The Three Major Types of Marketing Channels

Discussion Board
Marketing is the process of making sure that products get to consumers from the manufacturers following a given channel. Marketing channels majorly consist of the manufacturer, wholesaler, and retailer. In essence, efficient marketing is geared towards ensuring that the customers’ needs are met satisfactorily but at a profit. There are three major types of marketing channels: traditional, electronic, and vertical marketing systems.
Traditional or conventional marketing is more familiar as it has existed for a long time. Here, manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers are guided by their respective principles and are independent of each other. The different entities work under agreements for specific undertakings but none of them has control over the other on how they must discharge their duties. An example of this method is where a supermarket buys different goods from manufacturers and sells them to consumers. One outstanding merit of this method is that the participants are not bound to remain members. As such, they can leave to explore other channels that may sound more convenient and profitable to them. However, many people feel that this method is inefficient and prone to manifold conflicts such as price conflicts and turf wars.
Electronic marketing can also be referred to as digital marketing and it mainly revolves around the use of social media platforms and the internet. This form of marketing has gained considerable traction because consumers can order goods and services from the comfort of their homes or offices. Recent statistical reports have shown that more than four billion people in the world use internet ( Rana et al, 2020). As a result of the exponential growth of internet usage, many businesses have readily accepted to use of social media platforms to promote their products and services. Despite showing great promise, digital marketing has f...