TOOLS AND METHODOLOGY FOR ASSESSING THE MANAGEMENT OF EXPORT POSITIONING OF ENVIRONMENTALLY ORIENTED PRODUCTS IN INTERACTION WITH A FOREIGN DISTRIBUTOR

The article substantiates a management mechanism for the export positioning of environmentally oriented products in interaction with an independent foreign distributor operating in a B2B market. The relevance of the study stems from the fact that access to the European Union market increasingly requires not only certified environmental credentials but also their consistent communication to the end consumer, a task typically controlled by the distributor rather than the manufacturer. It is shown that even a certified ecological status of a product does not guarantee its recognition by the end consumer whenever the distributor independently shapes marketplace communication without coordination with the manufacturer, tending instead to reduce positioning to price and sensory attributes. Drawing on D. Keller's brand equity model, the study develops a universal system of coordinated ecological positioning that combines four interrelated tools: a weekly monitoring protocol, a bilingual B2B catalogue, an annual on-site audit, and an original Export Positioning Index (EPI) built on the four levels of brand equity. The practical effectiveness of the mechanism has been tested on the case of Gold Drop Ukraine LLC (Asens ECO brand) and its Romanian distributor DETERGENTI PREMIUM SRL operating on the eMAG.ro marketplace. The diagnostics revealed a substantial structural gap between the catalogue assortment and the actual export structure, reaching 66.7%, while the calculated Export Positioning Index recorded a medium positioning level of 42 points, with the weakest results at the salience and credibility levels that directly depend on the distributor's marketing efforts; the mechanism allows the target index value to be raised to 75 points. The proposed toolkit is industry-agnostic and reproducible, and can be applied by any Ukrainian exporter of environmentally oriented products, from household chemicals to cosmetics and food products, entering the EU market through an independent foreign distributor. Prospects for further research are related to testing the model on other product categories and export markets, as well as extending the coordination mechanism to the stage of market diversification, when an enterprise positions its brand simultaneously through several distributors in different countries.