Sales channels are the routes that let a company connect its offer with the right customer at the right moment. Choosing them well influences how you sell, the buying experience, conversion, and your business’s profitability.
Today, in the digital era, online sales, marketplaces, and hybrid models coexist with traditional formats. While this broadens your options to sell, it also makes the decision of how and where to do it more strategic.
This article focuses on helping you understand what sales channels are, the types, benefits, and how to choose the most suitable ones. With that foundation, you can build a clearer, more efficient, and more sustainable commercial process.
Sales channels, also called distribution channels, are the means a company uses to sell and deliver its product or service to the customer.
We’re not referring to marketing channels (the ones that communicate, attract, and nurture the user) but to the point where the purchase occurs. And these can be of different types…
Today you’ll find different types of sales channels with distinct functions and objectives.
However, the main ways to classify sales channels include:
Direct channels. These let you sell without intermediaries; they can be through a physical store, your own online store, or a sales team.
Indirect channels. These are means where a third party sells for you—for example, distributors, resellers, or marketplaces like Amazon or Mercado Libre.
Digital channels. They rely on online platforms to complete the purchase, either automated or assisted, sometimes supported by remote tools. Examples: online store, retail with digital assistance, social networks, or payment links sent via chat or email.
Traditional channels. These are the more conventional routes, where human interaction plays a central role in closing, such as phone calls or in-person sales.
It all boils down to choosing between direct and indirect sales and deciding which combination suits your operations and customer best. The key is aligning commercial channels with your product, market, and sales process to sell more efficiently.
The following examples show how different companies apply sales channels in real situations:
Brand selling through a physical store and e-commerce. This is often the first step toward a multichannel strategy. The sale closes at the register or in the online checkout, with delivery or in-store pickup.
Business selling via Instagram and WhatsApp. The sale is direct, digital, and assisted: Instagram attracts interested buyers and WhatsApp Business handles the close.
B2B company selling through a field sales team and CRM. The CRM organizes follow-up, and the sale relies on negotiation strategies to close deals.
E-commerce combining its own website and marketplaces. It uses its site to sell directly, with more brand control and better margins, while leveraging marketplaces to expand reach and sell indirectly. The purchase closes in each channel’s checkout.
In practice, sales channels are usually combined depending on the business model and customer behavior.
How can channels be combined within a sales strategy?
The approach typically follows one of these:
Single channel. Uses a single sales channel—for example, selling only from a physical store or only from a website.
Multichannel strategy. Several channels are used at once, without full integration among them. For example: physical store + e-commerce + WhatsApp, each with separate processes and tracking.
Omnichannel strategy (Omnichannel). All channels are connected so the customer can move between them without friction, maintaining continuity in data and support. Example: start contact on social media, continue on WhatsApp, and complete the purchase on the website.
Below are some pros and cons of these strategies:
Advantages | Disadvantages |
Single-channel strategy — Simpler to manage. You control everything in one channel. | Limited reach. Depends on a single point of sale. |
Multichannel strategy — More presence. More sales opportunities. Diversifies risk. | More complex. Customer experience can be inconsistent. |
Omnichannel strategy — Integrated, smoother experience. Better tracking and retention. | Requires system and process integration. Higher investment and coordination. |
To help these channels convert better, you can use the AIDA method to structure the customer journey from first contact through purchase.
Defining your commercial channels well is key to building a coherent, sustainable sales process.
Use these steps to do it in an orderly way:
Identify your ideal buyer. Determine whether your end customer is a consumer or a business and how they make decisions. That dictates the buying cycle, level of advisory needed, and the channel where closing is easiest.
Define the nature of your offer. Clarify whether you sell a product or a service and how complex delivery is. This conditions which channels are easier to sell through.
Review your operational capacity. Do you have the team, time, and processes to sustain the channel, including logistics: inventory, shipping, returns, and geographic coverage?
Calculate costs, commissions, and real margin per channel. Don’t compare channels on reach alone—consider commissions, acquisition costs, and profitability. A channel can sell a lot and still leave little margin.
Competition and market. Evaluate where your competitors sell and what customers expect in your category.
Prioritize the customer experience. The best channel is the one that makes buying easiest: less friction, quicker response, and a clear payment/delivery process.
If you’re unsure which to prioritize based on customer behavior, models like RFM can provide valuable insight. And if you want to visualize how channels relate to the sales process, use graphic organizers to structure ideas and spot improvement opportunities.
Some specific benefits you can gain include:
Greater reach: you reach more people by being present where they’re already shopping and comparing.
Increased sales: by choosing channels that fit your offer and audience, you create more closing opportunities and improve conversion.
Better customer experience: with clear channels, faster response times, and buying options that adapt to each person.
Reduced friction in the buying process: fewer steps, fewer doubts, and fewer barriers to paying, receiving, or accessing the product or service.
Defining your channels is a decision that affects how people find you, how they buy, and how easy it is to close a sale.
Choosing good sales channels means avoiding decisions that fail in practice, even if they look attractive on paper. Even so, it's normal to make mistakes, especially if you're just starting to build your own business.
To give you an idea, these are frequent errors when choosing sales channels:
Using too many channels without operational capacity. Opening more fronts than you can handle causes delays, slow responses, and an inconsistent experience.
Not measuring performance by channel. If you don’t track conversions, costs, and return, you end up investing time and budget in channels that don’t perform.
Not integrating customer data. When each channel runs separately, you lose history, follow-up, and repeat-purchase opportunities.
Copying strategies without analyzing your context. What works for another business may fail due to product, market, resources, or margins. The strategy must fit your reality.
With a clear foundation, it’s easier to optimize channels, improve results, and decide when to add a new one.
Defining and managing sales channels well directly impacts reach, conversion, and the customer experience. When you choose the right routes, you sell with less friction, make better use of resources, and make your commercial process more predictable and scalable.
How you combine them can make the difference between merely being present and building a consistent sales system—whether you apply a multichannel strategy or one oriented toward omnichannel.
So take precautions and choose your sales channels wisely to maximize profits. In the meantime, DolarApp helps you better manage your business income internationally.
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They’re the routes or means a company or business uses to market, distribute, and deliver its products or services to the end customer. They can be owned—like a physical store or website—or external, like distributors or marketplaces.
Direct channels (managed by the company) and indirect channels, where a third party participates. There are also digital channels, which complete the purchase online, and traditional channels, based on in-person or phone sales.
The difference is that in direct sales channels the company sells without intermediaries and controls the process, whereas in indirect channels a third party sells on its behalf.
It’s a strategy that integrates all sales channels to offer a continuous, coherent experience. This way the customer moves from one channel to another without interruptions or loss of information.
There isn’t one universally best channel. The ideal option depends on the customer type, the product, your business resources, and the buying experience you want to deliver.
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