Some distribution costs are kept up by competitive pressure, some by the fact that the customers have come to expect certain niceties and flourishes. No manufacturer has taken the initiative in pointing out the costs involved.

The use of bulk handling is continuously growing. Computers are being used to keep branch inventories at more workable levels. ``Selective selling'' -- concentrating sales on the larger accounts -- has been used effectively by some manufacturers.

There may be possible economies at any one of a number of links in your marketing and distribution chain. Do you have a program for scrutinizing all these links regularly and carefully -- and with some imagination? In your sales force, will a smaller number of higher-priced, high quality salesmen serve you best, or can you make out better with a larger number of lower paid salesmen?

Will your trade customers settle for less attention and fewer frills in return for some benefit they can share? In one company covering the country with a high quality sales force of 10 men, the president personally phones each major account every 6 mos.. As a result, distribution costs were cut, customer relations improved.

Distribution costs are almost bound to increase in the sixties -- and you will never know what you can do to control them unless you study each element and experiment with alternative ways of doing the job.