Channel Negotiation & Onboarding
The Problem
Getting onto new channels should unlock growth. Too often, it does the opposite.
Brands struggle to secure the right terms, underestimate the operational complexity, and rush onboarding just to “get live”.
The result is poor margins baked in from day one, pricing conflicts across channels, manual workarounds, and launches that never really gain traction.
Without senior commercial oversight, channels get added because they’re available — not because they make sense.
Once the wrong terms and setups are in place, they’re hard to unwind. Margin leaks become structural, and growth becomes expensive.
OUR solution
We treat channel onboarding as a commercial decision, not a technical task.
We lead introductions, negotiations, and onboarding with buyer-led marketplaces and retail channels, securing terms that protect contribution margin, pricing control, and long-term scalability before anything goes live.
That means choosing the right channels, negotiating fees and commercials, aligning pricing and promotions across your ecosystem, and designing the operational flow so orders, stock, and data move cleanly from day one.
You don’t just get listed.
You launch on channels that work — commercially and operationally.
Scope of work.
As your embedded Online Sales Director, we take responsibility for the commercial engine behind your ecommerce operation, including:
- Revenue & contribution margin ownership across all online channels
- Pricing and promotional governance to protect profit and brand position
- Channel strategy & prioritisation (marketplaces, DTC, and new launches)
- Advertising direction & ROI governance aligned to commercial goals
- SKU focus and range strategy to drive scale without complexity
- Trading cadence & forecasting with weekly and monthly performance rhythm
- Board-level reporting & insight with clear, jargon-free metrics
- Cross-functional alignment across operations, marketing, and finance
Commercial Rules, Aligned to Your Business
GOVERNANCE
Taking ownership doesn’t mean acting in isolation. It means operating within a clear commercial framework agreed with you.
At the start of every engagement, we work with you to define contribution margin floors by channel and SKU type, pricing and promotional guardrails, channel priorities, the balance between growth and cashflow, and how your range and brand should be positioned online.
These aren’t theoretical principles. They become the trading rules we run your business to.
Day to day, that means we make decisions on pricing within agreed limits, choose which SKUs get visibility and advertising support, decide when to run or refuse promotions, and shift focus between channels as performance moves.
We don’t come back asking for permission on every move. But we also don’t freelance decisions.
You set the commercial outcomes and constraints. We take responsibility for delivering within them.
That’s what ownership looks like.
RHYTHM
Weekly Trading & Performance Control
Online sales only performs when it is actively traded, not reviewed after the fact.
We run your ecommerce operation as a weekly trading function. Each week, we review revenue by channel and SKU, true contribution margin after marketplace fees, advertising and carriage, pricing versus key competitors, advertising efficiency, and stock cover and risk.
From that review, we set the actions for the week ahead. That means deciding which prices move and which hold, where promotional pressure makes sense, which SKUs get focus, how advertising budgets are reallocated, and where channel effort is concentrated.
This isn’t a reporting exercise. It’s a control cycle.
Performance is steered in real time, with decisions made while they still matter, not explained away at month end.
The result is a business that stays commercially focused, reacts quickly to change, and compounds improvement week after week.
CLARITY
Board-Level Reporting & Commercial Clarity
Online sales only adds value when everyone understands what’s really driving performance.
We build reporting that cuts through platform noise and focuses on the numbers that matter to founders and boards: revenue by channel and range, true contribution margin after fees, advertising and carriage, advertising efficiency, stock exposure and risk, and forward-looking performance trends.
Every report is designed to answer three questions:
what’s happening, why it’s happening, and what we’re doing about it.
We don’t drown you in dashboards. We translate data into clear commercial insight, highlight the trade-offs, and make recommendations so decisions can be taken with confidence.
This means online sales stops being a black box discussed once a quarter.
It becomes a transparent, controlled commercial function that can be trusted at board level.
Clarity isn’t about more data.
It’s about better decisions.
Online sales doesn’t fail because of a lack of tools or effort.
It fails because no one truly owns it.
At Sales Forge, ownership is the product
– Sales Forge