Insight into consumer changes and diversified business development.

Author 丨Zhou Qun Proofreader 丨Gou Gou Layout 丨He Wen

In recent days, chatting with distributors, a very interesting topic came up: whether the distributor business has continuity. The distributor's answer was affirmative, because as can be seen from manufacturer meetings, many of those seated now are young people. Whether it's starting a business or inheriting one, as long as young blood continues to join, it shows that this business still has continuity.

While preparing the 'New Distribution·Distributor Member Club', New Distribution visited many distributors. We also had the same feeling: in the trading field, more and more young people are standing on the main stage.

A while ago, we interviewed a post-85s distributor, Zhong Guangtian, General Manager of Guangxi Nanliang Food Co., Ltd. After four years of entrepreneurship, he has represented brands such as Baixiang, Wolong, and Shuangqian Guiling膏. From traditional offline trading business to diversified development, combining online and offline, he has achieved sales exceeding 100 million. We hope his practices and experiences can provide some inspiration and food for thought for fellow distributors.

Business is not about experience, but about data

Before starting his business, Zhong Guangtian had been deeply involved in the FMCG industry. The difference is that in the past, he worked for manufacturers, doing market planning and managing distributors. It was precisely this work experience that made him more adept when he started his own trading company. Zhong Guangtian joked, "Previously, I helped distributors do market work; now I do it for myself. The role has changed, but the underlying logic is the same."

Many older-generation distributors rely more on experience, but Zhong Guangtian believes that today's business requires more efficient and refined management, which cannot be separated from data empowerment. In data management, Guangxi Nanliang Food cooperates with Zhoupu Data to connect the front and back ends, so that any business anomalies can be reflected through data feedback in the first time.

Zhong Guangtian told New Distribution, Distributors do a regional overall business, not a single store's business. Data can help distributors see changes in the overall business, rather than just changes in single sales volume. This is especially reflected in the business end. Distributors certainly hope that salesmen do incremental business, not existing business. But the reality is that many salesmen like to visit stores with good relationships, pressing inventory to complete sales tasks.

For example, a salesman is responsible for 200 stores, with a monthly sales task of 1 million. Visiting 50 customers completes the sales volume. In fact, there are still 150 customers, some of whom are potential major clients, but the salesman does not visit them diligently, and this incremental business is not actually done. For distributors, manual supervision is difficult to solve this problem, because the salesman is not doing nothing; it's just that the direction is not what the distributor wants. Digital tools can solve these problems. By comparing the data of the stores the salesman is responsible for, both month-on-month and year-on-year, it becomes clear where potential opportunities lie and what the next work focus should be. This also provides a reference for formulating sales plans and incentive schemes.

Similarly, on the customer side, based on customer sales data, salesmen can also help stores analyze their business. For example, for stores with low output, they can compare with similar stores with high output to see if it's a SKU issue or a visit issue, etc. Salesmen can flexibly adjust, which can increase store output and improve store relationships.

In Zhong Guangtian's view, business growth must be healthy growth. From the distributor's perspective, healthy growth comes on one hand from deep mining of customers' potential needs, and on the other hand from distribution and sell-through at the market level. In addition to refined data construction, Guangxi Nanliang Food also has a standard approach to product distribution and sell-through.

Terminal owners are the best promoters

The core category of Guangxi Nanliang Food is leisure snacks, which requires high selection and promotion capabilities from distributors. From product selection to store distribution and sell-through, the core strategy of Guangxi Nanliang Food is: brand focus, channel focus, and personnel focus.

First, brand focus. In the leisure snack category, some distributors pursue hot products and introduce a large number of products. But Guangxi Nanliang Food mainly focuses on a small number of brands, doing them finely. In product selection, Guangxi Nanliang Food has two principled standards.

First, the brand must have hard and soft strength. Hard strength means the manufacturer has its own production base rather than OEM, ensuring quality. Soft strength means having a clear market strategy and management system. This can be seen from the manufacturer's regional management, such as the design of salesmen's compensation and performance, daily work allocation and management, etc., which can show whether the manufacturer is a quality enterprise.

Second, whether there is a proven market. Before confirming any product, the team must first conduct market research to ensure that the product can sell through in the market, and also observe how good markets are done.

Second, channel focus. Any product has a trial period. If you distribute on a large scale from the start, it can easily cause huge losses. Guangxi Nanliang Food's approach is to first focus on some quality stores, and based on the sell-through and reorder of these stores, then decide whether to expand the distribution scope. During the new product distribution stage, Guangxi Nanliang Food adopted a consignment trial sales method.

First, let the store owner taste the product first; only if 90% of owners approve the product will it enter the store.

Second, use a 1-month cycle for trial sales before settlement. For new products, many stores worry about slow sales, because if they don't sell well, even with after-sales policies, handling is troublesome. Through trial sales, the owner's concerns are alleviated; as long as it sells well, they will definitely stock up later.

Third, make store owners promoters of the product. In traditional channel stores, the key person is only the store owner. How to get the store owner to stock more and be willing to actively recommend is the core of sell-through. Therefore, when formulating distribution and sell-through strategies, it is necessary to stand from the perspective of store needs. Through trial sales, stores recognize the product, but to make sell-through better, the support of store owners is also needed.

Guangxi Nanliang Food's strategy is to raise product prices to ensure sufficient profit for stores. At the same time, through the form of bundled gifts, the actual purchase price for stores is not high, allowing terminals to stock more and actively promote the product. For example, the supply price for a single pack of a certain product is 3 yuan, slightly higher than competitors. Through the form of 1 box with 5 packs as a gift, the actual purchase price for the store ends up lower than competitors. This bundling method has several advantages: first, the store's perception of the price is higher than the actual price, with sufficient profit, so the owner is willing to actively promote the product; second, the store must take more goods to enjoy the policy. With more goods, to avoid slow sales, the owner will give more display resources and actively recommend the product to consumers.

Finally, personnel focus. Guangxi Nanliang Food represents 18 brands and over 900 SKUs, all divided according to channels, such as which products are mainly promoted in campus channels, which in supermarket channels, and which in circulation channels, with standard classification. At the same time, with corresponding phased KPI assessments, salesmen are more focused. When entering a store, salesmen only need to focus on the products corresponding to the channel, and will not blindly promote.

Zhong Guangtian told New Distribution that Guangxi Nanliang Food pursues refinement rather than simply expansion. Through brand focus, channel focus, and personnel focus, forming momentum, it can become strong in the regional market and become a benchmark.

Insight into consumer changes and diversified business development

Channels are more diverse, consumers have more channels to purchase, and consumer shopping habits are gradually shifting, with the trend of online shopping becoming increasingly obvious. For distributors, the market cake is only so big; the more online takes away, the more limited the market distributors can do. Zhong Guangtian also realized this. Since 2022, Guangxi Nanliang Food has gradually developed online channels, including community group buying, platform e-commerce, etc.

What if traditional distributors don't have e-commerce genes? Zhong Guangtian believes that professional matters should be left to professionals. He acquired a mature e-commerce team to operate the overall online business. E-commerce and traditional offline business are completely different operating models. The organizational structure is completely different; traditional distributors do not have e-commerce customer service, operations, art design, etc. Target customers are also different. Traditional offline business focuses mainly on stores, doing store distribution and sell-through. Online requires facing consumers directly, understanding consumer preferences, positioning, and crowd management. In addition, compared with the long cycle of offline business, the core of e-commerce is to seize major festivals and events, such as 6.18 and Double 11. Seizing these traffic opportunities makes annual sales very objective.

For traditional distributors without online genes, letting a professional team do it can avoid many detours. After one year of operation, Guangxi Nanliang Food's online annual sales reached 40 million. Online's contribution to sales is only one aspect. In Zhong Guangtian's view, the biggest role of online is to help him better understand consumers. In the past, dealing with stores made it difficult to grasp consumption trends, but online, through connection with consumers, can more clearly see what products consumers like, what product combinations they prefer, etc., thereby empowering offline business.

Zhong Guangtian told New Distribution that Guangxi Nanliang Food also plans to open more physical stores in the future. Consumer purchasing behavior changes have been very obvious. The future trend must be online-offline integration. If distributors want to continue to grow, they must follow changes and try new retail formats.

Final Thoughts

In New Distribution's view, the rapid development of Guangxi Nanliang Food in four years is due to three core aspects:

First, data-driven business. Break the inherent 'experience-based cognition', make decisions and optimize based on data, improve business efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance customer experience.

Second, market control. For traditional offline business, stores are the main battlefield of competition. Through brand focus, channel focus, and personnel focus, maximize the capture of store resources and market share.

Third, insight into trends. In the past, brand owners have always emphasized 'where consumers are, goods should be distributed there'. Today, distributors must also gain insight into consumers and drive business expansion with consumer demand.

At the end of the interview, I asked Mr. Zhong a question: Compared with other distributors, what do you think is your most core advantage? Mr. Zhong's answer: youth. As a post-85s, he believes that youth is not only reflected in age, but also in mentality. When communicating with Mr. Zhong, one can clearly feel his vitality and willingness to learn and communicate with others. Many of Mr. Zhong's business thoughts stem from what he has seen and learned in the past, then he ponders and innovates, extending them. The market is changing, the industry is changing. Distributors need to improve their own cognition and adapt to changes in the big environment.

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