Find a distributor in India,
then find out whether they will sell

Why the biggest distributor is usually the wrong one

Size is the easiest signal to read and one of the weakest predictors of whether your product sells.

The US government's own export guidance for India makes this point without hedging: a small distributor with a localised presence and a real understanding of a specific region or niche may outperform a large national distributor. The reason is simple arithmetic. A large national distributor carries dozens or hundreds of lines, and attention inside that firm goes to whichever line is already producing volume. A new foreign product with no India track record starts at the bottom of that list and usually stays there.

A regional specialist has fewer lines, a sharper reason to care, and a sales team who will actually learn your product. The trade-off is coverage, which is why appointing two or three regional partners often beats appointing one national one. India is not one market for channel purposes. Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Ahmedabad and Kolkata have different dominant industries, different buying cultures and in several cases different languages of business. A partner who is genuinely strong in two of them is a good partner. A partner who claims all eight is describing an organisation chart.

What does a real distributor screen look like?

Twelve questions. We ask all of them before we recommend anyone, and the answers go to you in writing with the partner's own words next to them.

1. Which competing lines do you already carry? The single most important question and the one most often skipped. If they carry two direct competitors, you are being used to complete a catalogue.
2. Who inside your firm will own this product by name? Not a team. A person, with a title and a phone number. Products without an internal owner do not sell.
3. How many of your salespeople will be trained on it, and when? Get a number and a date. Both will slip; a partner who will not give either was never going to train anyone.
4. Which cities do you cover with people who physically visit customers? Distinguish this from the cities on their website. Ask which city the nearest person to each major account sits in.
5. Who are your five largest customers in our category, and can we speak to two of them? Reference calls with the distributor's customers are the highest-value hour in the entire process.
6. Do you hold the licences and registrations our category needs? In regulated categories this is binary. Ask for the licence numbers and verify them.
7. What service and support can you provide, with what staff? Installation, commissioning, spares, warranty work, training. A distributor who cannot service will sell to each customer exactly once.
8. What is your payment history with your existing principals? Then check it independently. Trade references and a professional credit check are standard practice and cheap relative to the risk.
9. What volume will you commit to in year one, and what do you need from us to hit it? The second half of the question is the informative one.
10. How do you expect to be paid, and in what currency? Payment terms, letters of credit and currency exposure are where distributor relationships actually break.
11. What is your view on our price? Ask early. A partner who says the price is fine without a conversation about configuration has not thought about it.
12. Who else is talking to you about this category right now? Honest answers here tell you how contested your category is and what your leverage is.

None of these require us to be in the room with you. If you want to run this yourself, run it. The screen works regardless of who holds the pen.

How do Indian distributor economics actually work?

Margin expectations in India vary enormously by category, and in some of them they are high enough to have attracted regulatory attention, which changes the conversation you are about to have.

In healthcare consumables and devices in particular, the gap between what a distributor pays and what a patient is billed has become a live policy issue. State regulators have documented markups on hospital consumables running into the hundreds and in some cases thousands of percent, and the national pricing authority has already capped trade margins on certain non-scheduled medicines at thirty percent while industry bodies and government debate whether to extend a similar framework to devices. If you sell into Indian healthcare, assume your distributor's margin structure may be externally constrained within the life of your agreement, and write the agreement so that a cap does not break it.

Outside healthcare the picture is less regulated but the principle holds: ask what margin the partner needs, ask what they do with it, and ask what happens to your landed price if duty, freight or the rupee moves ten percent. The partners worth having can answer all three without rehearsing.

What to put in the agreement

• Territory defined by city and state, not by the word India.
• A performance condition attached to any exclusivity, expressed as volume or revenue, reviewed at a fixed date.
• An initial term of twelve to eighteen months, renewable. Three-year exclusives signed before anything has sold are how companies lose a market for the length of the contract.
• A named internal owner and a training commitment with dates.
• Clear ownership of end-customer data. If the distributor owns every relationship, you have no visibility and no leverage at renewal.
• An exit that does not strand your customers, including spares and service obligations after termination. In regulated categories, check what changing partner does to your registration before you need to do it.

Should you give exclusivity?

Sometimes, and almost never for as long as the distributor asks. Exclusivity is the thing a serious partner will invest behind, so refusing it outright can cost you the good partners. The workable compromise is narrow and conditional: exclusive in named cities or states, for twelve to eighteen months, conditional on a volume number and a training commitment, with a written review date. If they hit it, extend. If they do not, you have your market back without a dispute.

What you should not do is grant national exclusivity before a single unit has sold. In a market of India's size that is not a partnership, it is an option you have given away for free, and the partner who holds it has no incentive to use it quickly.

What Montazzo runs on a partner search

1. Category and channel mapWho already imports and sells into your category, which competitors are present and through whom, and where the gaps are by region. Named companies, with the basis for each one written down.
2. Longlist and outreachWe approach candidates on your behalf, in Indian business hours, in writing and by phone, and report who responded and who did not. You see the list before anyone is contacted.
3. The twelve-point screenApplied to everyone who responds, with their answers quoted rather than summarised, plus independent reference calls to two of their existing customers where they will allow it.
4. Appointment support and then demandWe help you compare and negotiate, and then we keep generating demand into the end buyer so the new partner has live opportunities in week one rather than a catalogue. This is the part that decides whether the appointment was worth making.

If you want the wider view of entry routes, start at selling your product in India. If you are comparing firms, the India market entry agency comparison sorts the four types.