Instructions:

• Read Chapter 11 in your textbook.
• Consider each of the following products
• Coca-Cola classic
• Shasta brand cola
• Budweiser beer
• Schwan's ice cream
• Used CD of Lady Gaga
• Dell notebook computer
• In anticipation of answering any three of the bullet-point questions listed below, you most likely will have to do a quick Google search to acquaint yourselves with the distribution strategies of the listed companies and products. In other words, to the best of your ability (using your textbook and Internet sources as your guide),consider thedistribution channel of each of these products from their original source of manufacture to the place where the final consumer would purchase and/or consume them.Assume we visited each product at every stage throughout the distribution channel. Think about the following: What would we see? Who, in the channel, would be involved? How would they be involved? NOTE; this preliminary exercise is NOT meant to be posted in the on-line discussion. What you are expected to do is:

Answerany threeof thefollowing questions:

• 1) Have you ever noticed Budweiser and Coca-Cola trucks in the parking lots of grocery stores? Their drivers are dressed in Bud or Coke uniforms, and are responsible for stocking the products on grocery shelves. Although there are similarities, the channels of distribution for Bud and Coke are quite different. How are they different? Think about where the product is "made."
• 2) Why don't you see Shasta brandtrucks and delivery people, as you do for Coke and Bud? Why has Shasta elected to use a different channel of distribution?
• 3) Why does Schwan's elect to sell door-to-door? Wouldn't it be less expensive and more efficient for them to sell through conventional grocery outlets?
• 4) Is it advantageous or disadvantageous for Dell to sell its computers on-line as well as in discount stores?
• 5) What are the means by which "used" products (e.g., Lady Gaga CDs) are distributed? How is the channel different than for new products? Or, is it different?