Manufacturing
The distributor who only resells and still answers
You buy finished goods and sell them untouched. You are the only link the customer knows by name, and that is enough.
Your work starts once the product already exists and ends when it goes out of the door to the customer. **You do not design it, make it or modify it** — and yet when something is asked, it is asked at your counter, because you are the only link the customer has in front of them. This position is always underrated for the same reason: doing nothing to the product looks like having nothing to show.
What gets asked of you, ordered by what it costs to have
| What they ask | Where it comes from | Cost of holding it |
|---|---|---|
| What ships with the product | The supplier, at purchase | Low, if asked for at purchase |
| Which version went to whom | Your own records | Low, if recorded at sale |
| Documentation for an old reference | The supplier, months later | High: they must be tracked down |
| **Tracing a batch to a customer** | **Cross-referencing both** | **Impossible if not done at the time** |
Important
**What sets you apart from every other position in the chain is that you are the only one who knows WHO each item went to.** The manufacturer knows what they made; the importer knows what they brought in; only you know what went out to which customer and on what date. Nobody else holds that, and it cannot be reconstructed afterwards — and it is precisely what is needed the day someone has to be warned.
The minimum that holds this position up
- 1
Ask for documentation when buying, not when selling
It costs a line on the purchase order and saves a month of email.
- 2
Record what went out, when and to whom
Even without a batch number: the date and the customer are already a lot.
- 3
File the supplier's documents by reference
And keep the old versions when a new one arrives.
- 4
Know who to warn if warning is needed
That is the day everything above pays for itself.
Watch out
The moment this position turns serious all at once is **when the manufacturer flags a problem and you must decide who to call**. If what went out is recorded, it is an afternoon's work and a list. If it is not, the only honest alternative is to warn every customer about everything, which costs the trust of people who had no problem at all. The difference between those two situations was decided months earlier, by recording or not recording what went out.
Worth knowing
What specific duties fall on whoever distributes a product, what must be checked before selling it and how to act on discovering a problem **depends on the product and the market, and is settled by your adviser**. Here we cover the operational part: what to ask for, what to record, and what lets you warn whoever needs warning without warning everybody.
›If I do not touch the product, do I have anything to keep?
Yes: what the supplier gave you and what you sold. Nobody else holds the second.
›Do I need batch records if the product has no batch?
Record date and customer. It is less precise and still usable.
›What if the supplier sends nothing?
That is a purchasing decision: ask for it on the order, or accept you will not have it.
A real case
The situation
The manufacturer flags a problem and you must decide who to call.
What you do
- Records what went out, when and to which customer
What you get
Those affected are warned instead of the whole customer base.
The situation
A customer asks for the certificate of something bought a year ago.
What you do
- Keeps documentation by reference and by version
What you get
What is handed over covered that sale, not today's.
The situation
Supplier documentation arrives loose by email and gets lost.
What you do
- Receives and files each document under its reference
What you get
It stops depending on searching the inbox.
The situation
Nobody knows whether a reference has all its documentation current.
What you do
- Shows what is missing per reference before anyone asks
What you get
The gap closes without a customer waiting on the phone.
The situation
Chasing the supplier for what was missed at purchase takes weeks.
What you do
- Chases automatically until the document arrives
What you get
The chase does not depend on someone remembering.
The situation
Two sales reps keep their certificates in different folders.
What you do
- Brings the documentation together in one shared place
What you get
The answer to the customer does not depend on who is in that day.
This article answers
- distributor responsibility for the product
- asked for documentation on goods i only resell
- what a distributor should keep on file
- customer asking for a certificate on a product i distribute