Our final products are distributed to more than 135,300 retailers throughout the entire Central American and Caribbean Region; of these, 91 thousand outlets are visited by our own sales force and the remainder by our company’s distributors.
The mission of the Trade Marketing and Distribution Department is to reach our target consumer efficiently and effectively, making us the trade’s preferred supplier within the strategic channels in each country where we operate.
As one of the leading consumer goods companies, our objective is to make sure our products arrive at retail outlets in an efficient and effective manner in terms of costs, and in the best condition possible. We constantly supervise and evaluate our supply chain to ensure our brands are delivered using the best distribution methods.
The activities of this department are focused on guaranteeing product availability, communicating directly with consumers at the point-of-sale, and identifying strategic points of sales in each marketing channel, while ensuring that they comply with applicable marketing regulations as well our industry’s Marketing Standards.
Our main distribution channels are:
- Horeca: Hotels, restaurants, and cafés
- Convenience: Traditional (kiosks) and key accounts
- Grocery: Mini-supermarkets and stores
Retailer relationships
Trade marketing is a large part of our activity - managing business-to-business relationships with the retailers from whom our consumers buy. We place as strong an emphasis on being a high quality supplier to the trade as we do on working to ensure high standards amongst our own suppliers.
We aim to become the benchmark partner to the trade in the strategic channels where we do business. We work to operate in the most efficient and effective way so that retailers can offer the products our consumers want to buy, where they want them, when they want them, at the right quality, price and quantity.
It is the nature of our industry that we do business with a substantial cross section of customers, ranging from the largest retail corporations to the small independent shop owner.
Our ‘win win win’ approach
Our approach is based on building mutually beneficial relationships, characterised by integrity, with our trade partners globally, regionally and locally.
Our aim is not just to focus on our own goals, but to engage with senior management of partner companies for a good mutual understanding of each other’s global strategies and to identify potential areas of alignment and cooperation. We also aim to offer our trade partners a comprehensive insight into consumer preferences and buying behaviour in the tobacco category, providing useful analysis of the category as a whole.
We call this our ‘win win win’ approach - recognising that for a successful relationship and mutual benefit, there has to be a win for the three key stakeholders: our consumers, our customers and our business.