Our church furnishings manufacturer from Parts One and Two of this series of articles begins producing church furnishings. As before they have developed an innovative line of church furniture that will serve churches across the country well. How will they take their new church furnishing line to market? In Part One, our manufacturer chose a “Manufacturer Direct” approach for their new church furniture line.  In Part Two, they utilized a “Dealer Network”.  Now in Part Three, we’ll see our manufacturer employ a “Hybrid Approach”.

What do I mean by a “Hybrid Approach”? As you might suspect, this is a strategy where the manufacturer both sells direct and markets their products through a dealer network.  But how are they able to motivate dealers to distribute their products when they’re in a sense competing with these dealers by selling direct?  It would seem that no dealer would advance the products of a manufacturer doing so.

Well, the reason dealers are willing to do so is summed up in one phrase, “two-tiered pricing”.  Suppose our manufacturer makes church seating that they sell for $75 a chair to churches direct.  The church believes they’re getting the best price possible on their worship seating because they’re purchasing direct from the manufacturer.  But what the church does not realize is dealers for our manufacturer can purchase the same chair for $65 a chair which leaves room for the dealer to mark the chairs up a few dollars and still save churches some money.  The idea that a third party (our dealer) could be added to the sale of the chairs from the manufacturer to the church and still produce savings defies logic, yet it happens every day.

I encourage you to always check with low overhead dealers such as Church Furniture Partner before purchasing.  You may be surprised at the savings your church may realize!