Foundations of Marketing

Identifying Channels of Distribution

For this week’s assignment pick a product with which you are very familiar with or take the time to go through your clothes closet and try and find a product made in the USA, or one that you can anticipate being able to research easily.

1. Map the supply chain of your product as far back as is feasible.A simple example is a diamond sold by a local jewelry store, purchased direct from diamond wholesalers in the Netherlands, bought by wholesalers from diamond centers in South Africa, and brought out of mines owned by a company in South Africa. Identify as many participants in the channel as possible by company name and location.
2. Identify the mode of transportation used between each stage in the channel.
3. Identify by name and location the component parts of the product if any.

The requirements below must be met for your paper to be accepted and graded:  

• Write between 500 – 750 words (approximately 2 – 3 pages) using Microsoft Word.
• Attempt APA style, see example below.
• Use font size 12 and 1” margins.
• Include cover page and reference page.
• At least 60% of your paper must be original content/writing.
• No more than 40% of your content/information may come from references.
• Use at least two references from outside the course material, preferably from EBSCOhost.  Text book, lectures, and other materials in the course may be used, but are not counted toward the two reference requirement.
• Reference material (data, dates, graphs, quotes, paraphrased words, values, etc.) must be identified in the paper and listed on a reference page.

Reference material (data, dates, graphs, quotes, paraphrased words, values, etc.) must come from sources such as, scholarly journals found in EBSCOhost, online newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal, government websites, etc.  Sources such as Wikis, Yahoo Answers, eHow, etc. are not acceptable.

A detailed explanation of how to cite a source using APA can be found here (link).

Download an example here

Examples of interesting products that have been researched by past students include:

• Bricks produced by a local brick manufacturer—the kiln from a company in Germany; the clay from an open pit mine in Weir, Kansas; the water from Baxter Springs, Kansas; the sand from Kansas City; the manganese sulfate and iron oxide from Springfield, Missouri; and the color additives from St. Louis.
• Diamonds sold by a local jewelry store—purchased direct from diamond wholesalers in the Netherlands; bought by wholesalers from diamond cutters in South Africa; brought out of mines owned by a company in South Africa.