Hamid Irani - Ph.D. Candidate, Faculty of Management, Qom Campus, University of Tehran, Qom, Iran
Kamran Shahanaghi - Faculty of Industrial engineering, Iran University of Science and technology, Tehran, Iran
Gholamreza Jandaghi - Faculty of Management, Qom Campus, University of Tehran, Qom, Iran

This study seeks to examine how a company can select the best intermediary for its Marketing channels with minimum of criteria and time. A theoretical framework is proposed based on the most important tasks of intermediary and the criteria to measure them. There are four basic tasks and thirty criteria in three independent levels. Subsequently, an exploratory case study in Iranian Food industry is described to illustrate the value of the framework. It is possible to apply the theoretical framework to select the intermediary for any industry or country. However, there might be possible location-specific or industry-specific limitations. Moreover, the framework has proved to be useful in improving the selection of the intermediary in marketing channel. This is a notable and promising side-effect of the exploratory study, at least from a managerial point of view.

Channel design, Channel members, Distribution channel, Marketing channel, selection criteria