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Hostaway

Hostaway is the #1 rated, and fastest growing all-in-one vacation rental software for property managers who want to get more bookings with less hassle. Designed to automate and optimize all aspects of your operations, Hostaway c...Read more about Hostaway

Smoobu

Smoobu is an online vacation rental solution designed to help businesses streamline processes related to reservations, communications, guest experience and more. It comes with a channel manager, which lets users connect the platfo...Read more about Smoobu

eZee Centrix

eZee Centrix is a channel manager application for hotels. Through a single online dashboard, operators in the hospitality industry can manage 5 to 1000+ rooms and bookings from various sources. Motels, hotels and resort chains can...Read more about eZee Centrix

Uplisting

Uplisting is a cloud-based hotel management solution that helps small to midsize vacation rental businesses manage bookings, customer support, housekeeping, commission, payments and more. It allows users to import bookings from va...Read more about Uplisting

Semper

Semper is a Property Management System that helps hoteliers manage their properties better so that they can increase revenue, improve guest satisfaction and save time. The software is either locally installed on premises or can be...Read more about Semper

Poleepo

Poleepo is a channel management solution designed to help businesses handle orders, shipments, product data, catalogs, pricing rules and more from within a unified platform. Key features include user management, dropshipping, rea...Read more about Poleepo

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Kiflo

Kiflo is a partner relationship management solution designed to assist businesses with deal registrations, partner onboarding, lead sharing, reward programs, and more. Administrators can accept or refuse deals according to require...Read more about Kiflo

5.0 (4 reviews)

Shiji Distribution Solutions

Shiji Distribution Solutions is designed to help organizations in the hospitality industry streamline communications with distributors, tour operators, online travel agencies (OTAs) and more. It enables employees to track and mana...Read more about Shiji Distribution Solutions

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Beds24

Beds24 is a cloud-based solution that helps businesses automate the processes for booking and billing of hotels, inns, guest houses, cottages, hostels, campgrounds and more. Key features include built-in accounting, vacation renta...Read more about Beds24

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BookingSync

BookingSync is a cloud-based vacation rental management solution that helps hotel and apartment managers to handle multiple rentals. Key features include booking, payment, guest and channel management. BookingSync allows prop...Read more about BookingSync

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Uptempo

Uptempo provides enterprise marketing teams with software to manage planning, productivity and performance. Our mission is to help marketers lead with confidence and love their jobs. Uptempo’s marketing operations suite integra...Read more about Uptempo

Channergy

Channergy is a multichannel inventory management solution that helps resellers manage inventory, orders, payments and customers. The software can be deployed both on-premise and in the cloud. It functions with various eCommer...Read more about Channergy

4.2 (9 reviews)

ChannelAdvisor

ChannelAdvisor (NYSE: ECOM) is a leading e-commerce cloud platform whose mission is to connect and optimize the world’s commerce. For two decades, ChannelAdvisor has helped brands and retailers worldwide improve their online perfo...Read more about ChannelAdvisor

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Cubilis

Cubilis is a cloud-based booking and channel management solution, which assists hotels, hostels, and vacation rentals with managing online reservations. Key features include booking engine, channel manager, social media integratio...Read more about Cubilis

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Hotel Link

Hotel Link empowers accommodation providers with digital marketing services and technology solutions without any technical jargon. A full suite of core online cloud-based services offered by Hotel Link includes a channel manager t...Read more about Hotel Link

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HiRUM Software Solutions

HiRUM PMS is a hybrid property management solution that caters to hospitality businesses of all sizes to manage reservations, guest information, distribution channels and online bookings. The solution can either be deployed on-pre...Read more about HiRUM Software Solutions

Jazva

Jazva is a cloud-based e-commerce management solution with an array of functionalities for small to midsize B2B and B2C retailers that operate on a variety of online marketplaces and ship their goods from multiple warehouses or fu...Read more about Jazva

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Little Hotelier

Trusted by more small, independent properties around the world than any other provider, Little Hotelier is the hotel platform that lets you easily attract more guests, take direct bookings online, understand how your business is p...Read more about Little Hotelier

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Lodgify

Lodgify is the #1 All-In-One Vacation Rental Software that simplifies the process of managing a vacation rental business. Easily create a bookable website, synchronize property data and availability across other channels, and mana...Read more about Lodgify

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LinkTrust

LinkTrust is a cloud-based solution, which helps small to large marketing and advertising agencies create, track and manage performance marketing campaigns. Key features include A/B testing, conversion tracking, analytics, custom ...Read more about LinkTrust

Buyers Guide

Last Updated: August 07, 2023

Even in these days of Internet disintermediation, it is unusual for manufacturers to sell directly to end customers. Instead, products are sold through a complex web of distributors, wholesalers and retailers, with value-added retailers (VARs) and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) thrown into the mix. To manage all of these sales channels, companies use channel management software. We wrote this buyer’s guide to help buyers untangle this market’s web of solutions and conduct a proper system comparison.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

What Is Channel Management Software?

What Type of Buyer Are You?

Benefits and Potential Issues

Market Trends You Should Understand

The Vendor Landscape

What Is Channel Management Software?

Channel management (CM) software, also known as partner relationship management software (or just PRM software), tracks goods and services from the seller to the ultimate consumer. These programs are valuable for automating sales and marketing processes through indirect company channels. One might think of channel management as sales force automation (SFA) for OEM and VAR channels. 

CM functions include partner recruiting; partner lifecycle, channel sales, territory, leads, order and account management; compensation planning; channel marketing; activity tracking; pipeline forecasting; and product configuration. Most systems will include partner tools that give visibility from the partners into the system. More advanced systems will also track cooperative advertising dollars and compliance. 

In keeping with classic supply chain design, the supplier firm (the upstream partner) and the customer firm (the downstream partner) should have systems that interact. This integration allows orders, inventory and other information to be passed securely between the partners as necessary.

What Type of Buyer Are You?

Manufacturer buyer. These buyers work with firms that make goods to sell. These buyers need collateral distribution and partner and order management.

Distributor buyer. These buyers work for distributors and very large retailers. They need order management, price customization and shipping prioritization.

Wholesale and retail channel buyers. These buyers work for whole seller and regional retailer firms or retailer cooperatives. These buyers need strong integration with accounting to track dealer accounts, collateral distribution and marketing co-op tracking.

OEM/VAR channel buyers. These buyers work for firms that sell to OEMs and VARs. These buyers are seeking product branding, collateral customization, special order processing and accounting integration.

Benefits and Potential Issues

Increased customer satisfaction. There actually may be several sets of customers satisfied throughout the chain. Ultimately, it is the final consumer that matters most to the manufacturer, but it is rare that the consumer is the manufacturer’s customer. Partner management software gives each step in the channel increased visibility into the whole process.

Recall management. Should a product need to be recalled, CM gets the word to downstream partners quickly. Fast, decisive action can limit damage and minimize bad publicity.

Better inventory analysis and reporting. CM allows inventory levels to be maintained at optimum levels. Orders can be triggered manually or automatically, but in either case CM can measure downstream partners’ inventory trends and let the supplier more accurately project required inventory levels and manufacturing requirements.

Better account management. CM systems consolidate partner information, giving reps insight to increase sales and customer satisfaction at the same time. For example, when a VAR calls in an order, the rep can check to see if the customer is close to price breaks or order levels to trip co-op advertising budgets.

There are dangers in this level of integration: problems can propagate through the system. The Wall Street Journal reported, for example, that Amazon listed the book The Making of a Fly by Peter Lawrence for $23,698,655.93, plus $3.99 for shipping. Used copies were available for $35.54. The problem? Amazon has two channel partners that provide pricing information and in this case, the computer algorithms used by the two partners were competing against each other and raising the price in a loop.

Market Trends to Understand

  • Consolidation with CRM. Most channel management functions are being integrated into CRM and SFM systems or are included within the CRM applications from enterprise suite vendors. Stand alone channel management systems are increasingly rare, although CRM and SFM systems could be used for stand alone channel management if desired.

  • Software as a service. As with CRM in general, there is a strong move toward the software as a service (SaaS) model. A cloud-based model allows all partners to access appropriate information as long as they have access to a Web browser and the Internet.

  • Web integration. Even premises-based providers offer Web access to partners. This way downstream partners can check their accounts, check order status, place orders and track co-op account funds.

  • Mobile operations. Most channel management systems can be accessed by mobile devices and can provide email alerts as well as text message alerts.

  • Automatic ordering. If both partners have compatible systems, one advantage is automatic order placement, or vendor-management inventory. For example, as a retail store sells a particular model of television set, its inventory system tracks the quantity on hand. When that quantity falls below a certain threshold, the inventory system will automatically place an order with the supplier by interfacing to the supplier’s channel management system.

The Vendor Landscape

This type of buyer...

Should evaluate these systems

Manufacturer buyer

SAP, Oracle, GoldMine, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Salesforce

Distributor buyer

SAP, Oracle, GoldMine, SugarCRM

Wholesale and retail channel buyer

GoldMine, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Sage ACT!, InfusionSoft

OEM/VAR channel buyer

SugarCRM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Salesforce