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Market map and white space by pin code

Every retailer on a map, coloured by sales or by days since the last bill, with sales shaded by pin code, district or town. The places where you do not sell yet are ranked by households or population. A few clicks turn the best of them into a new beat.

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Why it matters

Most brands grow distribution by asking salesmen where the next shops are. The big gaps stay hidden: a pin code in your own area with no retailer, or a town whose retailers stopped buying months ago. SmartMy Distribution lists those places from your own data. It puts the biggest first by households or population when you load them. It makes a beat from the ones you pick and moves the unbilled retailers into it. The salesman then sees the nearest gaps on his phone.

The problem it solves

You know your sales by dealer, but not which pin codes of your own area have no retailer at all.
Retailers in a town stopped buying and nobody noticed, because the dealer's total still looked fine.
New beats are drawn from a salesman's memory, not from where the households are.
The map in the head office is a printout with pins stuck in by hand.

How it works

Your administrator loads the pin codes once. For India, use India Post's free All India Pincode Directory from data.gov.in (a file or a link). Abroad, use any postcode list or the GeoNames file of the country. Retailers get their pin code from their address, else from the nearest pin code centre.
Optionally load a second file of pin code, households and population, from census or market data you hold. This is what puts the biggest places first.
On each area, list the districts or pin codes it covers (Map Coverage). Cover Districts of Its Retailers fills in where its retailers already are; add the ones you want to grow into.
Open the Market Map and choose the period, area, dealer, salesman, category or item. Colour retailers by sales, days since the last bill or outlet class, and turn on Show White Space.
Press Find White Space to save the list, best first. Not Billed: pin codes or towns whose retailers bought nothing. No Retailers: pin codes of your areas with none.
Select places and press Plan a Beat. You get a new beat over their pin codes, in the area you choose, with the retailers not billed moved into it. Set its salesman and days on the beat.

Everything it does

The map

Colour retailers by Sales (top third, middle third, low, no sales in the period). Or colour them by Days Since Last Bill (billed, dormant, never billed) or Outlet Class (A / B / C, with outlet classes)
Sales by place: by pin code, district or town, as circles sized by sales at each centre. Where you imported a GeoJSON file, they show as shaded outlines
Sales from: secondary sales, or retailers' own till sales (Sell-Out (POS), Scale)
Filters: period (the last 90 days to start with), area, dealer, salesman, item category, item
Click a legend chip to hide or show a group; click a retailer for its dealer, salesman, sales, last bill and Open
Figures beside the map: sales, retailers billed, dormant, white space places, retailers without a pinned place, and the ten best white space places
Works at phone width, with the filters above the map

White space

Not Billed: pin codes, or towns where a retailer has no pin code, whose retailers bought nothing in the period
No Retailers: pin codes of your areas (districts or pin codes covered) with no retailer at all
Ranked by households where loaded, else population; places with neither are ranked after them by the sales of retailers within 10 km
Each place shows its rank, retailers, households, population, sales nearby, district, state and your area
Find White Space replaces the last list; select rows and Export it for the team
Plan a Beat makes the beat and can move the retailers not billed into it (on to start with)

The place master

Configuration > Places and Field Work > Pin Codes and Places: Pin Codes, Districts, Map Outlines
Load Pin Codes: India Post directory, any postcode CSV (columns found by name), GeoNames postal codes, or Households / Population
One record per code; its centre is the middle of its post offices' points, and points outside the country are dropped
Districts get their centre and their households and population totals from their pin codes
Match Contacts gives every contact its pin code again: from the PIN of the address, else the nearest centre within 25 km
The full India Post directory is not shipped with SmartMy; you download it free from data.gov.in; a small sample comes for demos

Who uses it

Area managerReads the map for the area, finds the white space and plans new beats in the areas he manages.

Distribution managerLooks across all areas, compares regions and plans beats in any area.

SalesmanSees on the phone the nearest places with no billing and the retailers not billed lately, with directions.

Distribution administratorLoads the pin codes, households and map outlines, and maps areas to districts and pin codes.

Where you use it

Web: Reports > Market Intelligence > Market Map and White Space (under Reports when the market measures are not installed)
Web: Configuration > Places and Field Work > Pin Codes and Places; an area's Map Coverage tab
The SmartMy Distribution app: Market Map for area managers (the same colours, white space and figures, up to 3,000 places). Near Me for salesmen shows white space and unbilled retailers within 10 km, with a maps link. Built and in testing, not in the app stores yet
Not on the dealer portal
Not a census source: households and population come from a file you load

What you control

Settings

Dormant Retailers: 30 days without a bill
Sales Nearby: within 10 km, used to rank places with no households or population
The districts and pin codes each area covers
Map tiles: OpenStreetMap to start with, with no key (General Settings > Maps)
Nearest pin code for a contact: within 25 km

Questions

Where do the households come from?

From a file you load: pin code, households and population, from the census or market data you hold. SmartMy does not ship household figures. Without them, places are ranked by population if loaded, else by the sales of retailers nearby.

Do we need to buy pin code data?

No. In India, India Post's All India Pincode Directory is free on data.gov.in, with latitude and longitude. Load it as a file or paste the download link. Abroad, any postcode list or the free GeoNames file works.

Can we see shaded pin code boundaries?

Yes, if you import a GeoJSON file of pin code, district or town outlines. Without one, sales show as circles at each centre.

What does Plan a Beat do exactly?

It makes a new beat in the area you choose, covering the pin codes of the places you selected. It moves the retailers not billed into it. You then set its salesman and visit days.

Does the salesman see the white space?

Yes, in the app's Near Me page. It lists places of the last white space list and retailers not billed for the dormant days, nearest first. Each has a link to open it in the phone's maps.

Related features

MARKET INTELLIGENCEUBO, ECO and numeric distributionSee each month how many outlets your dealers billed (UBO) and how many bought enough to count (ECO). See what share of outlets carry each item, how far must-sell and new items reached, and which outlets went quiet. By area, dealer, salesman and outlet class.DEALERSDealers and retailers by area and beatEvery dealer and retailer sits in your own map of the market: region, area and beat, each with its manager. A retailer is linked to the dealer that serves it, and each dealer carries its group, salesman, status and credit days.RETAILERS AND FIELD SALESNew retailers and the outlet censusA salesman pins a new shop at its door, or a dealer names one on its portal or in its sales. Each is checked for duplicates and waits for an area manager.RETAILERS AND FIELD SALESOutlet classes and outlet reachEvery month your retailers are ranked by 90 days of sales into classes A, B and C, each with its own visits a month. Outlet Reach shows which retailers are active, lapsed, never bought or new.MARKET INTELLIGENCEHead office drill-down to the outletOne screen goes from the whole country down to a region, area, beat, dealer and one outlet. Every level shows sales against last month and last year, billed outlets, coverage and launches. Pick any item and every figure follows it, on the web, a phone or the manager's app.LARGE NETWORKSRetailer sell-out (tertiary sales) importLoad retailers' and chains' POS files and portal exports as they come. Stores and items are matched once, and the sell-out feeds its own market measures, trends and the market map, kept apart from secondary sales.

See your market on it.

Tell us how many dealers and salesmen you have, and how orders and claims reach you today. We will set up your dealers, price lists and beats with you.

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