A new analysis shows how proximity, coverage, and location intelligence can reshape growth across B2B retail and manufacturing distribution networks.
January 27th, 2026 | Article | Retail Trends 2026 | David Selzer
Perspective
“Organizations don’t buy things. People do.” Philip Kotler.
B2B retailers and manufacturers are under pressure to modernise their routes to market. Digital expectations are rising, competition feels more transparent, and growth is increasingly incremental. In response, many organisations have focused on ecommerce capability and transactional efficiency.
Yet sales performance across wholesale based retail networks remains uneven. The issue is not access or technology. It is location discipline.
In many B2B retail networks, growth is constrained not by demand or execution, but by decisions made years ago about where to be present.
This article focuses on manufacturers of retail products that sell through wholesalers, dealers, or reseller networks. Although transactions flow through intermediaries, demand remains consumer driven and influenced by proximity and availability.
Most B2B retail organisations are built around sales management, logistics, and account relationships rather than location intelligence. Physical footprints are inherited, partner led, or historically defined, with limited understanding of where demand exists, how far customers will travel, or where competition limits sales capture.
In 2026, this gap is becoming a constraint on growth. Manufacturers that apply B2C grade location planning can better understand location potential, prioritise must win markets, and maximise sales through their existing wholesale footprint.
Why This Matters
In a low growth, high complexity environment, the greatest risk for B2B retailers and manufacturers is not lack of demand, but misalignment between where demand exists and where networks are positioned to capture it.
When performance is assessed through aggregate sales, partner count, or historical coverage, lost demand accumulates quietly. Increased travel time, weaker presence in high demand locations, and customers defaulting to closer alternatives all erode sales before price or product are ever considered.
The critical question for leadership is no longer whether a network is large or profitable, but whether its placement reflects how customers actually buy today. Delaying that assessment turns lost sales into an invisible structural leak.
At Brand Retail Solutions, we help B2B retailers apply B2C grade location planning to wholesale and dealer networks, strengthening sales capture where it matters most.
What B2C Retailers Have Learned That B2B Has Not
B2C retailers learned early that sales performance is shaped before a transaction takes place. Proximity, store coverage, and location quality determine whether a brand is even considered at the moment of need.
As a result, B2C organisations built dedicated capabilities around location planning. They analyse where demand exists, how far customers are willing to travel, which locations are must win, and where competition structurally limits returns. These insights guide network design, marketing allocation, and capital investment long before execution begins.
Most B2B retailers have not developed these capabilities. Their networks evolved through wholesalers, dealers, acquisitions, or historical presence rather than demand density, customer journey, or travel time economics. Sales teams and logistics functions optimise performance within the existing footprint, but the footprint itself is rarely questioned.
The consequence is invisible lost demand. Sales are missed not because products are uncompetitive, but because availability is too far away at the moment the customer decides to buy. This is the core discipline B2C retailers can teach B2B retailing in 2026: location planning is not a real estate exercise. It is a primary driver of sales capture.
How Location Planning Translates into Sales Capture & Brand Awareness
“Being close to the customer is the most important competitive advantage.” Reinhold Würth.
If people buy at the moment a need arises, then location determines which brands are even considered. Sales outcomes are shaped by availability and proximity before pricing, promotion, or sales effort come into play.
B2C retailers learned this lesson early. They measure demand not only by volume, but by where and when it occurs. Catchments are defined by travel time, not administrative boundaries. Locations are prioritised based on their ability to intercept demand at critical moments, not on uniform coverage targets.
For manufacturers selling through wholesalers or dealers, the same mechanics apply. A product that is technically available but too far away becomes economically unavailable. Every additional minute of travel increases the total cost of purchase and reduces the probability of selection. When dealer networks are poorly positioned relative to consumer demand, increased travel time can lead customers to choose a competitor’s product even when it is more expensive at the point of sale, because proximity outweighs price at the moment of need.
This is why location planning is a sales discipline, not a real estate exercise. Without it, organisations optimise performance only within the demand they already reach, leaving a significant share of the market invisible.
B2C grade location planning brings this lost demand into view. It allows manufacturers to understand which territories are structurally under served, which partners sit on must win locations, and where incremental coverage would convert directly into incremental sales.
This is the shift B2B retailers must make in 2026. From managing accounts to managing coverage. From optimising execution to optimising reach.
From Dealer Count to Demand Capture
B2B retail networks are often assessed by scale. Number of dealers, wholesalers, or points of sale becomes a proxy for market presence. While this metric is easy to track, it says little about how much demand the network actually captures.
What matters is not how many locations exist, but how many sit within an economically acceptable distance of the customer at the moment of need.
B2C retailers learned to distinguish early between nominal coverage and effective coverage. Nominal coverage describes where a brand is technically available. Effective coverage describes where a customer will realistically choose to buy. The gap between the two represents lost demand.
Case study: One B2B retailer we examined operates a network of nearly 6,000 points of sale across 90 countries. On paper, coverage appeared extensive. A closer review showed that in several prime and strategically important markets, the brand was under represented in core premium retail zones where purchase intent and competitor coverage was highest.
The analysis highlighted three structural issues:
- Coverage masked location gaps: Despite a large footprint, the network lacked presence in high intent locations, leaving critical demand pockets under served.
- Travel time displaced price advantage: Customers were required to travel further than expected for such a purchase and frequently chose closer competitors, even when those alternatives were more expensive at the point of sale.
- Lost sales were structural, not operational: The shortfall was not driven by pricing, marketing, or execution, but by network placement. The retailer was missing the locations that mattered most for demand capture.
Internal modelling suggested that correcting these location gaps could unlock a mid single to low-teens sales uplift in the affected markets.
For manufacturers selling through wholesalers or dealers, this pattern is common. Networks may look dense on a map yet leave meaningful pockets of high value demand under served. In these areas, customers do not wait or travel further. They switch.
Shifting from dealer count to demand capture requires a different lens. Travel time replaces administrative boundaries. Local competition matters more than national share. Performance is evaluated by the ability to intercept demand, not by the number of partners in place.
This shift does not require changing the route to market. It requires changing how the network is understood.
Coca-Cola Case: Availability Beats Price
“Our strategy is to be available everywhere consumers want us to be.” James Quincey, CEO, The Coca-Cola Company.
With an estimated 30 million+ outlets (including vending), no brand illustrates the economics of location and time value better than The Coca-Cola Company.
Coca-Cola wins not because it is cheapest, but because it is present when consumption occurs. The same product is sold at very different prices across all points of distribution. The difference reflects time value, more than brand power. As immediacy increases, willingness to pay rises. When consumption is planned, price sensitivity returns.
Coca-Cola captures demand across out-of-home, on-the-go, and at-home occasions through location and format variation alone. While the internet can deliver Coke, it misses most immediate consumption moments. Thirst is local and time constrained, and ecommerce cannot compete on proximity when demand is immediate.
The lesson for manufacturers selling through wholesalers or dealers is direct. Availability somewhere is not availability where it matters. Networks that increase travel time increase total cost, pushing customers toward closer alternatives even at higher prices. Coca-Cola’s advantage is not scale in aggregate, but precision of placement.
Economics of Proximity: The Proximity Cost Curve
“Customers are far more sensitive to distance than managers expect.” Herman Simon.
Total Cost of Purchase = Product Price + Time Cost + Effort Cost
Where time cost equals travel time multiplied by the value of time, and effort cost reflects inconvenience, uncertainty, and friction.
As travel time increases, total cost rises even if the shelf price is lower.
Effective Price = Shelf Price + (Travel Time × Value Of Time)
Customers minimise total cost, not price. This is why proximity routinely outweighs price at the moment of need.
This dynamic is consistent with the First Law of Geography. Everything is related, but nearer things matter more. Economically, this expresses itself through a well-established distance decay effect. As travel time increases, the probability of purchase declines non-linearly. Small increases in distance close to the point of need, cause disproportionate losses in demand capture, while additional distance beyond that point has a diminishing marginal impact.
Benefits & Costs of Advanced Location Planning
This is not an argument for owning more stores, reducing wholesalers, or replacing partners, but for understanding how demand flows through existing networks.
Advanced location planning is one of the lowest risk growth investments available to B2B retailers and manufacturers selling through wholesalers or dealers.
The benefits are structural. Location planning makes lost demand visible. It identifies where proximity gaps suppress sales, where coverage is redundant, and where small changes in placement or partner mix unlock disproportionate returns. It allows leadership to prioritise must win locations and align marketing and trade investment accordingly.
The costs are modest relative to impact. A typical programme combines demand data, travel time modelling, competitive mapping, and partner performance analysis. The investment is small compared to annual trade spend and avoids far more expensive errors such as expanding coverage in the wrong places or compensating for structural gaps through price and promotion.
Critically, location planning does not require changing the route to market. It works with existing wholesalers and dealers. The value comes from better decisions, not more assets.
Implications For Retail Leadership
- Treat location planning as a commercial discipline: Location determines how much demand is accessible before pricing, marketing, or sales execution begin. It is not a support or real estate function.
- Shift from footprint size to effective coverage: Network scale and partner count are weak indicators of performance. What matters is proximity to demand at the moment of need.
- Make lost demand visible: Without B2C grade location intelligence, sales lost to distance, travel time, and poor placement remain invisible and are misattributed to price or execution.
- Embed location intelligence into governance: Decisions on trade investment, partner prioritisation, and network development should be guided by demand density and travel time economics, not historical presence.
- Use digital to amplify good placement, not compensate for poor placement: Ecommerce accelerates known decisions but cannot overcome distance when immediacy matters.