Van Sales
A distribution model where a delivery vehicle doubles as a mobile sales point, the driver sells product directly off the van to retailers.
Full definition
Van sales (also called ready-stock selling) is a distribution model in which the delivery vehicle carries a pre-loaded assortment and the driver-salesperson sells product on the spot to retailers as he moves down the route. The retailer sees the stock, decides how much to take, and receives it immediately. There is no order-to-delivery gap.
Van sales is the dominant model for dairy across most of India because it collapses the order-fulfilment cycle to zero, critical when shelf life is 48-72 hours. It is also widely used for ice cream, biscuits, and beverages in semi-urban and rural markets where daily ordering overhead is too high.
A modern van sales workflow captures loading at the depot, on-the-spot billing at each retailer, cash collection, returns, and end-of-day reconciliation entirely on the driver's mobile app. Closing stock at end of day must reconcile: loaded - sold - returned = remaining.
Real-world example
Mother Dairy runs a fleet of refrigerated vans in Delhi-NCR that sell fresh curd and buttermilk directly off the van to 8,000+ kirana stores each morning.
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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