How place decisions affect the rest of the mix

Place is not just where a product is sold. The distribution channel chosen — your own website, your own shop, or outlets run by other businesses — shapes what the other parts of the marketing mix have to do.

Place shapes promotion

The channel helps decide which promotional methods can reach and persuade the target customer, because promotion has to send customers somewhere they can actually buy. Promotion that points people to a website is wasted if the product is only sold in shops.

For example, a firm selling refillable water bottles only through its own website promotes with social media adverts, search adverts and emails, all pointing to the site. Leaflets pushed through doors would make little sense, because readers would have no shop to visit. A business selling through a chain of garden centres does the opposite: it promotes where those shoppers already are, with displays beside the tills and adverts in gardening magazines.

Place shapes price

Selling directly to customers can remove the costs of intermediaries such as wholesalers and retailers, who each take a share of the selling price. With those costs gone, a lower price can still leave a profit. For example, a furniture maker selling only from its own workshop can charge less than a rival whose tables pass through a wholesaler and a department store.

Outlets with high overheads, such as rent, heating and staff on a prime shopping street, may need higher prices to cover their costs, so the price must be high enough for the outlet and the producer to profit.

Matching the mix to the channel

A business selling only online has to promote in ways that send customers to its website, and price competitively, because customers can compare prices in seconds. A business selling through specialist cycling shops needs a premium price and detailed, enthusiast-focused promotion, since customers expect expert advice from those shops; a budget 'cheap and cheerful' message would clash with that brand image and put buyers off. When one element contradicts the channel, money spent on marketing is wasted and customers are confused.