THE EFFECT OF DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS’ STRATEGIES AND TYPES ON CONSUMERS’ BUYING BEHAVIOR OF CONVENIENCE PRODUCTS

Abstract

As distribution is a key element in marketing strategies and its role can extend to be the core for creating competitive advantages for many products, especially for fast-moving consumer goods where product accessibility is a main determinant for consumers' buying behaviour. Accordingly, the purpose of this research is to investigate the impact of different distribution channel strategies and types on the consumer buying behaviour of convenience products such as protein bars. A conclusive research design was used by describing attitudes towards various distribution strategies and types and also to test the effect of various distribution channels' strategies on consumers' buying behaviour. The researchers conducted self-administered questionnaires among a sample of 120 consumers using a non-probability judgmental sampling technique. The data were analyzed quantitatively using descriptive and inferential statistical 1 ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-7742-7860 2 ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5846-9093 3 ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-0771-4807 4 ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-8795-155X MSA-Management science journal ISSN 2974-3036 Volume:2, Issue:2 Year:2023pp.101-125 103 techniques to test the research hypotheses. The research findings revealed that consumers' buying behaviour is affected by different distribution channel strategies and types specifically the intensive and selective distribution strategies in the research context that examines buying behaviour of a convenience product. The research results provide insightful implications for distribution managers of convenience products such as a protein on how to effectively distribute their products to create favourable buying behaviours towards their product by selecting the suitable distribution intensity and type.