Marketing channel: a set of interdependent organizations that help make a product or service available foruse or consumption by the consumer or business user.Channel level: a layer of intermediaries that performs some work in bringing the product and its ownershipcloser to the final buyer.Direct marketing channel: a marketing channel that has no intermediary levels, company sells directly toconsumers (ex. Amway).Indirect marketing channel: channel containing one or more intermediary levels.Channel conflict: disagreement among marketing channel members on goals, roles, and rewards—whoshould do what and for what rewards;Horizontal conflict—occurs among firms at the same level of thechannel;Vertical conflict—conflicts between different levels of the same channel, more common.VerticalMarketing system (VMS): a distribution channel structure in which producers, wholesalers, and retailersact as a unified system, one channel member owns the others, has contracts with the, or has so much powerthat they all cooperate.conventional distribution channel—a channel consisting of one or more independent producers,wholesalers, and retailers, each a separate business seeking to maximize its own profits, even at the expenseof profits for the system as a whole.Corporate VMS: a vertical marketing system that combines successive stages of production anddistribution under single ownership—channel leadership is established through common ownership.Contractual VMS:a vertical marketing system in which independent firms at different levels of productionand distribution join together through contracts to obtain more economies or sales impact than they couldachieve alone.Franchise organization: a contractual vertical marketing system in which a channel member, called afranchisor, links several stages in the production-distribution process.Administered VMS: a vertical marketing system that coordinates successive stages of production anddistribution, not through common ownership or contractual ties, but through the size and power of one of theparties.Horizontal marketing system: a channel arrangement in which two or more companies at one level jointogether to follow a new marketing opportunity.Multichannel distribution system: a distribution system in which a single firm sets up two or moremarketing channels to reach one or more customer segments.Disintermediation: the cutting out of marketing channel intermediaries by product or service producers, orthe displacement of traditional resellers by radical new types of intermediaries.Marketing channel design: designing effective marketing channels by analyzing consumer needs, settingchannel objectives, identifying major channel alternatives, and evaluating them.
