What differences in the retail environment may justify the fact that the fast$-$moving consumer goods supply chain in India has far more distributors than it has in the United States?

A specialty chemical company is considering expanding its operations into Brazil, where five companies dominate the consumption of specialty chemicals. What sort of distribution network should this company use?

A distributor has heard that one of the major manufacturers from which it buys is considering going direct to the consumer. What can the distributor do about this? What advantages can it offer the manufacturer that the manufacturer is unlikely to be able to reproduce?

What types of distribution networks are typically best suited for commodity items?

What type of network is best suited to highly differentiated products?

In the future, do you see the value added by distributors decreasing, increasing, or staying about the same?

Why has the online channel been more successful in the computer hardware industry compared with the grocery industry? In the future, how valuable is the online channel likely to be in the computer hardware industry?

Is the online channel likely to be more beneficial in the early part or the mature part of a product's life cycle? Why?

Consider the sale of home improvement products at Home Depot or a chain of hardware stores such as True Value. Which can extract the greater benefit from going online? Why?

Amazon sells books, music, electronics, software, toys, and home improvement products online. In which product category does going online offer the greatest advantage compared with a retail store chain? In which product category does the online channel offer the smallest advantage $($or a potential cost disadvantage$)$ compared with a retail store chain? Why?

Why should an online seller such as Amazon build more warehouses as its sales volume grows?