Perreault−McCarthy: Basic

Marketing: A

Global−Managerial

Approach, 14/e

11. Place and Development
    of Channel Systems

Text © The McGraw−Hill

Companies, 2002

news, but in his previous job Bollic

had gotten a taste of what it might

mean: tough new competition from

game producers whose distribution

channels focused on the big retail

chains.

Bollic had been a manager for

the Intimate Bookshops, a small

chain of shops that for decades

had been theplace to buy books in

his college-town market. He

moved on to start his video game

business even before the Intimate

had its final clearance sale and

closed its doors for good.

After all, sales of books

through independent book-

shops dropped by over 25

percent in the 1990s. Like the

Intimate, many went out of

business because of changes in

the channels of distribution for

302

Chapter Eleven

Place and

Development of

Channel Systems

302

When You
Finish This Chapter,
You Should

1.Understand what
product classes
suggest about
Place objectives.

2.Understand why
some firms use direct
channel systems
while others rely on
intermediaries and
indirect systems.

3.Understand how
and why marketing
specialists develop to
make channel sys-
tems more effective.

4.Understand how to
develop cooperative
relationships and
avoid conflict in
channel systems.

5.Know how channel
members in vertical
marketing systems
shift and share
functions—to meet
customer needs.

6.Understand the dif-
ferences between
intensive, selective,
and exclusive
distribution.

7.Understand the
important new terms
(shown in red).

Steve Bollic’s small firm creates

video game software. In the sum-

mer of 2001, he learned that

Ingram Book Group, a book whole-

saler, had formed an alliance with

Valley Media, Inc., a distributor of

music and entertainment products.

Most people in his product-market

would have glossed over that

place

price

promotion

produc