ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the under-researched topic of loyalty management activities that target not final consumers but channel partners, that is, resellers and distributors as well as salespeople. Business-to-business loyalty management has evolved in the context of a modernizing retail sector and the rise of store loyalty as opposed to brand loyalty to maintain control over increasingly indispensable channel members. It has been found to serve a variety of marketing goals that have evolved from sell in to sell out to retention/relationship-building, and is often charged with the goal of collecting precious information on channel partners. The diffusion of new digital media, devices and players that we described for business-to-consumer is taking place in the business-to-business domain as well.
