On November 21, 2016, the 5th B2B E-commerce Delegation organized by this official account visited the Tianjin headquarters of Tongying Youcai. Distributor elites from across the country gathered to discuss the current state and development trends of the B2B industry, as well as how traditional distributors can break through and transform to the Internet. That day, Tianjin welcomed its first snow of winter, with temperatures dropping sharply and roads slippery, yet it failed to dampen the enthusiasm of distributor friends for Internet B2B. The city was blanketed in white, as if everything was being washed by the snow, just as industries are being swept by the Internet. Facing the Internet wave, some choose to ride the wind forward, while others choose to retreat. As traditional distributors, when surrounded by the Internet, how to break through has become an urgent question. On that day, the founder of Tongying Tianxia shared his insights and successful experiences regarding the Internet, reaching a consensus with the distributor friends present. At the meeting, Mr. Gong Yanbin, founder of the Tongying Youcai project, gave an in-depth introduction to the background, market size, profit model, and future layout of the Tongying Youcai catering ingredients supply chain service platform. First, Mr. Gong introduced the Tongying Youcai project to the distributors present. Tongying Youcai is a vertical e-commerce platform based nationwide, focusing solely on catering ingredients trading, limited to ingredients needed for three meals a day, helping restaurants and hotels purchase ingredients. The purpose of Tongying Youcai is to be cheaper, more convenient, and more reliable. Regarding why Tongying Youcai chose to enter the catering ingredients procurement field, Mr. Gong stated that, as is well known, China's catering market is huge. Data shows that the consumption scale of China's catering market has exceeded 3 trillion yuan, and the scale of ingredient procurement has exceeded 900 billion yuan. However, due to long intermediate channels and excessive losses, no enterprise in China's catering supply chain has truly solved these problems, with Internet penetration less than 1%. Moreover, both ends of the ingredient procurement chain—buyers and suppliers—face numerous pressures, with shrinking profit margins. Next, Mr. Gong elaborated on the current situation of small and medium-sized restaurants and suppliers: Current situation of small and medium-sized restaurants:

  1. Market prices with multiple layers of middlemen; information asymmetry; opaque procurement prices.
  2. Small procurement volume with no bargaining power; unable to compare prices quickly.
  3. Disorganized and unsystematic procurement; traditional procurement methods are time-consuming and labor-intensive.
  4. Food safety cannot be traced; gray income difficult to eliminate. Current situation of suppliers:
  5. Unstable sales staff; rising labor costs.
  6. Difficult market development, fierce competition; severe impact from counterfeit goods; shrinking profits.
  7. Excessive capital occupation; pressure from payment terms.
  8. Outdated supply models; lack of systems, wasting manpower and resources. Given the huge prospects and opportunities, the catering supply chain is the next hotspot for Internet + catering. Tongying Youcai began building a B2B ingredient procurement platform in September 2014. The platform builds a mobile supply chain procurement system, based on the platform's procurement system, uniting tens of thousands of suppliers, and reverse purchasing uniformly with manufacturers to reduce costs. Unlike traditional B2B transactions, Tongying Youcai focuses more on integrating and managing terminal channels, providing terminals with a more efficient procurement service platform, thereby optimizing upstream suppliers' inventory and data. Mr. Gong further added that for buyers, the Tongying Youcai ingredient procurement platform offers the following benefits: better quality at lower prices; more convenient online ordering; richer product information; early knowledge of special offers and flash sales; more standardized management and operations; effectively solving the pain points of "saving money" and "saving time" for buyers, saving at least 10%-30% of procurement costs. For suppliers, the platform provides services such as expanding sales channels; reducing sales costs; massive product display; 24-hour sales; reducing supply costs, effectively solving suppliers' pain points of "difficult development" and "high sales costs." At the same time, to better meet user procurement needs, the Tongying Youcai ingredient procurement platform launched a mobile terminal, making required product information clear at a glance, obtaining new product launches and discount promotions immediately, easily placing orders, with suppliers delivering directly to the door, making ingredient procurement more convenient. How big is China's catering market? Is there room for profit? Through comprehensive and precise analysis of the catering market, using Internet thinking and combining with the current state of the catering market, Tongying Youcai targets the small and medium-sized restaurant procurement industry, because ingredient procurement is a high-frequency, high-value rigid demand. Merchants need to purchase almost daily, with high repurchase rates, strong stickiness, and large transaction volumes. According to relevant statistics, in 2015, the number of small and medium-sized restaurants nationwide exceeded 5.3 million, with the market size of small and medium-sized restaurants accounting for approximately 3.7 trillion yuan per year. The market for small and medium-sized restaurants is huge, providing vast profit space for the ingredient procurement industry. Mastering these procurement channels means mastering enormous market opportunities. In terms of profit model, Mr. Gong further explained that the Tongying Youcai catering procurement platform has massive user resources, leveraging its strong industry coverage and rich Internet resources, using advanced Internet technology to provide partners with user entry points and increase revenue. The platform's profit model comes from a 20% commission on transaction flow, price differences from self-operated products eliminating middlemen, merchant entry fees, advertising revenue, etc. Finally, Mr. Gong introduced the current development status and achievements of Tongying Youcai: After more than a year of vigorous development, Tongying Youcai has become the most influential Internet B2B platform in the industry. As of now, the Tongying Youcai catering procurement platform has laid out provincial business departments in nearly 12 provinces and more than 80 cities, with city partner franchises growing at an average rate of 5 per month. The total number of registered restaurants and hotels is 66,378, with 4,594 certified suppliers. Since the platform's inception, it has formed strong alliances with Huiyuan Juice Group and CP Group, reaching national strategic cooperation. At the same time, several brands such as Shuanghui, Haitian, Jiuzhen, and Tianli have joined the Tongying Youcai catering procurement platform. Through cooperation, integrating their respective resource and channel advantages to achieve online and offline integration. The Tongying Youcai catering procurement platform provides 24/7 online supply channels for resident brands and cooperative suppliers, reducing suppliers' investment costs, expanding sales channels for resident brands and suppliers, and conducting precise industry advertising. Regarding the company team and technical support, Mr. Gong introduced that the Tongying Youcai catering procurement platform has strong channel advantages, broad industry coverage, and a large user base. At the same time, it has a core leadership team, a professional technical team, and a strong product promotion team, providing strong support for event promotion and product promotion. With the deepening of the "Internet+" concept, Tongying Youcai uses its unique competitive advantages to provide a broad, high-quality, efficient, and safe platform for catering procurement, creating a new normal for catering procurement. Mr. Gong Yanbin's keen insight and control over the Internet platform were unanimously recognized by the guests present. At the end of the meeting, Mr. Gong expressed his sincere wish to work with distributor friends to create the future of the Internet, inviting interested individuals to join Tongying Tianxia Group, to work hand in hand with Tongying to build the Tongying Youcai ingredient procurement platform for win-win cooperation. -END- The best FMCG distributor learning platform in China Focusing on providing professional, practical, and applicable tutorials for enterprises and distributors Committed to helping Chinese FMCG distributors grow rapidly The most professional and practical knowledge base in the FMCG industry Reply with the red number below to get corresponding content Reply with number 1 to view the complete knowledge base | 001 Excellent article selection | 002 Distributor market operations | 003 Terminal visit management | 004 Sales supervisor skills | 005 Sales improvement techniques | 006 Channel expansion | 007 Managing distributors | 008 Distributor development | 009 Distributor internal operations management | 010 Team management | 011 Efficient distribution techniques | 012 Sales manager's eighteen skills | 013 KA operation methods and strategies | 014 First lesson for new salespeople | 015 Internet, brands | 016 Distributor B2B transformation | [Long press QR code to follow]