suit outlets have a narrow product line (Mercer, 473). For example, in fashion industry specialty outlets rail at women of a specific age group with a specific taste. such(prenominal) distributors offer a greater degree of personal service and usually the selection of products for the targeted group of customers is very large.Supermarkets can be characterized by the following principles self-service and self-selection displays centralization of customer services large scale a strong price emphasize a broad assortment of merchandise. The most famous supermarkets include Sainsbury, Tesco, Wal-Mart, and others. Department stores cover a large variety of products in different departments of the stores and offers great competition for supermarkets. Examples of department stores include Boots, mark & Spencer, British Home Stores. Discount outlets specialize in a high turnover at low address. They usually specialize in products of one field and get a 30-day credit from their suppliers. For example, they include Dixons in consumer electronics/electrical MFI in furniture.A major feature of the distribution channel is that there is a pass judgment-add of every direct of channel. Just as the product and information are channeled from one direct of the channel to another, the value is also added at every level step by step. For e xample, in the music industry, the value is first added by the manufacturer who makes the music label, then the CDs are passed to distributors, sometimes on a couple of levels until they reach the customer. At every level, the value is added because more companies participate in the process.The manufacturer is the one who owns the music label and therefore is the main player in the game. He adds the most value to the product, which consists of the cost of production and the profit. However, without the distributors the CD would not be able to get the end-users, so at every level of the channel new value is added to the primary product. The first level of distributors can be wholesalers, the second level can consist of retailers. Therefore, value is added at 3 levels until it reaches the end-user.In the music industry, the efficiency of channel members is very high. Companies producing CDs pay close attention to the distributors who specialize in selling CDs and for the most part, th ose channels fall into the category of selective distribution. The channel distribution in the music industry is very complex due to the characteristic features of the industry. Nowadays, there are many companies which produce CDs (give the music label) and there are many customers in the market who are willing to buy those CDs. For example, Sony Records, Inc. is one of the leaders in the music industry production.However, it faces some competition in the market. Customers can give gustatory sensation to CDs produced by other companies as well. Therefore, every music record company needs to make sure there are many distributors who are brining CDs to the end-users and also maintain high quality of the product. The distributors in the music industry include music stores which deal with CDs in particular, supermarkets where one can also find this product, and net profit distributors which specialize in music CDs. The chain of distributors is quite large in the music industry. Its ve ry important for music record companies to provide the highest quality of their musical CDs.One of the reasons of the need in high quality is that nowadays music record companies face sharp competition from the Internet. It has become very simple for people who are sore of music to download music files from the Internet, and they no longer need to go into the music stores in order to get the CDs. The files which people can download from different sites are free of charge, and no specie goes to the singers from those operations. One of the ways to fight with that competition for music record companies is by offering the highest quality of their products. If a person can buy a CD of the highest quality in the music store, he might stick to it and not use Internet for getting his favorite music albums.Another way is to include Internet distributors of music products which can compete with free music upload by offering additional services. Such distributors as Amazon.com for example c an guarantee high volumes of CDs sales due to its affair to the customer. Its common truth that many people who use Internet are interested in music. As long as they can order their favorite CDs on Amazon.com, they will keep their hands off the free file upload. However, in such a case the emphasize on the quality is important as never the customers will order CDs from Amazon.com as long as the quality of CDs is beyond competition. In addition to that, its important to make sure Internet users get some additional benefits together with CDs, for example, suggestions about their early possible purchases, discounts, or free information about their favorite singers.The efficiency of the CDs and payment in the music industry through the distribution channel is very efficient but there can be some developments made in it. The most important is to keep in disposition the importance of Internet in the distribution of CDs. Its also possible to devote some attention to such types of direct marketing as teleselling, direct mail, and direct selling. By mailing catalogues to emf customers, large volumes of sales can be achieved. For maximum efficiency of distribution in music industry, its necessary for music record companies to devote lots of attention to maintaining a large chain of distributors but at the same time monitor the quality of the products which are being offered to end-users.Bibliography.David Mercer. Marketing. Blackwell subscriber line. 1992. J. Barry Manson, Moris L. Mayer, Hazel F Ezell. Foundations of Retailing. Business Publications, Inc., 1984. Kevin J. Clancy, Robert S. Shulman. The Marketing Revolution. HarperBusiness, 1991. Kotler. Marketing Management. 1986. R.M. Johnson. Market segmentation a strategic marketing tool. Journal of Marketing research, vol. 7, 1981.