It might seem that a good way to kick off a channel selection discussion would be to look at channel opportunities and choices. Wrong! There is something that has to come first, both in this book and in any channel selection initiative.

It is important to recognize what channels can do - and what they can't do. The role of a sales channel is to connect products with markets, and thereby establish a route through which sellers and buyers can do business. The world's most innovative, best-designed, high-tech sales channel won't do any good, though, if it is given the wrong products to sell into the wrong markets. Think about it this way. If you try to sell armoured troop carriers to monasteries, it won't work - whether you try to sell them over the Internet or through a telemarketing centre. That's a silly and extreme example, of course. Yet even in its silliness it makes an important point: you have to sell the right things to the right people for sales channels to succeed - and indeed for them to matter at all.

Of course, there is no magic answer to the question 'which products should we sell to which customers?' On the other hand, there are some ways of thinking about products...