Trade Scheme
A structured incentive offered by a brand to its distributors or retailers to drive volume, push new SKUs, or clear stock.
Full definition
A trade scheme is any structured financial or product incentive a brand offers to its channel partners, distributors, wholesalers, and retailers, to influence their buying behaviour. Trade schemes are the single largest spend line for most Indian FMCG brands after manufacturing cost, often 8-15% of revenue.
The main scheme types are flat, bulk pack (slab), quantitative (time-bound), BOGO, and FOC. Each serves a different purpose: flat schemes maintain price parity, slab schemes drive order size, quantitative schemes drive sustained offtake, and FOC/BOGO drives trial and clearance.
A modern scheme engine calculates trade scheme benefits automatically at order creation, prevents stacking conflicts, and produces auditable claim reports so settlement disputes disappear.
Real-world example
A biscuit brand runs a festive trade scheme, Rs 5 per case off for orders above 100 cases during Diwali week.
Where it applies
Applicable industries
This term is relevant across the following SpireStock-supported industries.
How SpireStock handles it
Related SpireStock features
The concepts described above are implemented end-to-end in these product modules.
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Related terms
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