A route to market strategy usually fails because it treats distribution as logistics. A brand is listed, a distributor is appointed, and the plan assumes the product will sell. It rarely does. Distributors are built to move boxes, not to build brands, as one executive put it in our Execution Gravity research.
Route to market decides whether a growth plan ever reaches the shopper. It is also where the ground is moving fastest in consumer goods. Wholesalers are consolidating, stock levels are falling and multinationals are pulling back from running their own distribution. A route to market strategy written three years ago is probably describing a market that no longer exists.
This article covers what a route to market strategy has to decide and how to sequence distribution. It also shows how to tier markets and make on-premise and distributor partners work. It draws on anonymised client work and on conversations with senior operators.
What route to market means
Route to market is the set of channels, partners and coverage that takes a product from the factory to the shopper. It answers four practical questions. First, who sells the product to the retailer or outlet? Second, who delivers it and holds the stock? Third, who sets and defends the shelf price? Finally, who makes sure it is visible and recommended once it is there?
Go to market, by contrast, is broader. It covers the whole launch plan, including positioning, pricing and communication. Route to market is the part of that plan that has to survive contact with distributors, retailers and outlets. In consumer goods, it is usually the part that breaks.
The distribution layer is changing under you
The model most brands rely on was built for steady volume growth across a wide portfolio. However, that model is under strain.
In the United States, Republic National Distributing Company, one of the three largest wine and spirits distributors, filed for Chapter 11 in 2026. It had lost Brown-Forman and Tito’s as suppliers in California, after Pernod Ricard and Treasury Wine Estates had already left. In Europe, Diageo moved to cut 96 of its 127 Milan-based roles. Its brands will keep selling in Italy, but through third-party distributors instead of its own people.
Stock is moving too. A senior operations executive at a fast-growing drinks company described the change. The distributors that remain have gone from holding two or three months of stock to two weeks. An importer without the agility to replenish will be out of stock even while demand grows.
The lesson is not that one model is right. It is that route to market is now a strategic choice to revisit market by market, not a contract to renew.
Distributors move boxes, not brands
A distributor’s job is to stock, deliver and collect. Most will sell what suits them, and many see little reason to add sales capacity for any one brand. In markets where a few large wholesalers dominate, a brand is one of hundreds in the catalogue.
The same operations executive described his company’s answer. It built its own field team to tell distributors what to sell and how to sell it. “If you want to sell, you need sellers,” he said.
Of course, not every brand can afford that. But every brand has to decide who creates demand in each market, because the distributor usually will not. The options run from a full own team, through shared field resources, to a partner that does both jobs. Carlsberg distributes Pepsi in several markets. Coca-Cola HBC is expanding into premium spirits and coffee. Platforms such as Cobblestone Brands buy brands that large groups no longer prioritise and give them dedicated commercial attention.
Sequence the distribution
Physical availability comes before mental availability. After all, a shopper cannot buy a brand that is not on the shelf, and a bartender cannot recommend one the venue does not stock. Yet many launch plans spend on awareness first and fight for listings afterwards.
The principle is distribution sequencing: build each level of distribution on the proof of the one before. Poppi shows the pattern. It started at Texas farmers’ markets in 2015. Next, the brand earned premium positioning at Whole Foods, then proved national demand on Amazon before it had national reach. Only then did it move into Target, Walmart and more than 36,000 doors. Each tier funded the next. The viral moments on TikTok accelerated the brand. They did not create it, because the distribution was already there to catch the demand.
Mondelez shows the same logic at scale. In one recent quarter, its volume growth came almost entirely from AMEA, on the back of 100,000 new retail outlets added in India. Volume grew where the distribution investment had landed, and not elsewhere.
Tier your markets before you spend
Most export plans fail the same way. Twenty markets share one budget and one plan, photocopied twenty times. Every market gets a little, and no market gets enough.
A tiered plan, on the other hand, does the opposite. Tier 1 is one or two markets with a full brand and commercial plan. It gets your own team or a closely managed partner, and full marketing support. This is where you learn what works. Tier 2 is a handful of markets with launch guidelines built from Tier 1, partner-led execution and selective support. Tier 3 is everywhere else: guidelines only, distributor-funded and opportunistic. Campari built Aperol this way, in Italy first and then the German-speaking markets, long before the global push.
In practice, three tests decide the tier. Is the market worth growing, judged on EBITDA rather than turnover? Can supply scale to meet it? And is there a route to market and a partner able to execute? A great market with the wrong distributor is a Tier 3 until the partner changes.
Above all, concentration is the warning sign to look for. In one commercial due diligence we ran on an international lager brand, about 70% of volume sat in the home market. In its largest export market, volume had been lifted by promotion and fell sharply when the spend was cut. In its third market, about 80% of sales came from the border area next to the brewery. Each of those is a route to market finding, not a brand finding.
On-premise: name the outlets
In drinks, the on-premise channel often decides the brand. In the UK gin market, about two thirds of sales went through cocktails. A spirits brand there lives or dies on menu positions.
Our launch plans for drinks brands followed five rules. Name 100 to 150 target outlets per city, where the target consumer already pays a premium. Secure stock behind the bar before any event, because availability comes before awareness. Cap signature serves at two or three per brand, so bartenders have a clear message. Write down who does what: ambassadors open doors, distributors close the sale. And measure menu positions, not events held or samples poured. Our on-premise marketing guide covers the method in detail.
Two cases: control and focus
Taking control can change the economics of a market. An Italian organic soft drinks brand took its Polish business back from the distributor that had run it. It built a local entity from scratch, with its own team, processes and commercial terms. Revenue targets, operating costs and the choice of where to invest moved from a third party to local management. The entity turned profitable and grew turnover by up to 15% a year.
Similarly, focus can do the same without changing the partner. A vodka brand needed regional growth without buying it through blanket spend. We combined a repositioning, built on consumer segmentation and pricing analysis, with targeted penetration based on outlet-level economics. Investment was phased, and every step had to show a path to better margin before approval. Volume grew 12% over two years.
Go and see the market
The fastest route to market review is a walk through the market itself. Konstantinos Apostolatos, a CEO adviser with more than 30 years in consumer goods, described this in our podcast episode with him on Growth, Brands and More. He takes management teams out to talk to consumers, retailers, suppliers and investors. In his experience, they come back every time with something they did not know, and it leads to real adjustments. Few companies do it, he said, because they think they already know everything.
When I joined P&G in 1997, senior leaders went shopping with consumers around every six months. Otherwise, many of them rarely left headquarters, except to visit plants or investors. The visits were the only way to see what the shelf looked like.
Seven questions for a route to market review
Use these before you approve the next distribution budget.
- Who creates demand? In each market, name who sells the brand into outlets, not only who delivers it.
- Is the distributor’s incentive aligned? Check what your brand is worth to them against the rest of their catalogue.
- How much stock sits in the chain? Weeks of cover at distributor and retailer level, and how fast you can replenish.
- Are the right SKUs in the right doors? Distribution can look healthy until you check which packs reach which channels.
- Where is the volume concentrated? Share by market, customer and region, and what happens when promotion stops.
- Is every market in a tier? One or two markets get the full plan; the rest get guidelines.
- What would it cost to take control? In your largest markets, compare the margin a partner keeps with the cost of running it yourself.
Getting help with route to market
Route to market problems sit between sales, marketing, supply chain and finance, so no single function owns them. An outside review can see the whole chain, from the factory to the shelf.
A Focused Engagement answers one question in two to four weeks, such as which market comes next or whether to change a distributor. The Growth Operating System Diagnostic reviews route to market alongside portfolio, pricing and trade spend. It tests whether distribution matches where consumers buy, and whether reach is being mistaken for relevance. For PE-owned consumer companies, the FMCG Growth Sprint builds route to market choices into the value creation plan.
Frequently asked questions
What is route to market?
Route to market is the set of channels, partners and coverage that takes a product from the manufacturer to the point of purchase. It covers who sells, who delivers, who holds stock and who manages the product in store or in the outlet.
What is the difference between route to market and go to market?
Go to market is the full launch plan, including positioning, pricing and communication. Route to market is the distribution part of it: the channels and partners that put the product where shoppers can buy it.
What is a route to market strategy?
A route to market strategy decides which channels and markets to prioritise and which partners to use. It also sets who creates demand in each market, and in what order to build distribution. It should also say where the company runs distribution itself and where it outsources it.
When should a brand change distributor?
Consider it when the distributor will not invest in selling the brand, or when stock levels leave the shelf empty. It is also time when the brand is too small in their catalogue to get attention. Compare the cost of a new partner or your own team with the margin the current distributor keeps.
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