Best Channel Management Software

In today's market, the distribution of goods is a complex process that involves various intermediaries such as wholesalers, distributors, retailers, and value-added resellers.

Managing these sales channels and ensuring that products reach the end customers can be a daunting task for manufacturers. To tackle this challenge, companies are increasingly turning to channel management software to help them manage their sales channels effectively.

What Is Channel Management Software?

Channel management software has been created for hotels and other hospitality enterprises to manage numerous channels of booking in real time. With so many online booking sites accessible nowadays, hotels might profit from having a presence on all of them.

However, tracking each individual booking on each platform can become onerous, thus a hotel channel manager that connects all of these many sales channels can help a hotel keep organized without overbooking.

Channel managers can also aid in revenue management and rate parity across all channels. Because search engines are such an important component of hotel marketing nowadays, hotel channel managers make certain that a brand is consistent throughout internet booking engines.

This can save hotel marketing teams a lot of time by reducing the need to monitor many channels in different locations. All of this data will be housed in one location by a single channel management platform.

Channel management software is widely utilized in areas such as manufacturing, financial services, technology, education, and healthcare.

The prevalent deployment framework is cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS), which allows for simple access to data from anywhere. Furthermore, companies are also providing mobile access to channel management services, making it more easy for consumers on the road.

Who Uses Channel Management Software?

Channel management software is particularly useful for the hospitality industry, including hotel marketers, online travel agents, and hoteliers. By using channel management software, businesses can reach more customers, manage bookings and payments, and plan efficient marketing campaigns.

Let’s discuss how channel management software helps the users:

1. Hotel Marketers

   Marketers can use the information gathered by channel managers to plan efficient marketing campaigns and expand the hotel's brand reach. A hotel can reach more customers if it employs more booking channels. Marketers may also discover which channels are more successful than others, allowing them to focus their efforts and attention on the ones that are failing.

2. Online Travel Agents

   Online travel operators can employ channel managers to swiftly and conveniently book hotel rooms for their clients. Many channel managers will link with the GDS (global distribution system), which collects and distributes hotel inventory and rates to travel agents and websites. This data makes it simple for travel agencies to identify the greatest bargains for their customers.

3. Hoteliers

   Channel management software can help hoteliers, particularly small businesses, handle all of their bookings across many channels. Because certain channel managers contain payment gateways, receiving and tracking payments for correct accounting becomes simple. All of this information in one place might be essential for smaller hotels with only one or two administrators.

Why Use Channel Management Software?

A skilled hotel channel manager will assist a hotel in keeping an accurate inventory availability record, increasing booking across channels, and streamlining the client experience. Online booking is now almost universal, and channel managers enable bookings to be made on more than one website.

1. Inventory Management

   If you list your rooms on numerous booking platforms, a channel manager can consolidate all of that information in one spot so you can see how many rooms have been booked and on which platform. This helps to avoid overbooking and ensures that room availability is consistent across all channels.

2. Sales Data

   A channel manager can collect data from a wide range of booking sites, allowing them to observe when the majority of bookings occur, which rooms are the most popular, and which pricing plans are the most profitable. This data can be used to direct future sales and marketing campaigns. Sales teams can use data from a channel manager immediately by linking it with a CRM software solution.

3. Market Intelligence

   A decent hotel channel manager will make it simple to examine how your inventory compares to that of your competitors. Each hotel channel operates slightly differently, so determining which ones work best for your company is critical. With real-time inventory updates, you can observe what is stagnating and what isn't, as well as how to enhance the stagnant channels.

Features of Channel Management Software

Let's explore some of the essential features of Channel Management Software, including booking management, inventory management, integrations, and marketing tools.

1. Booking Manager

   A booking manager will accept reservations from numerous channels and send them to your property management system so that inventory may be appropriately updated. A competent booking management will also show you which bookings are made on which channels.

2. Inventory Management

   Inventory management is critical in a channel manager to avoid overbooking rooms. A pooled inventory will allow you to display all of your available rooms across all channels, and it will be updated as rooms are booked through multiple booking engines. These real-time updates will prevent sites from presenting goods that is no longer available.

3. Budget Planning

   Channel management software plays a critical role in budget planning as well. These tools constantly track historical data, past revenue, booking trends, and seasonal traffic across various channels and occupancy charts to assist with planning budgets and determining rates.

4. Integrations

   When using a channel manager, integration with technologies already in use by your hotel can make life a lot easier. This makes it simple to send data directly to sales teams and provide booking information to the property management system, front desk staff, and your revenue management system. Channel managers may bridge the gap between your online presence and your team by integrating with your existing technologies.

5. Marketing Tools

   Getting your hotel listed on various sites is the first stage; the next steps involve ensuring that those listings are noticed. You may use the data offered by these many channels to boost your presence and increase bookings using marketing tools incorporated in your channel manager.

Benefits of Channel Management Software

Channel Management Software provides various benefits to businesses by streamlining their operations and enhancing the customer experience. It enables businesses to efficiently manage their channel partners, optimize inventory levels, and improve account management.

Let’s explore the various benefits of Channel Management Software in detail.

1. Increased Customer Satisfaction

   Several sets of clients may be satisfied throughout the chain. The future consumer is ultimately important to the producer, yet the consumer is rarely the manufacturer's customer. Partner management software increases visibility into the entire channel at each step.

2. Live Inventory Updates

   Channel management tools provide one-click access and update to inventory and rates across all of your managed channels and provide real-time insight into the availability of rooms. A channel management system automatically updates room reservations or cancellations on multiple sales channels and saves all details in the channel manager database.

3. Recall Management

   If a product must be recalled, CM promptly notifies downstream partners. Rapid, prompt action can limit harm and minimize negative publicity.

4. Better Inventory Analysis and Reporting

   Inventory levels can be kept at optimal levels with CM. Orders can be generated manually or automatically, but in either case, CM can track downstream partners' inventory trends and help the supplier predict needed inventory levels and manufacturing requirements more accurately.

5. Enhanced Global Visibility

   More than half of travel reservations are made online, and the best channel management system enables you to link to as many booking channels as possible, thus, providing global visibility. With the help of a channel management tool, you can connect with travellers from across the globe, which is impossible with traditional booking methods. In addition, it helps you build a complete image for your brand and, thus, more trust and credibility.

6. Improved Operational Productivity and Efficiency

   A channel management platform functions as a bridge between your PMS dashboard and online channels. It lets you focus on core administrative tasks without investing too much time and resources in your distribution channels and excel sheets. It provides an intuitive dashboard that helps you manage all sales channels in one go. This gives you and your staff more time to focus on crucial tasks, thus, improving operational efficiency.

7. Better Account Management

   CM systems aggregate partner information, providing reps with insights to boost both sales and customer satisfaction. When a VAR phones in an order, for example, the rep can check to see whether the customer is close to price breaks or order levels that would exceed co-op advertising funds.

Challenges of Channel Management Software

Channel management software are the tools and systems that businesses employ to manage their sales and distribution networks. Retailers, wholesalers, and online marketplaces are all examples of channel distribution channels. While channel management software can provide many benefits to businesses, it also has certain drawbacks. Let's look at some of the major challenges with channel management software.

1. Integration

   One of the most difficult aspects of channel management software is integrating it with other systems currently in use by the company. Integrating with customer relationship management (CRM) software, inventory management systems, and accounting software is part of this. Integration can be difficult and time-consuming, necessitating careful preparation and execution.

2. Data Management

   Managing big amounts of data from numerous channels is another issue for channel management software. Data from numerous sources, like sales transactions, inventory levels, and customer comments, must be collected, stored, and analyzed by the program. This necessitates strong data management skills as well as the capacity to provide accurate and timely reports.

3. Channel Conflict

   Channel management software can also cause channel conflict, which occurs when numerous channels compete for the same product sales. This can result in pricing wars, discounting, and other unfavourable outcomes. Channel management software that is effective must be able to balance the needs of various channels and ensure that each channel receives its fair share of sales and earnings.

4. Training & Adoption

   Channel management software is only useful if the workers in charge of managing channels use it correctly. This necessitates training and adoption programs to ensure that personnel are familiar with and understand how to utilize the software properly. Channel management software might become a burden rather than a benefit if not properly trained and adopted.

5. Security & Privacy

   Channel management software must be safe and protect important data such as client information, pricing, and sales data. This necessitates strong security measures and the ability to regulate access to sensitive data.

How To Choose The Right Channel Management Software?

Choosing the right channel management software can make a big difference in managing and optimizing your hotel or vacation rental property's online distribution. It can help you automate tasks, increase efficiency, and expand your reach to multiple channels.

To make an informed decision, it's important to evaluate your needs, research available options, and compare features and pricing of vacation rental management software.

1. Partner Readiness

   Is it possible for your downstream partners to easily exploit your solution? Each distribution channel will have variable levels of technological preparedness and willingness to accept new technologies. Some features, such as product demonstration, should be simple to deploy, while others, such as integrated marketing, may require the assistance of your more sophisticated partners.

2. Marketing Channel Strategies

   Are you a B2B or B2C company, or both? These necessitate distinct marketing channel tactics. Examine the product characteristics to ensure that they easily answer the needs of your target market.

3. Integrations

   Is it necessary to link this software with existing systems like PRM, CRM, or ERP? Check that the channel marketing management platform you buy can simply interface with the various systems of record you already have.

List of Top 5 Channel Management Software Comparison

Name	Free Trial	Demo	Starting Price
STAAH	Yes	Yes	Starting with $80.00/month
Hostaway	Yes	Yes	Customized Pricing
Cloudbeds	Yes	Yes	Customized Pricing
Mindmatrix	Yes	Yes	Starting with $15 user/month
DataFeedWatch	Yes	Yes	Starting with $59/month

Looking for the best channel management software? Look no further. In this list, we have curated the top 5 channel management software with their pricing, features, pros, and cons. Whether you are a small business owner or a large enterprise, you are sure to find the perfect fit for your needs.

1. STAAH

STAAH Channel Manager, a prominent channel management software, is a cloud-based program that includes all of the tools needed to handle business requirements. It is a real-time program that serves as a valuable resource for properties of all sizes.

The easy dashboard includes a 200+ hotel channel manager interface with OTAs, GDS, and others, as well as quick alerts on rate changes, availability, and tracking. It effectively handles the entire business channel and boosts workflow output.

Features

• Channel analytics
• Inventory control
• Order management
• Partner management
• Product management
• Reseller management

Pros

• User-friendly interface
• Easy to use & teach
• Boosts business
• Supportive staff
• Great customer service

Cons

• Time-consuming login process
• Reluctant to work on suggestions for improvements
• Cloud-based, could be difficult to use without internet access.

Pricing

• Starting from: $80.00/month
• Free Trial: Available

2. Hostaway

Hostaway is a one-of-a-kind vacation rental software with excellent support and deep channel connections with major OTAs such as Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com. Hostaway offers property managers the flexibility of the most modern systems while remaining user-friendly. Hostaway's marketplace includes over 100 integrated software partners in addition to the industry-leading PMS and Channel management. Many activities will be automated and streamlined by these companies, making daily living easier.

Features

• Campaign management
• Channel analytics
• Lead management
• Opportunity management
• Order management
• Partner management
• Reseller management
• Rates & availability management
• Property data management
• Revenue management

Pros

• Excellent experience & integrations
• Intuitive & user-friendly software
• Helps with various business aspects
• Good customer support & constant updates
• Easy to use with good design

Cons

• Delayed response time
• Double bookings and poor support
• Limited functionality and restrictions

Pricing

• Customized Pricing

3. Cloudbeds

It is a cloud-based and channel management software that allows hotel businesses to run smoother operations with more capabilities at their disposal. Cloudbeds connect all properties to hundreds of channels available with automated and real-time results, providing users with two-way connection. It is a combination of hotel management, channel management, and booking software that makes the organization's work easier and more efficient, resulting in happier customers.

Features

• Access controls/permissions
• Activity dashboard
• Activity tracking
• Availability management
• Billing & invoicing
• Billing rate management
• Booking management
• Booking notes

Pros

• Excellent results and support
• Improved sales since switching
• Useful reports and features
• Integration with booking sites
• Easy to use with great customer service

Cons

• High bounce rate
• No accounting reports
• No warning for dirty rooms
• Group reservation process
• Unable to add total service and tax charges

Pricing

• Customized Pricing

4. Mindmatrix

Mindmatrix is a sales channel management software that offers both direct and indirect sales channels. It provides a unified platform that integrates PRM software, marketing automation software, and marketing asset management. An all-in-one solution for sales, marketing, and promotion that assists businesses in increasing their efficiency and revenue. The key features of this software include automation, CRM connection, tailored sales presentations, 360-degree prospect view, partner portal, and so on.

Features

• Campaign management
• Channel analytics
• Incentive management
• Lead management
• Opportunity management
• Partner management
• Product management
• Reseller management

Pros

• Easy to use
• Fabulous customer service
• Robust functionality
• Secure for channel marketing
• Integration with CRM/PSA

Cons

• Confusing navigation
• Ticketing for user management
• Poor email support
• Sharing inconsistencies
• High SPAM occurrence

Pricing

• Sales Enablement for Channel/Reps: $15 user/month
• Sales Enablement for Direct Sales: $30 user/month

5. DataFeedWatch

DataFeedWatch is a non-technical channel management platform that enables merchants and agencies to improve data feeds as well as puts the power of data feed optimization in the hands of marketers. It is a low-cost program that delivers precise cost and revenue statistics on the product level, finding and deleting costly products with a single click. It improves the productivity of commercial enterprises. It improves the company's overall marketing campaign.

Features

• Campaign management
• Alerts/notifications
• Channel analytics
• Channel management
• Data import/export
• Data synchronization
• Inventory tracking

Pros

• Intuitive and easy to use
• Great support team
• Flexible
• Customizable

Cons

• Limited attribute editing
• Incorrect URL charges

Pricing

• Shop: $59/month
• Merchant: $79/month
• Agency: $199/month

Market Trends of Channel Management Software

As the hospitality and travel industries continue to evolve, so too does the technology that supports them. Channel management software has become increasingly important for hotels, vacation rentals, and other businesses looking to efficiently manage their online distribution across multiple channels.

Let's take a closer look at these trends and their impact on the industry.

1. Consolidation with CRM

   Most channel management functions are integrated into CRM and SFM systems or are featured in CRM solutions from enterprise suite suppliers. Stand-alone channel management systems are becoming increasingly rare, yet CRM and SFM systems could be used for stand-alone channel management if required.

2. Software as a Service (SaaS)

   The software as a service (SaaS) paradigm is becoming increasingly popular in CRM. A cloud-based model allows all partners to access relevant information as long as they have a Web browser and Internet connectivity.

3. Web Integration

   Even on-premises suppliers provide Web access to their partners. This allows downstream partners to check their accounts, view order status, place orders, and track monies in co-op accounts.

4. Mobile Operations

   Most channel management systems may be accessed via mobile devices and offer email and text message notifications.

5. Automatic Ordering

   One benefit of having systems from both partners connected is automatic order placement or vendor-managed inventories. For instance, a retail store's inventory system keeps track of how many television sets it has in stock when it sells a certain model. By communicating with the provider's channel management system, the inventory system will automatically place an order with the supplier when that number drops below a predetermined level.

Related Software Categories

Channel management software is a powerful tool that helps businesses manage their sales and distribution channels. It automates the process of inventory management, sales tracking, and order fulfilment, among other things.

In addition to channel management software, there are several related software categories that businesses can use to streamline their operations and boost their revenue. These include club management software, vacation rental software, eCommerce software, and church management software, each tailored to specific industries and business models.

1. Club Management Software: Club membership software is as popular as club management software. In general, this form of software is beneficial to associations and clubs. If you are a member of any organization or club, this is a fantastic alternative for you to run your business and deliver great customer care.

2. Vacation Rental Software: Vacation rental software is the best software for vacation home owners. Essentially, it is a blend of hotel and property management software. It's quite cool and includes software to boost vacation rental revenue.

3. eCommerce Software: If you want to expand your business through online portals, you should look for e-commerce software that provides you with round-the-clock services and assists you in maintaining a seamless e-commerce platform.

4. Church Management Software: Church management software is a specific type of computer program created to assist churches and other religious organizations in managing, automating, and organizing all of their daily operations.

Pricing Models of Channel Management Software

There are two main pricing models channel marketing management vendors use: perpetual license and subscription.

1. Perpetual License

   On-premises implementations typically use the older, more traditional perpetual license model. It entails paying a one-time charge for a license to use the software. For modest installations, one-time licensing fees can range from $2,000 to more than $24,000.

2. Subscription

   For SaaS applications, the subscription price model is often utilized. Typically, vendors charge by the employee or per user each month. Subscription options might cost as little as $30 per month or as much as $295 per month or more.

Final Thoughts

So, these are some of the best channel management solutions to consider for marketers. However, before deciding on the finest platform, determine your business and marketing requirements. Ultimately, you will be able to make more educated decisions in this area.