---
title: "Are Distributors Increasing in Number? What You See May Not Be the 'Truth'!"
description: "A market survey revealed that a salesperson believed the number of distributors was increasing, contrary to the common prediction of decline. This article explores the discrepancy between short-term observations and long-term trends, and introduces a training course for distributors to learn from successful peers."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2020-10-18"
language: "en"
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# Are Distributors Increasing in Number? What You See May Not Be the 'Truth'!

> A market survey revealed that a salesperson believed the number of distributors was increasing, contrary to the common prediction of decline. This article explores the discrepancy between short-term observations and long-term trends, and introduces a training course for distributors to learn from successful peers.

Recently, a colleague was conducting market research and accompanied a distributor's salesperson in the field. During the visit, he asked the salesperson whether the number of distributors was increasing or decreasing. The salesperson replied that it was definitely increasing, because many experienced salespeople or sales supervisors around him had started their own businesses,代理 a product, and embarked on the path of becoming distributors. After the visit, my colleague turned to me and asked, "Don't you always say that the number of distributors is decreasing? How is it that in the actual market, the salesperson perceives an increase?" That's the first question.
The second question, also from my colleague's research, was, "Don't you always say that wholesalers are going to die out? How is it that in the actual market, there are still so many wholesalers? In a certain second-tier city, there are more than fifty wholesalers acting as joint warehouses for JD New Pathways, and they are all doing quite well!" **These are both real voices from the front line, completely opposite to our previous predictions. Why is this?** **It's because they are looking from different angles. One is looking at 'events' (事), the other at 'trends' (势).** If we extend the time horizon and calculate by total volume, the number of distributors is definitely decreasing, and the number of wholesalers is also definitely decreasing. We have often said that the FMCG industry has entered an era of stock competition. In stock competition, the total market size is fixed; if some distributors do well, others must do poorly, as the successful ones take market share from the unsuccessful. When the remaining sales share of the poor-performing distributors is insufficient to support basic operations, they will inevitably exit. **In other words, the number of those leaving the distributor business is greater than the number of new entrants.** Alternatively, with the total business being limited, most distributors are on the brink of survival, earning only "manual labor" fees for moving goods at the end of the year. These fees are merely the辛苦费 for transporting goods. Frankly speaking, **such distributors are not viable in the long term and cannot represent the future of the distribution trade.** As a business organization, if it cannot achieve sustained growth and remains on the edge of survival, it will eventually be replaced by peer distributors or new species. A few days ago, a co-founder of a community group buying platform messaged me, mentioning that the three internet giants (Alibaba, Meituan, Pinduoduo) have all entered community group buying, igniting unprecedented competition. The subsidy war on the front line is fierce, and the first to face crisis are traditional supermarkets and local distributors. **Back to the practical topic: under such circumstances, what should distributors do? Besides doing the current work well, how can they see the future trend?** Everyone knows the big principles: cost reduction and efficiency improvement, deep distribution, digital distribution, transformation and upgrading, etc. In the current era of information equality, it is easy for distributors to understand "principles." **In today's information overload, distributors do not lack general directions; they lack methods and paths.** Where do methods and paths come from? I believe one of the best ways is to learn from excellent distributors and their business wisdom. What they do is the "trend" we should follow in the next year or two. See how they emerged from poverty and gradually grew stronger. What methods and paths did they use to reach their current state?
**2020·8th Distributor Growth落地大课——Xi'an, Shaanxi** This course, exclusively for distributors' business growth, has been running since September 2019 and has reached its eighth session. **The content has undergone several iterations and upgrades, adhering to the concept of "distributors teaching distributors," sharing first-hand courses on distributor business growth, hoping to provide practical methods and paths to distributors everywhere.** When we have been埋头做事 in the past, let's look at excellent distributors in the surrounding areas or across the country to see how they do their trade well. This session differs from previous ones by adding field visits and inspections, aiming to let distributors truly experience the practical methodologies of excellent distributors.
> **October 29, 09:00-10:00, Sharing by Nie Biquan, General Manager of Shaanxi Baihui Trading**
> **October 29, 10:00-12:00, Visit and Study Tour of Shaanxi Baihui Trading Company**
Shaanxi Baihui Trading is a comprehensive trading company with 6 branches and annual sales of 400 million yuan. It is located in Ankang and Xi'an, Shaanxi. Shaanxi Baihui has over 3,000 SKUs and focuses on category supply.
General Manager Mr. Nie Biquan has been in the FMCG industry for 18 years. Facing the impact of the internet on traditional industries, he led the team to deepen reforms, innovatively launched a new distributor organizational model under the internet era—the category partner model—and drove the company's rapid development.
**Course Content:**
**Course 1: Organizational Reengineering: Partner Model to Activate the Organization**
1. Partner model design, from 0 to 1;
2. Partner model design, from 1 to 10;
3. Partner model organizational structure design to personnel division;
4. Partner model investment and dividend design and precautions.
**Course 2: The Rise of New Retail: Distributors' Countermeasures**
1. Correctly understand new retail O2O, community e-commerce, and live streaming带货;
2. Practical case: Baihui Trading's first-hand experience in "live streaming带货";
3. Should distributors do it? Which types can do it, and which cannot?
> **October 29, 14:00-15:00, Sharing by Fan Qi, Founder of Jiabin Yunshi**
Jiabin Yunshi is the largest B2B platform in the Shaanxi region, proposing a "B2B product supply chain + O2O operation chain + additional service supply chain" three-chain integration service, committed to the development of urban community convenience stores, establishing a regional convenience store supply chain platform, urban same-city delivery platform, and convenience comprehensive service platform, able to comprehensively solve the one-stop needs of convenience stores.
> **October 29, 15:00-16:00, Sharing by Chen Haichao, Marketing Practical Training Expert**
**How can distributors play community group buying well?**
**Course:**
**I. Basic underlying logic of community group buying**
1. Two cornerstones of the community group buying business model
2. Three types of traffic in the community group buying business model
3. 16-character motto for the community group buying business model
**II. Competitive landscape of community group buying business models**
1. New 8-country army and 3 heads
2. Same-city retail divided into 2 major camps
**III. As a distributor: shift from agent thinking to supplier thinking**
1. Why?
2. How to do it?
**IV. Two core daily tasks for suppliers**
1. How to select products?
2. How to set prices?
**V. Supplier vs. Platform: Common Problems and Countermeasures**
1. What kind of platform should you choose to cooperate with?
2. Platform settlement and capital risk control?
3. How to control the issue of cargo damage in warehousing and distribution?
4. Other common problems: deal with them as they arise
> **October 29, 16:00-17:00, Sharing by Zhang Junjie, Executive Dean of Winner Business School**
How can distributors embrace "community e-commerce" to build new fan channels?
1. Analyze why community e-commerce is so popular from the perspectives of consumers, convenience stores, and distributors!
2. From 0 to 30 million in turnover, why is community the fastest way for distributors to achieve profit growth?
3. Why is it said that distributors doing community e-commerce is a "small investment, big return"?
4. What benefits and future does community e-commerce bring to distributors?
5. The biggest difficulty for distributors doing community e-commerce is "not knowing how to do it"—how to break through?
6. What are the three paths for distributors to establish community e-commerce?
7. How can distributors do community e-commerce from 0 to 1?
8. In the era of shifting from "operating goods" to "operating people," what are the future development directions for distributors?
> **October 30, 09:00-18:00, Sharing by Xu Min, Chairman of Anshan Hongye Hengda Trading**
Hongye Hengda Trading is the general agent for Arawana in Anshan and Panjin, Liaoning, with annual sales of 300 million yuan, covering 10,000+ terminals, 200 employees, and 20,000m2 of warehousing. It is a benchmark among excellent distributors nationwide. Through practical experience, it has summarized operational processes, salary and performance mechanisms, and points-based management that can be implemented, helping thousands of FMCG distributors achieve cost reduction and efficiency improvement, and increase sales and net profit. **Points-based Management Implementation Course:**
**I. What is points-based management?**
1. Zero-cost motivation of employees—let excellent employees not suffer; 2. Implementation of corporate culture and boss culture—creating positive energy in the enterprise; 3. The core purpose is to mobilize employees' enthusiasm in all aspects, fundamentally solving the core management issue of "managing people";
**II. What pain points does points-based management solve for distributors?**
1. Solve the problem of employees unwilling to work overtime; 2. Solve the problem of employees' motivation to give; 3. Solve the problem of quality management; 4. Improve employees' service attitude; 5. Solve the problem of cadres having responsibility but no authority; 6. Solve the problem of recruiting, using, and retaining people; 7. Solve the management problems of family businesses; 8. Save management costs; 9. Solve the problem of companies being afraid to punish employees; 10. Solve problems that money cannot solve;
**Through this combination of study tour and training, we hope to truly help distributor friends find practical methodologies for business growth, not only in terms of cognition to find measures to cope with the impact of new retail, but more importantly, in daily operation and management, through tools and methods such as category operation, partner model, and points-based management, to effectively help distributor friends achieve daily cost reduction and efficiency improvement, and help them grow bigger and stronger!**


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