Intermediary Customer Purchasing from the Product Producer

Obtain Steps: The Obtain steps include all activities preceding the selling of the product. These activities include the costs of identifying potential suppliers and stocking the product.

C.
Experience: Enhance the experience the customer has with the product

3. Encrease the customer's sense of security with the product

c.
Your investment is safe

No.	SIC	Year	Note
1	2082	1991	In the three-tier distribution system that is in place in the beer industry currently, brewers assign exclusive territories to their customers.
2	2082	1991	As the beer industry matured, a new wholesaler did not necessarily have his choice as to the supplier from which he would buy. Wholesalers typically have exclusive territories in which they are the only distributor of their brands.
3	2085	2003	Distillers are required to sell their products through independent distributors. Rather than stick with the traditional patchwork of small operators, Diageo over the past year has pitted booze wholesalers against one another by making them bid for exclusive rights for an entire state. That consolidation should result in big efficiencies. It also gives Diageo clout with distributors.
4	2389	2002	Levi's has sold through Wal-Mart once before, but did poorly. It bought Brittiania in 1986 and sold these jeans through Wal-Mart. The company was dissatisfied with its results and sold the brand to VF in 1997.
5	3571	1991	Yesterday, Compaq, Microsoft, DEC, and others created the Advanced Computing Environment, an alliance to work together to establish a new industry standard based on RISC technology. They hope to persuade software makers to create programs for ACE.
6	3661	2001	Wireless Application Protocol, is a technology for putting the Internet on wireless devices. "The addition of WAP capability is almost meaningless in terms of dollars. It costs, literally, almost nothing to put it on the handset."
7	3711	2001	Porsche sold 55,000 cars in 2001. Some of its best selling cars are the $111,000 911 Turbo, which makes a 45% average gross margin, and the lower-end $51,600 Boxster S, which makes an average 23% gross margin.
8	3711	2004	Lexus sacrifices sales in the short term by keeping inventory low but it gains sales over the long term because dealers won't alienate consumers by using the hard sell to push slow-selling vehicles to ambivalent shoppers. Lexus dealerships are the most valuable in autoland because they sell on the market for six times the earnings before interest, depreciation and taxes, which in a good market is $25 million to $30 million. Other brands of dealerships sell for between two and five times Ebitda. With all the gross profit, the dealers can afford posh showrooms. They attract the best salesman who with the normal 25% cut of the gross profit can pocket $800 per sale instead of the $400 they might get with a typical brand. The dealers can offer perks like loaner cars and free car washes as well. One Lexus dealership spends $1,500 a week on gourmet deli sandwiches and salads that sit in a refrigerator case for customers. There are carpeted gyms at the dealership and at the service station. The mechanics' bathroom is tiled with marble.
9	3872	2000	Meade Instruments sells telescopes that carry a special brand name at mass merchants like Wal-Mart and Target, some of Meade's best customers. At Wal-Mart, Meade telescopes are sold under the TeleStar brand. They are prominently displayed in the vision centers located in the front of most Wal-Mart stores.
10	3944	2004	In 2004, the Lego Co. released a low-priced line of its plastic blocks. The new line, known as X-Pod, is sold in drugstores and supermarkets near the candy and magazines at the checkout, with 40 small pieces going for $3.49.
11	5812	1992	Hardees franchisees get the same type franchising agreement as other people. The special deal they get is better exclusive territory development rights.
12	7372	2005	Microsoft has been plugging away for five years on its Windows Mobile phone software and now has 40 devicemakers and 380,000 developers writing for it. Two years ago there were only 4 data-enabled phones running Windows Mobile. Now there are 25. Microsoft scored a big coup in February, when it announced that Nokia, a longtime foe in mobile operating systems, would begin incorporating Microsoft's e-mail push technology into its phones.

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