Dental manufacturers and a single distributor: a risk to manage
Many dental manufacturers sell most of what they produce through one or two distributors. It is an understandable choice: the distributor brings customers, logistics and collections, and the manufacturer can focus on the product.
But when a single distributor accounts for a large share of revenue, the manufacturer is exposed to a risk that is often only seen when it is too late.
The first aspect is control. It is the distributor who decides how hard to push your products, at what price to offer them and how much space to give them in the catalogue. If tomorrow they decide to favour a competing brand, your sales fall and there is little you can do.
The second is negotiation. The more a distributor weighs on your revenue, the stronger their position when margins, discounts and payment terms are renegotiated.
The third is change. A distributor can be acquired, change strategy or run into difficulty. At that moment the problem becomes yours.
The fourth is market knowledge. If you only sell through others, you know little about who actually buys your products, in which areas and why.
Diversifying does not mean breaking with the distributor. It means gradually building a second channel that depends on you. The first thing to do is reread the contract: if it includes territorial exclusivity, it must be respected, and the new channel should be opened where there is no exclusivity, for example in other countries.
A dental marketplace like Oralzon is one of the simplest ways to do this. It does not ask for exclusivity, has no fixed costs in the first 180 days, and lets you sell directly to practices in eight languages, in the markets you choose.
It also gives you information the distributor does not: which products are ordered, from which countries, how often. This data is useful in negotiations with distributors too.
It should be said that a second channel takes time to grow, and the first results are small. That is exactly why it pays to start while the relationship with the distributor is working, not when it is already in crisis.
If you want to see how a direct channel would work for your products, you can explore the vendor dashboard in a demo store, without signing up.
In short: depending on a single distributor exposes you to risks of control, negotiation, change and poor market knowledge, diversifying means gradually building a second channel while respecting any exclusivity, a dental marketplace with no exclusivity and no initial fixed costs is one of the simplest ways, and it pays to start when things are going well.