--- title: "After Years as a Distributor, Do You Really Know How to Plan Routes? Do You Really Understand Your Outlets?" description: "Although the straight line between two points is the shortest, it is not necessarily the fastest. In a broad sense, the outlet is the last link in the chain from manufacturer to consumer; in a narrow sense, it is the retail location where consumers purchase goods, where products meet consumers and exchange for money. Outlets have significant commercial value, such as shortening distance, providing convenience, offering speed, and promoting purchases." author: "New Distribution" publisher: "New Distribution" email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com" telephone: "+8615854817671" published: "2018-05-01" language: "en" canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/after-years-as-a-distributor-do-you-really-know-how-to-plan-routes-do-yo-405fd38c/" markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/after-years-as-a-distributor-do-you-really-know-how-to-plan-routes-do-yo-405fd38c.md" original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/LXBUPTHB5qU7q78q4gSNCA" translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E5%81%9A%E7%BB%8F%E9%94%80%E5%95%86%E8%BF%99%E4%B9%88%E5%A4%9A%E5%B9%B4-%E4%BD%A0%E7%9C%9F%E7%9A%84%E4%BC%9A%E5%88%92%E5%88%86%E8%B7%AF%E7%BA%BF%E5%90%97-%E4%BD%A0%E7%9C%9F%E7%9A%84%E4%BA%86%E8%A7%A3%E4%BD%A0%E7%9A%84%E7%BB%88%E7%AB%AF%E5%90%97-405fd38c.md" attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/after-years-as-a-distributor-do-you-really-know-how-to-plan-routes-do-yo-405fd38c/" usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt" --- # After Years as a Distributor, Do You Really Know How to Plan Routes? Do You Really Understand Your Outlets? > Although the straight line between two points is the shortest, it is not necessarily the fastest. In a broad sense, the outlet is the last link in the chain from manufacturer to consumer; in a narrow sense, it is the retail location where consumers purchase goods, where products meet consumers and exchange for money. Outlets have significant commercial value, such as shortening distance, providing convenience, offering speed, and promoting purchases. Although the straight line between two points is the shortest, it is not necessarily the fastest! In a broad sense, the outlet is the last link in the chain from manufacturer to consumer; in a narrow sense, it is the retail location where consumers purchase goods, where products meet consumers and exchange for money. There are many types of outlets. For distributors, common ones include hypermarkets, supermarkets, convenience stores, grocery stores, and retail stalls. Outlets have great commercial value, such as shortening distance, providing convenience, offering speed, and promoting purchases. Therefore, food manufacturers are increasingly emphasizing outlets, leading to phenomena like "grabbing territory," "grabbing outlets," and "grabbing displays." However, distributors face many problems in outlet operations: chaotic product displays, messy pricing systems, weak channel management, uneven execution by sales staff, poor promotion of new products, salespeople visiting large stores but missing small ones, exploiting system loopholes, and managers being idle while subordinates work hard. Over time, these issues lead to poor sell-through at outlets. Therefore, it is necessary for distributors to re-understand outlets. **First, the specific forms of outlet marketing can be summarized in one sentence: one map, one line, three tables, and seven determinations.** **One map refers to the outlet network distribution map.** Historically, every great battle ended with street fighting. As a commander, is your war room equipped with a map of the outlet network layout in your area? Do you know every outlet, every store owner, and their shops by heart? When you hire new employees, can they find your store locations at a glance? **One line refers to the salesperson's visit route.** Are your salespeople following your planned routes for market visits? Every trading company divides business visit routes according to different market distributions. For example, some divide the entire area into several blocks by village or town, some divide by route, and some divide by salesperson's order-taking ability. **Three tables are the salesperson's visit record table, competitor information statistics table, and outlet customer profile table.** Knowing yourself and your enemy leads to victory in a hundred battles. When salespeople visit customers, they need to update three information databases about customers in a timely manner. Effectively grasping customer information is the foundation for successful orders. When you know when a store owner is having a baby, moving, or lacking care, you can show care at the right time. People are emotional; when you meet their needs and extend a warm hand, you maintain good relationships. With good relationships, how can they not help you sell products? **Seven determinations: fixed points, fixed periods, fixed times, fixed personnel, fixed routes, fixed sales targets, and fixed standards. This means creating a systematic, standardized management model for outlets and a strict execution system.** Distributor bosses must first break down sales targets for salespeople. Sales representatives, armed with terminal information cards, follow your planned routes to visit stores. They should visit according to the set frequency, with different service standards for different store types. Set in advance the time to spend at each outlet to ensure professional planning and expected order prompting. Most importantly, require sales reps to master the eight steps of outlet visits and the four key points of outlet maintenance. Without standards, you cannot grow; without standards, you cannot do well; without standards, you cannot become strong. Future market competition will ultimately be a battle for outlets. Whoever controls outlets will control market initiative and voice. **Second, reasonably arrange the outlet marketing process.** First, collect and organize basic data, determine development targets, and set routes and frequencies. Second, based on the summary of the first stage, data revision, and data analysis, classify customers by level and adjust visit frequency accordingly. The core is data analysis based on sales volume. Finally, remember the three principles of outlet marketing: focus on large stores for sales, focus on image stores for publicity, and focus on specialty stores for loyalty. **Third, there are five major misconceptions distributors have about outlets.** In the course of business, distributors often fall into the following five misconceptions: emphasizing sales over market; emphasizing large customers over small ones; emphasizing major products over minor ones; emphasizing incentives over management; and emphasizing the middle over both ends. These five misconceptions are the main causes of various operational problems for distributors. Rome wasn't built in a day; distributors' operational problems accumulate over time, eventually leading to the abyss of poor sales. In market operations, distributors must have a comprehensive and correct understanding of outlets to fight according to the enemy, the terrain, their own conditions, and the timing. -END- --- ## Copyright and AI use This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL. Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671