Begin with one segment and a small channel hypothesis. Trying every platform at once can make effort, costs and outcomes difficult to compare.
Map the complete customer route
Ask how the customer discovers the offer, understands it, trusts it, buys it and receives it. A retailer may provide confidence and access but require a wholesale price. A marketplace may supply discovery and checkout while charging fees. A direct site may offer control while requiring the business to earn traffic and trust.
The route also includes returns, support and payment timing. A channel that generates a sale but makes delivery or disputes expensive can change the customer's experience and the business's contribution.
Compare a fictional product
Assume a fictional product costs $30 to supply. The following offers, fees and volumes are teaching scenarios, not current platform terms or demand forecasts.
| Route | Revenue per sale | Other variable channel costs | Contribution per sale | Assumed sales | Total contribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direct | $80 | $5 fulfillment + $15 attributable acquisition | $30 | 50 | $1,500 |
| Marketplace | $80 | $5 fulfillment + $16 fees | $29 | 100 | $2,900 |
| Wholesale | $45 | $2 shipment cost per unit | $13 | 250 | $3,250 |
Each row subtracts the $30 product cost as well as the listed channel costs. The wholesale route has the lowest unit contribution and highest total contribution at the assumed volumes. That does not establish it as the best route: fixed setup, staff effort, payment terms and risk are not included.
Check the definitions before comparing
The direct acquisition amount applies only to the sales it is attributed to in this scenario. Organic repeat orders may have different acquisition economics. Marketplace fees may depend on category and service choices. Wholesale orders may create concentration or credit risk.
Use contribution margin for consistent cost labels and working capital to inspect cash timing. Compare the actual offer and obligations, not an imagined universal commission rate.
Include what the channel lets you learn
Can you observe who bought, why they returned and whether they buy again? What data and contact rights are available under the actual arrangement? A channel can be valuable for learning even before it delivers the highest volume, provided the test has a clear purpose and budget.
Do not assume that access to a transaction means permission to contact the customer for unrelated marketing. The channel's rules and the customer's consent need their own check when a real campaign is designed.
Run a bounded first test
Define qualified reach, purchases, contribution, returns, service effort and collection timing. Keep the product and target segment sufficiently comparable to interpret the result. Record what differs when a fair comparison is impossible.
The experiment guide helps set the decision rule. The competitor guide helps check which alternatives buyers consider in that particular route.
Choose the next step from the evidence
A channel with few sales may have weak demand, poor presentation or inadequate reach. A channel with many sales may still have poor economics. Investigate the mechanism before scaling spending, and make sure delivery capacity can support the extra orders.
Sources and limits
HBS's value-chain framework places channels in the wider value system. All product economics and channel volumes here are original fictional HBW scenarios. No current platform pricing, revenue expectation or universal channel ranking is asserted.