Retail Outlet Visit (Beat) Planning for FMCG Distributors in Nepal

A salesperson without a beat plan is a salesperson who visits the shops he likes. Friendly shopkeepers get three visits a month, a difficult but large wholesaler gets none, and the far village shops are "covered" only in the owner's imagination. A beat plan fixes this by deciding in advance who visits whom, how often, and in what order.

This guide shows a practical way to build beats for an FMCG, masala or beverage distributor in Nepal, with a worked example you can adapt.

What a beat plan is

A beat plan (also called a journey cycle plan or route plan) assigns outlets to a salesperson, groups them into daily routes, and sets how often each outlet is visited. The goal is simple: every outlet gets visited as often as its value justifies, and no travel time is wasted.

Step 1: Start from a reliable outlet list

You need name, owner, phone, outlet type, area and GPS location for every shop. If your list is in Excel or a paper book, spend a week with your senior salespeople to mark each outlet's location. For more on moving away from loose records see replacing paper order books, Excel and WhatsApp orders.

Step 2: Classify outlets by value

You do not need a complex model. Three classes are enough to begin:

Class	Typical outlet	Suggested visit frequency
A	Wholesalers, large kirana, supermarkets	Weekly, sometimes twice a week
B	Medium kirana, regular buyers	Every two weeks
C	Small or occasional shops, remote villages	Monthly

Base the class on actual monthly purchase value over the last three to six months, and on potential for new shops. Do not guess; use your invoices. The cut-offs depend on your product, so set them with your own numbers.

Step 3: Divide the territory

Draw the area on a map and split it so that each salesperson has a compact patch. Compactness matters more than equal outlet counts. A patch that jumps from Kalanki to Bhaktapur wastes hours.

Practical tips for Nepal:

• Respect natural barriers: rivers, ring road crossings, single-lane highways.
• In the Terai, plan along the highway corridor and build spokes into villages.
• In hill districts, plan multi-day trips with a fixed overnight base instead of daily returns.
• Account for local haat bazaar days and market closing days; shops are busiest, or closed, on certain days.

Step 4: Build daily routes

For each salesperson, group outlets so that one day's route stays in one area. Then order stops to minimise backtracking, usually a loop from the start point.

A worked, hypothetical example: a distributor in Kathmandu valley has one salesperson, Sita, with 180 outlets: 30 class A, 60 class B, 90 class C.

• Class A visited weekly: 30 visits per week.
• Class B every two weeks: 30 visits per week on average.
• Class C monthly: about 22 visits per week on average.

That is roughly 82 visits per week. Over 6 working days, about 14 visits a day, a comfortable load in dispersed areas. In a dense bazaar she could handle more, so you might give her additional outlets or reduce travel.

Then fix the days: Sunday Kalanki and Balaju, Monday Samakhushi, and so on, with class A outlets on the same weekday each week so shopkeepers know when to expect her.

Step 5: Set visit standards

A beat plan is only useful if visits are of consistent quality. Agree what happens at each stop:

1. Check in at the shop (location and photo).
2. Check closing stock and display.
3. Suggest the order based on last order and stock.
4. Collect any due payment. See collecting payments on time.
5. Record the order, or a no-order reason.
6. Agree the next visit.

Step 6: Measure against the plan

Plans matter only when compared with reality. Four numbers tell most of the story:

• Visit compliance: planned visits that happened, as a percentage.
• Strike rate: visits that produced an order.
• Average order value per visit.
• Lines per order: how many different products the shop bought.

If compliance is high but strike rate is low, the issue is pricing, stock or credit. If compliance is low, look at route length, holidays and attendance.

Common beat planning mistakes

• One-size-fits-all frequency. Visiting every shop fortnightly wastes time on small shops and starves large ones.
• Routes that never change. New outlets and closed shops should update beats every quarter.
• Ignoring holidays and festivals. Dashain and Tihar change shop hours and buying patterns; Nepali calendar events should shape the plan. Our article on Bikram Sambat and month-end closing covers calendar issues.
• Overloading the new salesperson. Give a newcomer a smaller beat while they learn.
• No link with dealers. If part of your volume goes through dealers, align beats with dealer delivery days. See primary vs secondary sales.

Handling exceptions

Beats should be firm but not rigid. Allow:

• Substitutes when someone is on leave, using the same list.
• Temporary changes for strikes or bandhs, with a recorded reason.
• Priority visits for large orders or complaints.

Adjusting beats for seasons and festivals

A beat plan that ignores the calendar will fail twice a year. Around Dashain and Tihar, shops stock up early, many close for several days, and salespeople take leave. Plan ahead:

• Front-load visits two to three weeks before the festival so shops can place larger orders.
• Reduce visits during the holiday days themselves and shift class C outlets later.
• Watch the monsoon. Landslides can close roads for days. Keep a short list of alternative stops for each route so a blocked road does not mean a lost day.
• Respect market days. If a bazaar has a weekly haat, visit before or after rather than during the busiest hours.

For the calendar details see Bikram Sambat, fiscal year and month-end closing.

Using the beat plan as a coaching tool

A beat plan is also the best coaching tool a sales manager has. A few ways to use it:

1. Ride along on a beat once a month with each salesperson, and look at the plan on the phone together.
2. Review dormant outlets: shops that have not ordered in 60 days and ask why. Often it is a missed delivery or an unsettled return, not a lost customer.
3. Look for white space: areas on the map with few outlets. Maybe there are shops you have never discovered. Ask salespeople to add them, and approve them after checking the location.
4. Link visits to objectives: for example, in one month focus on a new pack size in all class A shops. Track how many actually stock it.

Beat plan template

A simple sheet or screen for each salesperson can include:

Field	Example
Salesperson	Sita
Territory	Lalitpur
Day	Tuesday
Stop order	1 to 14
Outlet, class	Shrestha Store, A
Visit frequency	Weekly
Objective this month	Introduce 50 g pack

Keep it to what the person actually needs on the road. Long forms are not used.

How gamitrack handles it

In gamitrack, you create routes with ordered stops and assign them to salespeople. The salesperson's Today tab shows the stops; each visit is geofenced and can require a photo. Day start and end are recorded with GPS, attendance is derived automatically, and holidays and custom weekends are taken into account. You can draw territories on a map and group outlets into regions. Visits capture outcomes, no-order reasons and closing stock, which feed the strike rate and compliance numbers.

To build your first beat plan with your own outlets, start a free trial. If you distribute packaged foods or beverages, see our FMCG and beverages pages.

Key takeaways

• Classify outlets by value and visit them accordingly.
• Keep daily routes compact and the order of stops sensible.
• Fix visit days so shopkeepers can rely on you.
• Measure compliance, strike rate and order value, then revise beats every quarter.