In the past, distributors were the "channel hub," relying on wholesale price differences to maintain profits. But now, they not only bear the pressure of upstream inventory push, but the downstream retail landscape is also undergoing disruptive restructuring. Brand direct supply and platform direct sourcing have left distributors squeezed in the middle.

"The current market is sluggish even in peak season, with inventory piling up and business becoming increasingly unstable. Many of our peers are contracting, and quite a few are switching industries..." During market visits in the first half of the year, many distributor owners expressed similar sentiments.

When trying to expand channels, looking to traditional e-commerce often gets a cold shower. Ad spending is increasingly expensive, customer acquisition costs remain high, and return rates can reach as high as 50-60%. After hiring customer service, graphic designers, ad specialists, and operations staff, the monthly accounting shows: sales are up, but profits are gone.

For the current market, the real problem is not that there are no opportunities, but that traditional business logic is gradually failing, and dividends are shifting. The new information gap for making money has not been seen.

On Dewu, we saw a completely different set of distributor cases: without spending a penny on ad traffic, they achieved their annual profit target within two months of joining, sales doubled for three consecutive years, and a 7-person team achieved annual sales of 170 million yuan.

"Today's business is not about not being able to spend money, but about how to spend it precisely and with high returns. For example, our operations on Dewu almost fully meet our needs for low cost, sustained profits, and worry-free earnings," shared a distributor owner operating on Dewu.

This is not just a story of explosive orders; it signifies that new opportunities for FMCG distributors are quietly unfolding on Dewu.

Zero Experience, Two-Person Operation

FMCG Distributors Find New Ways to Make Money on Dewu

In conversations with distributors, it's easy to feel that "difficulty" is a common consensus about the current business environment.

For many FMCG distributor owners engaged in traditional business (offline stores + traditional platforms), the sentiment is almost identical: It's not that the goods are bad, but that they simply don't sell.

Without ad spending, almost no one sees you; with ad spending, ROI is frighteningly low. If you're even slightly slow, your store gets drowned in a sea of homogeneous products. Beauty industry merchants commonly report that on traditional platforms, marketing expenses can account for 30-40% of total costs, and some live-stream rooms even see ad spending reach 60-70%.

  • High labor costs: Customer service, graphic designers, ad specialists, and operations are essential, requiring a small team of over ten people, leading to high fixed costs.
  • High return rates: For categories like food and beauty, return rates are typically 10-20%, and for apparel, which has high return rates, it can even reach 50-60%. Each return not only means evaporated profits but also logistics and after-sales costs.
  • Squeezed profits: Under these comprehensive costs, distributors often lament: "Sales are up, but profits are gone."

On Dewu, all of this is redefined.

Good products are the first element on Dewu. "We didn't invest in ad traffic; we relied purely on product volume and the platform's natural traffic. Dewu provided us with 1-on-1 operations support, from store opening, product listing to activities, assisting throughout. We only handle supply and shipping," said a daily chemical and beauty distributor from Shenzhen. "Our team is just two people, and within less than a month of joining, we sold 60,000 orders, with transaction volume reaching 11 million yuan."

Even zero-experience merchants can quickly get up to speed on Dewu. Dewu offers 1-on-1 service and semi-managed operations to help merchants solve store opening, operations, and activity challenges; the overall return rate is only around 10%, with the food industry even lower at 0.02%; the fastest payment cycle is 7 days, minimizing capital pressure; and labor efficiency is extremely high, with a 3-5 person team capable of handling the entire operation.

A general merchandise distributor also had a two-person team and achieved in one year on Dewu what took 5-8 years on other platforms. He shared: "Dewu allows small teams to do large-scale business. As long as you capture the young consumer group, growth is unlimited."

The success of this model is not accidental. Dewu's logic breaks the traditional mindset that "more people means more capability": product quality first, low entry barriers, low return rates, fast payment, and high labor efficiency, allowing distributors to focus on supply chain management and product selection rather than complex operational processes.

A 3C product distributor shared: "My business was mediocre on other channels, but after joining Dewu, I operated with just one person, got orders on the first day, and reached 3 million yuan in transactions within 15 days. The return rate was under 10%, the accounts were clear, and almost every order was real profit."

This means that for distributors, there's no need to "understand e-commerce" or have a large team. As long as they have quality supply, they can easily start on Dewu.

90% Natural Traffic, Low-Cost Advantage

Dewu Safeguards Merchants

Ad spending and cost issues are pain points for many distributors doing online business.

Even if they achieve sales on traditional online platforms, many distributors still say they "can't make money." The reasons are simple: high ad spending and high return rates. For FMCG categories with already low gross margins, distributors often "do more but earn less."

Therefore, how to use low costs to gain high traffic and high conversion rates on the platform has become key to online business.

This is exactly Dewu's advantage: while driving sales, profits can also be retained.

On Dewu, in the early stages, as long as products have quality, reasonable prices, and meet young consumers' preferences, merchants can enjoy 90% free, high-quality traffic. Through content community seeding, the conversion from traffic to sales can also be accelerated.

For merchants with budgets or those wanting to launch new products, using promotion tools can even get up to 100% cashback, further reducing traffic costs by 3-4%. Currently, some newly joined merchants have received million-level support.

A typical example is Baoshuhang, a liquor distributor from Guangdong: leveraging Dewu's "New Merchant Support Plan," they obtained homepage exposure resources and full-reduction subsidies, breaking 1 million yuan in sales within just three months, with young consumers accounting for over 80%. These young consumers are precisely the future main force of FMCG categories.

The platform's policy advantages are fully reflected in actual operations: low fee rates, traffic support, and targeted support for new merchants allow distributors to rapidly scale without high investment. Many merchants find that Dewu's traffic and support strategies free them from worrying about early-stage ad spending, and the saved costs directly convert into profits.

Additionally, Dewu has a series of policy advantages:

  • 1 billion yuan fee subsidy: Can reduce costs by up to 16 percentage points, directly saving merchants money;
  • 10 billion yuan traffic subsidy: The richer the product assortment, the more traffic entrances, and popular products loved by young people receive traffic support;
  • Targeted support for new merchants: High-quality new products get faster exposure for cold starts.

This low-cost, high-efficiency model gives many distributors who were hesitant about online channels the confidence to shift from wholesale to retail, achieving new profit growth.

Capturing 500 Million Young Consumers

Dewu Provides Merchants with More Precise Trend Insights

If low barriers and fee advantages solve the problem of "how to get started," then the young consumer group determines whether they can "run long-term."

Currently, young people have become the absolute main force in the FMCG market. However, there has always been a gap between traditional channels and young people. Advertising is almost ineffective for them, innovative packaging and flavors fail to impress, and relying on offline store observations to spot trends is often lagging.

Dewu has over 500 million users, with 90% being post-90s. Nearly one in two post-95s nationwide uses Dewu.

These young users have several typical characteristics: they have purchasing power; they value quality and are willing to pay for "trendy, gift-giving, and IP collaborations"; their consumption behavior is diverse, buying for themselves and for gifts.

A home care distributor from Anhui shared with New Distribution: "Previously, I chose products based on offline store sales rankings. Now I directly look at what young people talk about and buy in the Dewu community, which gives faster feedback."

On Dewu, young people's consumption habits generally lean towards the following:

  • Festival consumption: Gift boxes for Mid-Autumn Festival, Halloween, Christmas, New Year, etc., see sales 3-5 times higher than usual;
  • IP collaborations: Sanrio, Strawberry Bear, Yili x Line Friends sell out immediately upon launch, and some products are spontaneously shared by users on Xiaohongshu, Weibo, etc., driving online buzz and feeding back to other platforms' product assortments;
  • Community seeding: Users share shopping experiences, naturally driving conversions. One merchant shared that 40% of traffic comes from community content.

For merchants, capturing just one of these characteristics can lead to rapid growth on Dewu.

Furthermore, brands on Dewu can also plan their layout based on different product attributes.

For example, based on seasonal attributes, expand categories, capture natural traffic, and create bestsellers. Dewu users have a clear mindset for purchasing trendy apparel and other categories, often browsing and buying on the platform during season changes, so there is a wave of natural traffic each season. This also drives traffic for beauty, sports outdoor, jewelry, and other categories during season changes, with stable traffic.

For example, the daily chemical and personal care brand OHBT grew from an average monthly GMV of 200,000 yuan in 2022 to over 2.5 million yuan this year, with monthly revenue increasing more than 10-fold. Its best-selling salicylic acid essence has sold over 85,000 units. Last June, they focused on summer personal care categories on Dewu, and from mid-September, based on Dewu's winter personal care trends like lip balms and body lotions, they launched body lotions and lip balms. By Q4, body lotion sales directly ranked in the brand's top 3.

Selecting products based on young people's valued preferences, product efficacy, and traits makes it easier to create hits. For example, the personal care brand Hanboli noticed that platform users value ingredients and efficacy, with popular ingredients/effects like "whitening ingredient 377, salicylic acid, waterproof mascara" gaining traction. They launched salicylic acid ointment, selling over 10,000 units, mascara over 6,000 units, and lip balm over 7,000 units, successfully creating hits. The brand achieved 1 million yuan in GMV within two months of joining.

Merchants who better understand young people also create similar product bundles to meet their needs, enriching choices and increasing average order value and profits. A merchant from the gold and jewelry brand Jinfu Jixiang shared that after a garnet single bracelet gained traction on Dewu, some women mentioned wanting to give it to their boyfriends, so the merchant created a "couple's set" of two bracelets. Seeing comments about users wanting the same style with best friends, they also created a "bestie set." Then, noticing the high discussion of "mysticism" among young people, they optimized the copy to include phrases like "blessing" and "turning luck around." As a result, over 76,000 people purchased this product, making it a huge hit.

Seize the characteristics of gift boxes to find more precise consumer groups. The emerging beauty merchant Zhidou joined Dewu in Q3 of last year. By understanding Dewu's gift-giving and demographic characteristics, they quickly listed gift box sets, acne treatment serums, mud masks, and other high-potential products. It is reported that Dewu also provided product listing guidance, and within two months, the gift box set became the top 1 product; within half a year, the brand achieved 1 million yuan in GMV.

In the past, brands that achieved rapid growth on Dewu include the well-known Dove chocolate, which broke 10 million yuan in monthly sales just three months after joining; Blue Moon, by targeting young renters and adjusting to "small sizes, refined packaging," achieved 1000% month-over-month growth, with a one-person team selling 1 million yuan per month; and Banmu Huatian, which achieved 20 million yuan in actual transactions in one year, a 400% increase.

We will find that, unlike traditional e-commerce, Dewu is not just a sales platform but more like an outpost for young consumer trends. The dividends it brings to merchants and brands go far beyond short-term sales growth, extending to the accumulation of long-term value.

Final Thoughts

The story of the FMCG market in the coming years is quietly unfolding on Dewu.

By aggregating the needs of young customers, standing from the consumer's perspective, and promoting efficient matching between demand and supply, the platform truly manages "products and customers." Today, the core reason Dewu can quickly run FMCG categories is that it solves three key problems:

From "can't sell" to "easily explosive orders," lowering the barrier to e-commerce;

Precise natural traffic and low-cost operations truly preserve profit margins;

Helping merchants "understand young people" brings long-term consumer trend dividends.

For merchants accustomed to offline efforts, this is not just a new channel but a completely new business logic.

Platform support policies further strengthen the advantages: fee subsidies, traffic support, targeted support for new merchants, marketing cashback, etc., helping distributors rapidly scale during the dividend period.

While most are still consumed by offline competition, merchants who seize Dewu's dividends and leverage information gaps are already running faster and faster on Dewu. Merchants who want to learn more about platform dividends and money-making information gaps can scan the QR code at the end of the article to get the latest business opportunities.