Selling online without cutting out your reps or your distributors
A B2B online sales project almost never dies for technical reasons. It dies in a meeting, the moment sales management realizes the site will touch its accounts. Channel conflict gets resolved through the commission rule and account attribution, never through the site itself.
- The blocker isn't technical. Until the question of rep revenue is settled, no development budget will produce a result.
- Four cohabitation models exist. The choice depends on the share of your revenue that comes from reorders and the real value the rep adds to the transaction.
- Keeping full commission on online orders within the territory is an explicit, calculable cost. It is almost always cheaper than rebuilding a network.
- Gartner measures that 67% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free buying journey, in a survey of 646 buyers conducted in fall 2025. The demand exists whether you serve it or not.
- The worst-case scenario isn't the conflict, it's the inconsistency. Gartner measures that 69% of buyers notice gaps between a supplier's site and what its rep tells them.
On this page
What is channel conflict
Channel conflict describes the situation where a manufacturer or distributor sells directly online to customers already served by its own reps or reseller network. The conflict is rarely about the listed price. It is about the attribution of revenue and commission, and so about the pay of the people your current revenue depends on. It is a business policy decision, not a platform choice.
The conflict isn't a website problem
We are writing here for manufacturers and distributors who sell through reps, dealers or resellers, and who are considering an online channel. The pricing question comes after the commission question.
The pattern is always the same. Senior management wants to sell online. The project moves forward, the budget is approved, the mockups look good. Then comes the meeting where sales management asks the real question: who gets the commission when an existing customer orders on the site?
No answer is ready, because nobody treated that question as part of the web project. The project gets postponed, then reduced to a brochure. Six months of work and a committed budget produce a "contact us" page.
What's at stake is simple to name. A rep whose pay depends on orders from their territory sees a channel arrive that can take those orders without them. Their immediate financial interest is to make the project fail, and they have the means to do it, because they control the account relationship. This isn't ill will, it's a rational reaction to a threat on their income.
Launching an online channel without having settled the commission rule creates a business risk bigger than the expected benefit. A rep who leaves takes their accounts with them. In a market where a handful of customers carry a large share of revenue, that risk runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and it shows up in no web project budget.
The four cohabitation models
| Model | What the site allows | Viability condition | What it doesn't solve |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reorder portal | Existing accounts reorder on their own, at negotiated prices | A significant share of revenue comes from repeat orders with low commercial added value | New customer acquisition stays entirely offline |
| Open sales with territory attribution | Anyone can order, the order is attributed to the territory rep | Territories are clearly defined and commission is maintained | The commission cost is real and must be budgeted |
| Separate online line | Only an entry-level line, parts or accessories sell online | The online line doesn't overlap with what the rep actually sells | The customer struggles to understand why part of the catalogue can be bought and the other can't |
| Demand generation only | The site qualifies leads and routes them to the distributor or rep | The network responds quickly and the outcome of every lead is logged | You capture no direct revenue and depend on a third party's response time |
Most companies believe they're stuck with the fourth model. They're often eligible for the first, the reorder portal, which touches no new customer and solves a processing-cost problem rather than an acquisition problem.
The commission rule decides, not the platform
Three policies exist, and you need to pick one explicitly before writing a line of code.
Full commission maintained. Every order placed within an assigned territory generates the usual commission, whether the rep was involved or not. It is the costliest policy and by far the easiest to get accepted. It buys network peace at a price known in advance.
Reduced commission on the online channel. A lower rate applies to orders placed without intervention. This policy looks balanced on paper and almost always triggers a long negotiation, because every rep disputes the definition of intervention.
No commission on the online channel. Defensible only when the channel serves customers the network doesn't reach, for example outside the territory or below an order threshold. Applied to existing accounts, it triggers a departure.
The math is simpler than it looks. Fifty online orders of $28,000 within an assigned territory, at 8% commission, add up to $112,000 a year. Compare that amount against two things: the margin those orders would not have generated if the channel didn't exist, and the cost of a rep leaving with their portfolio. In most of the cases examined, full commission is the cheapest option.
One scope note on this figure: it is an explicit scenario, not an observed average. Redo it with your own commission rate, your average order and your expected volume, or it is useless.
The special case of a distributor network
With independent distributors, the question changes nature. You don't control their pay, you control a commercial agreement and a transfer price. Three options present themselves.
The first is to sell online at the suggested retail price, never competing with the distributor on price, and to pay them a share of orders from their territory. It is the model that best preserves the network, and it is also the one that leaves you the thinnest margin.
The second is to sell online only what the network doesn't want to sell: replacement parts, small quantities, rush orders. This segment is often the one distributors handle at a loss, and taking it off their hands is a service, not an attack.
The third is not to sell at all and to invest only in demand generation, with a locator that routes to the nearest distributor. It is the default model for most Quebec manufacturers, and it is only defensible if the outcome of every lead sent out is logged. Without that measurement, you are funding acquisition without ever knowing whether it produces revenue.
The demand-generation model with no outcome measurement is the most common and the most costly. You pay for the media, the distributor pockets the sale, and nobody can say whether the budget is profitable. It is the only model where a marketing vendor cannot structurally be held accountable.
What makes these projects fail
Four causes keep coming up, and none of them is technical.
The decision gets made in a web project meeting instead of at the management level. A call on sales pay cannot be settled by a site committee. It gets escalated, it drags on, and the project dies of waiting.
The online price is lower than the rep's price. It is the mistake that destroys a network in a week. The online channel must never win on price, it must win on availability and speed.
The rep hears about the project from a customer. The internal communication timeline matters as much as the development timeline. A network informed six months ahead negotiates. A network informed on launch day blocks.
No number accompanies the decision. Without the cost of maintained commission, without the expected volume and without the margin per order, the discussion stays a battle of opinions between sales management and senior management. Whoever speaks loudest wins, and that is not a good criterion.
The sequence that works
The order matters more than the content of each step.
First, put a number on it. Share of revenue that comes from reorders, average order, commission rate, expected online volume in year one. That's four numbers, available in a day.
Next, settle the commission policy at the management level, and write it down. An unwritten policy gets renegotiated with every order.
Only then, choose the cohabitation model, and launch on a limited segment. One product line, one territory, or existing accounts only. Six months of measured operation are worth more than a full launch that puts the whole network on edge the same day.
Finally, measure two things and only two: online revenue net of commission, and the change in revenue for the reps affected. If the second one drops, you have shifted revenue instead of creating it, and you need to know that before expanding.
The special case of a company that has sold in person for decades and is opening its first online channel is covered in our article on the roles of the showroom.
What to settle before opening an online channel
These questions belong to senior management. A marketing vendor who settles them on your behalf puts your sales network on the line without bearing the risk.
- What share of your revenue comes from repeat orders where the rep adds no real commercial value?
- What commission rate will apply to online orders, and is that rule written down?
- How much does keeping full commission cost, in dollars, on the volume expected in year one?
- What would losing your two best reps do to your revenue?
- If the affected reps' revenue has dropped in twelve months without total revenue rising, what do you stop, and who makes that call?
A solid answer gives a revenue percentage, a commission rate and a dollar amount. A hollow answer talks about digital transformation and customer experience. A vendor who proposes a platform without having asked about your commission structure is selling a tool, not a solution to your problem.
Putting a number on these trade-offs before committing a development budget is exactly what a paid audit covers.
What is yours to own: the commission policy, communication to the network and the decision to expand or stop. What gets delegated: calculating the four starting numbers, designing the journey by segment, measuring revenue net of commission and the monthly read on rep revenue change. A company that settles its commission policy before starting launches in four months. A company that hopes the question won't come up relaunches the same project every couple of years, with a new vendor each time.
Building the budget that carries these decisions is detailed in splitting the budget across channels.
Opening a sales channel without breaking what already works is the kind of trade-off carried by the Generate demand and growth goal.
Your catalogue is large and the question comes up by product family? See our work in ecommerce.
Frequently asked questions about channel conflict
Should you sell online for less than in person?
No, and it is the most destructive mistake you can make. A lower online price turns your own channel into a competitor of your network, and the network responds by stopping defending your products. The online channel must win on availability, speed and self-service, never on price. An online order can cost the same amount as a phone order.
How do you convince sales management that is blocking the project?
With the number for maintained commission, not with an argument about modernization. Sales management blocks because it is protecting its team's revenue, which is its job. Show that commission is maintained, that the amount is budgeted and that the rule is written down, and the objection disappears in most cases. What remains after that is a discussion about expected volume.
Does a reorder portal create conflict?
Much less, because it touches no new customer. It handles orders the rep already takes by phone or email, often without adding commercial value. With commission maintained, it frees up selling time instead of taking any away. It is the easiest entry point to get accepted by a network.
What should you do with independent distributors?
You don't control their pay, only the agreement and the transfer price. Three options hold up. Sell at the suggested retail price while paying a share to the territory distributor. Sell only what the network handles at a loss, such as parts and small quantities. Or don't sell at all and rigorously measure the outcome of the leads you send out.
How long does this kind of project take?
Development rarely takes more than four to six months. The commission trade-off takes anywhere from two weeks to two years, depending on whether it is framed as a management decision or left to a project committee. It is the only variable that really explains timeline gaps between two comparable companies.
How do you know if the channel creates revenue or just shifts it?
By tracking two series in parallel over twelve months: online revenue net of commission, and revenue for the reps whose territory is affected. If the total rises and the second stays stable, the channel is creating revenue. If the total stalls while the second drops, you have funded a shift, and expansion needs to wait.
- Gartner, Gartner Sales Survey Finds 67% of B2B Buyers Prefer a Rep-Free Experience, press release dated March 9, 2026, survey of 646 B2B buyers conducted from August to September 2025.
- Gartner, Gartner Sales Survey Finds 61% of B2B Buyers Prefer a Rep-Free Buying Experience, press release dated June 25, 2025, survey of 632 B2B buyers conducted from August to September 2024. Source for the 69% figure on gaps between the site and the rep.
- Falia working framework, arithmetic for the cost of maintained commission. Amounts are explicit scenarios, to be redone with your own rates.
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