Why Waste Sales Visits When Retailers Can Ask for One? Badho’s Hotline tells you how.

A friend of mine was hosting a house party, so he went to a nearby liquor store in Gurgaon to pick up drinks. While there, he realized he also needed snacks and asked for his favorite brand of peanuts.

The Dukandar shook his head.

"We know it’s a good brand, but no salesperson from that company has ever visited us. So, unfortunately, we don’t stock it."

I’ve lost count of how many times this has happened to me—going out to buy a specific brand and not finding it. Each time, I either leave empty-handed or end up choosing a different brand. And every time that happens, it’s a lost sale for the brand I originally intended to buy.

Why should brands care about ‘Lost Sales’?

While it is difficult to quantify just how much revenue brands lose through ‘lost sales’ each year, the problem is too big to ignore. Here are 3 reasons why:

1. Loss of Potential Revenue

   Every time a customer wants a brand but doesn’t find it, it is an opportunity loss for creating brand stickiness in the customer; it is also an opportunity loss for the brand to not just sell its product, but also cross-sell other products. For e.g. if I wanted to buy Frito Lay’s Magic Masala chips, I would be more likely to try their new flavors rather than of any other brand. 
   
   

2. Increased cost per sale

   When sales volume declines, the cost per sale increases. Fixed costs like overhead and marketing expenses are spread over a smaller revenue base, which then lower the profit margins.
   
   

3. Loss of market share

   Consistently missing out on sales can gradually erode a brand's market position, allowing competitors to successfully convert potential customers into buyers and gain an edge.

From a sales operations perspective, these challenges come up because retailers aren’t serviced by sales representatives when they actually need it. This is because salespeople are expected to follow pre-defined beat plans that dictate when and how often a salesperson will visit an outlet. However, traditional beat plans come with some inherent flaws:

• Retailer servicing is based on the brand’s schedule, not the retailer’s needs. If a retailer runs out of stock before a salesperson's visit, they either have to wait or sell a competing brand.
• Fixed beat plans cause inefficiencies. Scheduled beat plans often lead to unnecessary visits. An SO typically visits at least 20 retailers daily, that’s over 600 visits a month. However, only about 35-40% of these visits are productive, meaning there’s a huge opportunity to improve efficiency. A significant amount of time is wasted visiting retailers who don’t need replenishment instead of prioritizing those with urgent demand. This leads to wasted time, fuel, and effort, along with unproductive calls, poor resource allocation, and a low ROI on sales operations.

How Badho’s ‘Request a Visit’ feature is changing the game for FMCG companies 

Request a Visit is a brand new feature in the Badho platform that flips the model from outbound to inbound sales. Imagine being able to tap into retailers who have shown an interest in your brand or who want to place an order. Request a Visit is just that, a channel for harnessing existing, untapped demand via the Badho platform.

This is how it works:

1. Retailers request a visit

   Retailers log in on the Badho platform, go to your brand page, and click on the ‘Request a Visit’ button. Your brand’s sales team then assigns the right sales officer (SO) to visit that retailer. With this feature, retailers can ask for a product, provide feedback, or raise complaints directly through the Badho app.
   
   

2. SOs get high-intent leads

   Instead of blind beat visits, sales officers can engage with retailers who genuinely want to stock the products, thereby increasing conversion rates.
   
   

3. Badho’s Tele-calling team fills the gaps

   If demand comes from an area where an SO is unable to visit, Badho’s tele-calling executives step in to facilitate the sales for the brand and ensure that the orders are captured successfully.
   
   

4. Brands gain data-driven insights

   Every request is tracked and analysed, giving brands a clear view of demand patterns across SKUs and regions.

The Badho Advantage: More Sales with the Same Sales Team

The impact of Request a Visit is measurable and significant:

• Higher conversion rates

  Traditional SO visits have a productive call rate of 40% (240 out of 600 visits result in sales). With Request a Visit, inbound requests show an 80% conversion rate in inbound inquiries, adding possibly 40-80 extra productive calls per month, significantly overall efficiency.
  
  

• Better resource utilization

  Salespeople will no longer need to make wasted visits to stores that don’t need restocking, which will improve salesforce optimization.
  
  

• Motivated sales teams

  With higher success rates, SOs will be more engaged, which will subsequently lower overall attrition.
  
  

• Scalable growth for brands 

  Without increasing the size of their sales teams, brands will be able to generate more revenue and penetrate new markets.

Minimal Effort, Maximum Impact

For brands, integrating Request a Visit is effortless. They simply need to:

• Share SO contact numbers and pin codes with Badho.
• Receive leads via WhatsApp and track them on a centralized dashboard.
• Monitor granular insights, including product-specific demand and regional trends.

With 20,000 daily active users (DAU) and 100+ consumer companies already leveraging this feature, Badho is generating up to 2 million new opportunities daily. If we were to convert even 1% of this potential, we are talking about converting 20,000 opportunities for our customers every day. 

Why wouldn’t any FMCG company want to capitalize on this massive ready-to-be-tapped revenue goldmine?

The Future: Marrying Tech with Traditional Sales for Smarter Distribution

Badho isn’t here to replace traditional sales structures, we are here to enhance them. By combining smart technology with conventional distribution networks, Badho is making trade sales more dynamic, data-driven, and retailer-friendly. In a market where distribution is the real moat, brands that adopt smarter sales models will win.

The future of FMCG sales isn’t just about selling, it’s about selling smarter. And with Request a Visit, Badho is showing you how.