Route to Market (RTM)

Route to market (RTM) is how your products physically and commercially get from you to the outlet, who sells them, who delivers them, and who owns the relationship on the ground. It is the practical wiring behind your sales plan, the part that decides whether your great idea actually shows up in stores, bars, and back rooms.

Also known as: go-to-market route, distribution model, commercial model (note: broader).

What route to market means

In FMCG, route to market is the setup you use to reach outlets, retail chains, wholesalers, bars, restaurants, kiosks, travel retail, and anything else that can sell your product. It covers who invoices, who holds stock, who delivers, who visits, and what “good execution” even means for each outlet type.

RTM is also how you organise coverage, meaning which outlets are served at all, by whom, and how often. It defines the handoffs between sales, supply, customer service, trade marketing, and any external partners like distributors, wholesalers, or agencies.

If channel planning is the strategy, RTM is the operating system. Two companies can target the same channels and still win or lose based on RTM, because one can get consistent distribution and execution, and the other cannot.

Common RTM models

• Direct sales and delivery

• Direct sales with 3PL delivery

• Distributor model

• Wholesaler model

• Broker/agent model

• Hybrid model by channel

What RTM changes day to day

• Coverage, who actually reaches which outlets, and what “covered” means in practice.

• Visit frequency, how often people show up, and which outlets only get serviced when something breaks.

• Pricing control, whether you set pricing, negotiate it, enforce it, or mostly observe it afterwards.

• Assortment control, who decides listings, delistings, and what sits on the invoice versus what sits in a PDF.

• Promo execution, who builds the promo plan, who sells it in, who delivers POS, and who checks it happened.

• Data visibility, what you can see directly, what arrives late, and what never arrives at all.

• Speed of change, how fast you can update priorities, materials, and focus when the market shifts.

RTM vs channel planning

Channel planning is deciding where to play and how to win by channel, for example modern trade versus traditional trade, or on trade versus off trade. It answers questions like which packs belong where, what the role of price is, and which customer types get priority.

RTM is how you sell and distribute into that channel, meaning who does the work, who owns the relationship, and how the product moves. You can have a solid channel plan and still fail if the RTM cannot deliver the right coverage, delivery reliability, and execution discipline.

A simple example

A beverage company sells direct to key accounts in retail, because they want tight control over listings, price agreements, and seasonal promo plans. Their KAMs negotiate terms, align calendars, and make sure each chain gets a clean story and the right sell in materials at the right time. The field team focuses on the priority stores, especially around major activations and peak seasons, and they use different visit plans per chain.

For HoReCa, the company uses a distributor, because delivery density, credit risk, and small invoice sizes make direct delivery painful. The distributor’s sales reps call on bars and restaurants, while the brand team supports them with simple pitch decks, menu ideas, and clear priorities for the period. In some months the priority is new listings in pubs, in other months it is visibility for a specific pack size, so the distributor needs an updated focus and updated materials, not a mystery.

Across the year, trade marketing adjusts what “good” looks like by channel. Retail gets planograms, promo toolkits, and store execution guidance, HoReCa gets serve suggestions, outlet specific talking points, and tighter hero SKU focus. The company also runs regular check ins with the distributor to align incentives and remove friction, because “we sent the info” is not the same as “it got executed”.

Common mistakes

• Teams pick one model for every channel, even when outlet economics and buying behaviour are completely different.

• Roles stay unclear, so nobody knows who owns pricing, listings, delivery issues, or execution follow up.

• Communication to partners is weak, so priorities, materials, and promo rules arrive late, incomplete, or not at all.

• Incentives are misaligned, so partners push what makes them money, not what builds your brand and assortment.

• Execution expectations are unrealistic, so the plan assumes perfect coverage, perfect frequency, and perfect compliance with limited resources.

• Local differences get forgotten, so a central RTM idea is copied into markets with different trade structures, laws, and customer habits.