Distribution, routed.

In context: Stage 10 · Deliver · sub-stage Distribution

The point where a finished product stops sitting in a warehouse and starts reaching the people who actually paid for it.

— TL;DR

The Distribution sub-stage of Deliver gets the product to the buyer and keeps it legal on the way: the marketing plan, the supply chain, the standards, the insurance and the customs paperwork. Sort these and the product arrives; skip one and it stalls at a border.

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What the Distribution sub-stage is

This is where Deliver becomes logistics. Distribution is the work of getting a manufactured product into the hands of buyers, reliably and lawfully, through whatever channels you have chosen. It covers how the product is marketed, how it moves, which standards it must satisfy in each market, how it is insured, and how it clears customs when it crosses a border. None of it is glamorous, and all of it will bite you if you ignore it.

For the £149 proofing box, this is the sub-stage where Dan and Anna Hartley’s product had to actually go somewhere. Built in Stockport, UKCA marked, sold direct-to-consumer, it needed a marketing plan that the Sourdough School audience would recognise, a supply chain that could fulfil orders without drama, and paperwork that held up. The engineering was done; the question now was whether the thing could reach a customer in one piece.

I treat this sub-stage as the unglamorous half of shipping a product. The clever bits are behind you. What is left is the part where a missing certificate or a vague customs code quietly costs you a week and a chunk of margin.

What’s in this sub-stage

Five activities take the Distribution sub-stage from a finished product to one that actually reaches buyers, at home and abroad. Work them roughly in order.

Marketing plan

Set out how the product reaches its buyers, through which channels, with what message and at what spend.

Supply chain

Map how the product moves from factory to buyer, who holds stock and where the fragile links sit.

International standards

Check which marks and conformity routes each target market demands before you ship a single unit abroad.

Product insurance

Put cover behind the product so a faulty unit becomes a claim, not a business-ending liability.

Customs

Get the codes, declarations and duties right so the product clears the border instead of sitting in it.

How it fits the bigger picture

Distribution is part of Stage 10 Deliver, the final stage of the process. It builds on Stage 09 Manufacture, which produces the units, and runs alongside Sales, which finds the buyers. Distribution is the bit in between: it carries a manufactured, sellable product across the last gap to the customer, and in doing so closes the 10-stage process that began with a raw idea.

What it can do

It turns a finished product into one that reliably arrives, legally and intact, in the markets you are targeting. Done well, it gives you channels that fulfil, paperwork that clears, cover that protects you, and a marketing plan that puts the product in front of the right people rather than hoping they stumble across it.

What it can’t do

It can’t fix a product that nobody wants; distribution moves units, it does not create demand. And it can’t paper over weak earlier stages. If the manufacturing is unreliable or the standards work was skipped, no amount of logistics will rescue a shipment that gets turned back at the border.

See the full 10-stage process →

Try it yourself

Take your own product and spend an hour on the boring questions. Write down how a unit actually reaches a buyer, which standards each market demands, and what happens if one arrives broken. The gaps you find now are the ones that would otherwise surface at a border crossing.

Or run the guided version. The Free Sprint covers the early stages; the distribution and delivery tools sit in the paid ladder. Start the Free Sprint →

— First in Distribution → Marketing plan