Insight: for distributors, willingness to invest beats balance sheet

Observation

Across consumer projects, the best-funded candidate at signing is often not the best performer a year later. Well-capitalised traders usually carry dozens of brands and give any single category limited attention.

Better evaluation dimensions

1. Category focus: share of the portfolio and dedicated staff;
2. Coverage: actual active stores and accounts, not claimed numbers;
3. Warehousing and delivery: owned space, vehicles, delivery frequency;
4. Track record: brands terminated in the past two years and why;
5. Willingness to invest: first-order stock and display costs.

Structural approach

Tie exclusivity to minimum purchase, marketing spend and coverage targets, reviewed quarterly, with automatic downgrade to non-exclusive on miss. That works better than asking for promises in negotiation.