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How FMCG & CPG Brands Can Optimize Primary, Secondary & Tertiary Sales with Automation

How FMCG & CPG Brands Can Optimize Primary, Secondary &

April 11, 2025 No Comments

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How FMCG & CPG Brands Can Optimize Primary, Secondary & Tertiary Sales with Automation

April 11, 2025
Priyanka Allu

Sales success isn’t just about having the right strategies — it’s about execution. In FMCG and CPG, primary, secondary, and tertiary sales work together to move products from manufacturers to distributors to retailers, and finally, consumers.

When one stage is optimized, it strengthens the next, driving continuous growth. But if one falters — whether it’s a delay in distributor orders, a stockout at retail, or poor consumer engagement — the entire chain feels the impact.

That’s where technology comes in. With the right tools, you’re not just improving each stage individually — you’re ensuring they work in sync. Automated stock tracking, AI-driven demand forecasting, and real-time sales insights help brands optimize execution across all three sales levels and ensure each stage fuels the next for sustained growth.

Unlock the Ultimate RTM Vendor Selection Strategies from Top CPG Leaders

In this article, we’ll be exploring how you can use technology to execute your sales strategies and optimize sales at all stages.

Challenges in Sales Execution Across the Distribution Chain

Getting FMCG and CPG products into consumers’ hands isn’t as simple as it seems. With multiple layers of sales, shifting market demands, and logistical hurdles — there are plenty of interconnected elements that can impact sales execution across the distribution chain.

Here’s a quick look at the many challenges you’re likely to face when executing your primary, secondary, and tertiary sales strategies.

Primary sales (brand to distributor)	Secondary sales (distributor to retailer)	Tertiary sales (retailer to consumer
Demand-supply mismatches: When consumer demand shifts, it can throw production off balance. Without accurate forecasting, brands may end up with too much or too little stock, resulting in lost sales or excess inventory.	Stockouts: Unpredictable demand and poor communication between distributors and retailers make it difficult to maintain optimal stock levels, especially if brands don’t have secondary data visibility on distributor sales.	Unstructured promotions: Gaps in communication between brands, distributors, and retailers and a lack of standardized processes can lead to inconsistent or poorly executed retail promotions.
Forecasting errors: Demand forecasting relies on multiple factors — historical sales data, market trends, and external influences like seasonality. Without advanced analytics and real-time insights, predicting production and inventory needs becomes challenging.	Inefficient order tracking: Managing orders across multiple channels is complex. Many brands still rely on outdated or fragmented systems, making it hard to track orders in real time and address stock issues early.	Limited visibility into consumer demand: Many brands lack real-time data on purchasing behavior, making it tough to adjust marketing efforts. Without these insights, responding to consumer preferences becomes a guessing game.
Lack of visibility: Without clear visibility into stock levels across the supply chain, companies struggle to balance inventory, leading to fulfillment delays and inefficient replenishment.	Weak retailer engagement: Retailers manage multiple brands. This means they prioritize those that offer better support, incentives, and sales insights. But doing this consistently for hundreds — if not thousands — of retailers can get complex.	Gaps in market knowledge: Analyzing trends is tricky without the right data tools. And when brands can’t track emerging trends or seasonal shifts, they miss out on key opportunities to run promotions and boost sales.
Weak distribution networks: Without a strong (and well-coordinated) distribution network, brands may struggle to expand into new regions or keep up with demand in high-growth areas.

Also read: A guide to primary, secondary, and tertiary sales for FMCG and CPG brands

Automating Sales Execution: The Key to Scaling FMCG & CPG Businesses

We’ve seen how challenges like poor visibility, misaligned promotions, and inconsistent order fulfillment can hold back sales execution at every stage. While having a strong sales strategy is essential, the real challenge lies in executing it consistently across your entire distribution network.

Take promotions, for instance — you may design attractive schemes for retailers, but without proper communication and tracking, many miss out. Similarly, saying “produce for demand” is easy, but accurately predicting demand? Not so much. It doesn’t have to be this way.

The solution? Automating sales execution. This helps turn strategy into action by streamlining key processes and keeping everything on track. Here’s how:

Unified data: Brings together sales performance, inventory levels, and customer insights in one place, so stock and production decisions are backed by real-time information.
Real-time tracking: Monitors sales trends across distributors and retailers (secondary data) in real time so you can make quick adjustments based on current market conditions.
Workflow automations: Takes care of routine tasks like order entry, inventory updates, and reporting, minimizing errors and freeing up teams for higher-value work.
Streamlined operations: Automates route mapping by optimizing your field sales team’s schedules and travel paths for better beat planning. Similarly, real-time notifications keep everyone aligned on updates, orders, and promotions.

Put simply, with automation, sales execution becomes smoother, smarter, and more scalable.

Real-world case study: Royal Canin, a global pet food brand with 100+ distributors in India, was struggling to keep up with data and inventory levels. Relying on manual processes led to frequent errors, operational inefficiencies, and limited visibility — making it difficult to track unbilled outlets, monitor stock availability, and ensure smooth distribution across its network.

With Botree DMS, they turned things around. Automated stock tracking removed mismatches, real-time data cut down errors, and better visibility made decision-making easier.

And they’re not stopping there. Royal Canin is integrating Botree DMS with their ERP, online shop, and veterinary partner management system — bringing all their order data into one place, streamlining inventory management, and building a fully connected distribution chain.

Discover how Royal Canin transformed its distribution with Botree DMS.

Key Sales Execution Strategies for FMCG and CPG

Now that we’ve explored how sales automation helps FMCG and CPG brands overcome challenges at each stage of the sales process, let’s explore how exactly you can drive effective execution on the ground.

Optimizing primary sales execution

Boosting primary sales starts with your distributors, and the right technology makes all the difference. Distributor Management Software (DMS) can streamline operations and improve visibility across the distribution chain — ensuring better stock management and keeping your sales momentum strong. Here’s how —

1. Streamlined operations

To start with, DMS software can help you automate critical processes like order management, invoicing, claims settlement, and tax compliance, reducing manual errors and improving efficiency. This means distributors can process orders faster, ensure timely stock replenishment, and stay compliant with minimal effort.

Similarly, DMS software gives you real-time visibility into inventory levels, preventing both overstocking and stockouts. This ensures a steady supply to distributors (and retailers) while also freeing up working capital that would otherwise be tied up in slow-moving or dead stock.

For example, with Botree DMS, you will be able to:

Track stock by Manufacturing Date, Expiry Date, and Shelf Life (Days) to ensure only fresh products reach consumers and make strategic decisions to fast move the stocks that are slow-moving.
Use outer-inner serial number tagging to link carton serial numbers to individual product serial numbers for better traceability and get notified in case of duplicate or missing serial numbers.
Get visibility into Last Purchase Date and Last Goods Received Note (GRN Date) to plan stock replenishments proactively.

Explore how you can manage your inventory accurately with Botree DMS

2. Demand forecasting

DMS software — typically powered by AI — can analyze your historical and real-time sales patterns to accurately predict demand. This helps you align supply with actual demand, minimizing stockouts, overstocking, and wastage.

With software like Botree DMS, you’ll get reports that can help you:

Track revenue performance at a granular level — by distribution channel, specific stores, or regional trends — to anticipate demand fluctuations.
Identify high and low-performing areas by analyzing each channel’s contribution to overall revenue, helping you adjust supply strategies accordingly.
Visualize market reach from broad regions down to individual stores to get a clearer picture of where demand is growing or declining.

These insights can help with better demand forecasting, allowing you to optimize inventory and make proactive, data-driven decisions to meet market needs.

Enhancing secondary sales execution

For FMCG and CPG products — especially those with short shelf lives — last-mile visibility is a must to ensure timely delivery and prevent spoilage or expiration. And for this, you need sales force automation software (like Botree SFA), which allows you to streamline field sales operations, optimize shelf displays, and connect with retailers.

In fact, Nabati — a global indulgent snacking brand — believes the last-mile visibility and data-driven insights provided by Botree SFA to be a key reason why they became the largest distributed wafer cream biscuit brand in India within a short two years.

Here’s how you can enhance your secondary sales with SFA:

1. Beat planning

Efficient beat planning ensures that your field sales team visits the right outlets at the right time — maximizing coverage and minimizing missed opportunities. With solutions like Botree SFA, you can:

Optimize sales routes using geolocation, and sequence outlets in such a way that salesmen can cover maximum outlets in less time without any hassle or deviation.
Prioritize high-value outlets by analyzing sales trends, ensuring frequent visits to top-performing stores.
Automate visit schedules based on order patterns, retailer preferences, and stock requirements — so no opportunity is lost.

2. Retail execution

For secondary sales, retail execution is just as important as field sales operations because retailers are the final link between your product and the consumer. Even if your field sales team is efficient in getting orders placed, poor execution at the retail level — like improper shelf placement, stockouts, or unappealing displays — can lead to lost sales opportunities.

Using SFA, you can guide your sales team to ensure planogram adherence so store layouts remain consistent, improving brand visibility and customer experience. Here’s how the merchandiser module in SFA can help;

It maximizes sales potential with optimized shelf displays, ensuring products are placed where they drive the most conversions.
It gives real-time visibility into display units, signage, and POS materials for accurate reporting and analysis.
It helps you collect competitor data on pricing, stock availability, and promotions for category benchmarking.

Pro Tip

Integrate your distributor management and sales force automation platforms

By connecting SFA with DMS, FMCG and CPG companies can bridge the gap between primary and secondary sales. Knowing what’s selling at the retail level (through SFA) allows for more accurate forecasting of distributor orders (tracked in DMS). This allows for a more accurate understanding of true market demand and better production planning.

Boosting tertiary sales performance

Finally, let’s explore how to improve your tertiary sales. And the best way to do this is by building strong retailer relationships using technology.

1. Improved retailer experience

Technology — like DMS, SFA, and retailer management apps — can all significantly improve retailer satisfaction. Some ways they support brands in engaging retailers are:

Creating a direct communication channel to notify retailers about promotions, new product launches, and more.
Launching digital trade schemes to incentivize consumers and increase profit margins for retailers.
Giving retailers an option to place orders directly with your brand and at their own convenience.

Case in point: When Amul onboarded their retailers to the Botree Retailer App, they found a 40% increase in orders during off-peak hours. This proved retailers preferred placing purchase orders outside of business hours. The app also helped retailers:

Order from multiple distributors and stock products without solely depending on the salesman’s visit.
Order directly from the company when distributors didn’t have a product

The result: Amul’s products are always stocked at retail outlets.

2. Data-backed stock replenishments and recommendations

Another area where technology can benefit retailers is helping them figure out what to stock up on, and if they should broaden their product assortment. There are two ways to address this:

POS data: Track and analyze sales at the checkout to identify best-selling products and customer preferences. These insights can help sales teams (and retailers) make smarter stocking decisions, run targeted promotions, and quickly respond to changing customer demand.
AI recommendations: Give salesmen real-time data from nearby stores and in-store sales so they can spot missing products in a retailer’s current range. This will help them suggest popular items based on what’s working in the area. The result: retailers grow their product mix, stay ahead of local competition, and increase tertiary sales by avoiding missed opportunities.

Why Sales Execution is the Game-Changer for FMCG and CPG Brands

Finally, let’s quickly go over the many ways that tech-powered sales execution can improve sales team efficiency and your profit margins.

Faster time to market: Automated order processing speeds up fulfillment, reducing lead times from distributors to retailers. This ensures high-demand products are always available, preventing lost sales due to stockouts.

Higher sales productivity: AI-driven beat planning helps field reps maximize their daily visits, while digital order-taking reduces time spent on paperwork.

Stronger retailer-distributor relationships: With real-time into distributor stock levels, sales teams can place orders only for products that are actually available. This reduces false or unfulfilled orders, improves order accuracy, and boosts retailer trust. Plus, companies get more accurate sales data.
Data-driven decisions: AI-powered insights help brands predict demand fluctuations, optimize pricing strategies, and adjust promotions based on sales patterns.

Put Your Sales Strategies Into Action with Botree Software

Winning in FMCG and CPG requires seamless execution across primary, secondary, and tertiary sales. With Botree Software, you get the tools to automate order processing, optimize field sales, and strengthen retailer relationships — all while ensuring real-time data sync across your distribution network.

Botree Software’s fully integrated DMS, SFA, Retailer, and Analytics solutions give you:

End-to-end sales visibility from distributors to retailers
Real-time and predictive analytics for data-driven decision-making
Seamless automation to reduce inefficiencies and improve speed-to-market
Stronger partnerships with distributors and retailers through engagement tools

The result? Faster sales cycles, better stock management, and a future-proof strategy to stay ahead of the competition.

Curious to learn more? Talk to our team to see how you can leverage Botree Software’s suite of products to automate your FMCG and CPG sales and build better relationships with both distributors and retailers.

About the Author

Meet Priyanka Allu, our in-house content marketing specialist. With a background in literature and communications, Priyanka brings in her expertise in crafting compelling brand narratives and engaging content across various marketing channels. Outside of work, you can find her quickly escaping from the mundane city life by the beach or mountains, spending quality time with loved ones.

Unlock the Winning RTM Vendor Selection Strategies from Top CPG Leaders → Download e-book Now!

Featured

How FMCG & CPG Brands Can Optimize Primary, Secondary & Tertiary Sales with Automation

Share:

Unlock the Ultimate RTM Vendor Selection Strategies from Top CPG Leaders

Challenges in Sales Execution Across the Distribution Chain

Automating Sales Execution: The Key to Scaling FMCG & CPG Businesses

Key Sales Execution Strategies for FMCG and CPG

Optimizing primary sales execution

1. Streamlined operations

Explore how you can manage your inventory accurately with Botree DMS

2. Demand forecasting

Enhancing secondary sales execution

1. Beat planning

2. Retail execution

Pro Tip

Boosting tertiary sales performance

1. Improved retailer experience

2. Data-backed stock replenishments and recommendations

Why Sales Execution is the Game-Changer for FMCG and CPG Brands

Put Your Sales Strategies Into Action with Botree Software

About the Author

Priyanka Allu

Senior Specialist - Content Marketing

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