---
title: When Your Direct Team and Resellers Chase One Customer
description: "Set rules before your direct team and resellers in Japan collide: deal registration like Dell's 90 days, named accounts, rep pay, and no fixing resale prices."
image: https://nobusato.jp/hubfs/covers-2026-11/direct-sales-vs-resellers-japan-cover-en-2026-10-m.png
---

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en?hsLang=en)

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[日本語](https://nobusato.jp/ja/blog/direct-sales-vs-resellers-japan)[English](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/direct-sales-vs-resellers-japan)[中文](https://nobusato.jp/zh/blog/direct-sales-vs-resellers-japan)

Launching in Japan

In this article

1. [What channel conflict looks like in Japan](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/direct-sales-vs-resellers-japan#s1)
2. [Who found the customer first?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/direct-sales-vs-resellers-japan#s2)
3. [Split the customers before you register deals](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/direct-sales-vs-resellers-japan#s3)
4. [You can't protect reseller margins by fixing their prices](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/direct-sales-vs-resellers-japan#s4)
5. [Pay your direct reps so they don't fight the channel](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/direct-sales-vs-resellers-japan#s5)
6. [What one stolen deal costs in Japan](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/direct-sales-vs-resellers-japan#s6)

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2. [Articles](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog?hsLang=en)
3. [Launching in Japan](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/tag/launching-in-japan)

# When Your Direct Team and Resellers Chase One Customer

Deal registration, account splits, rep pay

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)7 min read

Contents6

1. [What channel conflict looks like in Japan](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/direct-sales-vs-resellers-japan#s1)
2. [Who found the customer first?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/direct-sales-vs-resellers-japan#s2)
3. [Split the customers before you register deals](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/direct-sales-vs-resellers-japan#s3)
4. [You can't protect reseller margins by fixing their prices](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/direct-sales-vs-resellers-japan#s4)
5. [Pay your direct reps so they don't fight the channel](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/direct-sales-vs-resellers-japan#s5)
6. [What one stolen deal costs in Japan](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/direct-sales-vs-resellers-japan#s6)

If you run a direct sales team and resellers in Japan at the same time, write down who owns which customer before the first collision. In Japan the cost of one stolen deal shows up later, in how hard your reseller works for you over the next several years.

## What channel conflict looks like in Japan

Your direct team will usually collide with one of a few kinds of partner. Sales agencies (hanbai dairiten) sell to shops and small businesses. Resellers resell software and hardware. System integrators, the SIers, run IT for large companies. With agencies and resellers you fight over the same small and mid-sized customers. SIers are harder. In many large Japanese companies I have seen, the SIer effectively decides how the IT budget gets spent. Go around it to the customer and you are touching its business. Most of Japan's IT engineers sit on the vendor side, which I covered in [Three in Four IT Engineers in Japan Work for a Vendor](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-it-talent-in-vendors-73-percent?hsLang=en).

None of this is new. In a March 2004 column, IT journalist Katsuyuki Ohkawara described Japan's PC market at the time. Dell and HP Japan were growing online direct sales. Fujitsu and NEC, afraid of a backlash from their nationwide dealer networks, held back, and their online direct share stayed in the low single digits.

HP Japan's workaround is the interesting part. A customer ordered on HP's direct site, Direct Plus, and the product shipped straight from HP. The order form, though, went to a dealer, who took a margin and sold the customer the solution work and after-sales support. According to the column, about 70% of Direct Plus sales ran this way.

Twenty years later the lesson holds. You can run both channels. You have to decide how the money splits, and whose customer is whose, before the first fight.

## Who found the customer first?

Deal registration answers that. Every channel fight comes down to one sentence: I found this customer first. So the first rule you need says who registered first, how long the registration is protected, and when it doesn't count.

Dell Technologies publishes its rules. The February 2025 version of its Deal Registration Program Terms and Conditions, which applies worldwide except Latin America, is specific. The first partner to submit complete and accurate information wins. Before registering, the partner must already have done real sales work, such as meeting decision makers or helping define requirements, and must be able to show records of it. Dell normally answers within two business days.

An approved registration lasts 90 days. If the deal is at 30% or more, the partner can ask for another 90. Without special approval, the total can't exceed 270 days. While a deal is registered, Dell does not actively sell direct to that customer.

The exceptions are the part worth copying. Dell can still quote in several listed cases, among them when the customer asks Dell for a quote, when the customer bought directly from Dell in the previous 12 months, or when the customer turned down the partner's quote.

Dell wrote down who goes first, for how long, and the exceptions before any deal was fought over

Main terms of Dell Technologies' Deal Registration Program Terms and Conditions, February 2025 version (worldwide except Latin America)

1. 1First complete registration winsThe partner must have records of prior sales work, such as meeting decision makers
2. 2Answer within two business daysEnterprise deals may take longer
3. 390 days of protectionDell does not actively sell direct to a registered customer
4. 4Extensions have conditionsAnother 90 days if the deal is at 30% or more; 270 days in total without special approval
5. 5Exceptions in writingDell may quote if the customer asks Dell, bought direct from Dell in the last 12 months, or rejected the partner's quote

Most fights happen at the exceptions. The more specific they are, the less you settle conflicts through favors.

Figure 1. Dell's deal registration terms give priority to the first partner with complete information, promise an answer within two business days, protect a deal for 90 days (plus 90 at 30% progress, 270 days in total), and spell out when Dell may still quote, such as when the customer asks Dell or bought direct within 12 months.

You don't need Dell's numbers. You do need answers to the same questions. Without them, the head of your Japan entity ends up mediating every collision, and that is the most expensive time in the company.

## Split the customers before you register deals

Registration settles who reached a customer first. One step earlier, decide which customers should never collide at all.

The usual splits are by size (large enterprises direct, mid-sized and small through partners), by a named account list (direct owns a short list, everything else goes to channel), or by region. In [Product, sales, organization: why this order](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/method-product-sales-org?hsLang=en) I described the split I usually use. Resellers build volume. The direct team wins two or three reference customers.

Keep the named list short, fix it, and show it to your resellers first. When the list grows, resellers conclude that you kept the good customers and left them the hard ones. Once they believe that, good registration rules won't save the relationship.

## You can't protect reseller margins by fixing their prices

The obvious fix is to make direct and resellers quote the same price. In Japan, be careful.

The Japan Fair Trade Commission's Guidelines Concerning Distribution Systems and Business Practices under the Antimonopoly Act say that a manufacturer restricting a distributor's resale price is, in principle, an unfair trade practice and illegal. A suggested retail price is fine as a reference, but distributors must be free to set their own prices.

So protect resellers on the side you control. Give them a lower buy price on registered deals. Dell's terms work this way: registration is the route to better-than-standard pricing. Keep your direct team from quoting registered customers. Build the reseller margin into the price list from day one.

## Pay your direct reps so they don't fight the channel

Good rules fail if the comp plan points the other way.

A rep who is paid only on deals they close will look at a reseller's big customer and think, that should be mine. Anyone would. Seen from the other side, HP Japan's setup made sure dealers earned something even on direct orders, which removed a reason to fight.

I prefer to pay the rep for partner deals too. If a reseller closes a deal in the rep's territory, part of it counts toward the rep's number, at a lower rate than their own deals. Then the rep helps the reseller win. The right rate differs by company, and I don't have one that fits everywhere.

## What one stolen deal costs in Japan

Reseller relationships in Japan are measured in years, often in decades. A reseller may have served some customers for more than ten years, and those customers listen first to what it recommends. That weight is what [The country with the most century-old companies: why newcomers can't move customers](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/country-of-century-old-companies?hsLang=en) is about.

Take one deal from a reseller and you gain one contract. You lose your place in its sales reps' recommendation order for years, and you lose control of how it talks about you at industry gatherings. When a reseller isn't selling your product, the reason is usually that ranking, as I wrote in [Why your distributor isn't selling your product](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/why-your-distributor-isnt-selling?hsLang=en). One grab can push you from third back to tenth.

So before you launch direct and partner sales together in Japan, write the registration rules, the named account list and the rep comp plan, show them to your resellers, and only then sign the first one. Do it the other way round and you'll be paying for every collision afterward with favors.

This article is a general description of public documents and business practice, not legal advice. Before agreeing on resale prices, sales territories or customer restrictions, check the Japan Fair Trade Commission's guidelines in the original and consult a Japanese lawyer.

Sources (as of November 2026)

- [Dell Technologies, Deal Registration Program Terms and Conditions (February 2025)](https://www.delltechnologies.com/asset/ja-jp/solutions/business-solutions/legal-pricing/Deal-Registration-Terms.pdf)
- [Japan Fair Trade Commission, Guidelines Concerning Distribution Systems and Business Practices under the Antimonopoly Act (Japanese)](https://www.jftc.go.jp/dk/guideline/unyoukijun/ryutsutorihiki_files/ryutsutorihikigl_2026.pdf)
- [Katsuyuki Ohkawara, column on Japanese PC makers and online direct sales, Cloud Watch (March 30, 2004, Japanese)](https://cloud.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/column/ohkawara/370645.html)

---

Author

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)

Launching in Japan, starting with people and systems. I write about building organizations, sales teams and technology organizations in Japan, in English, Japanese and Chinese.

[Profile](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)[Contact](https://nobusato.jp/en/contact?hsLang=en)

## Read next

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