A repair bench wants charging cables in plain bulk poly, forty to a bag, because every dollar of packaging is a dollar off the bench margin and the customer never sees the wrapper. A convenience store wants the same cable on a hanging blister card with a printed price, because it has to sell itself in the four seconds a customer spends at the register. A marketplace seller wants a third format again, packed to a case count that a fulfillment center will accept without a chargeback.
Beyond packaging, the channel drives assortment depth, price laddering, reorder rhythm and how much merchandising help is worth providing. A kiosk with three feet of usable wall does not need sixteen categories, it needs the right six, arranged in an order that matches how people walk past it. A twelve foot wall in an independent electronics store needs the long tail of handset coverage that keeps a customer from driving to the next town.
The ten profiles below are drawn from accounts we actually ship to. Each one lists the pressures that channel lives under, what it needs from a supplier and the categories that carry it. Use the jump links to go straight to yours.