By Liu Chunxiong A new product launch, planned for a 3-year promotion before scaling up—would a B2B platform be willing to take it on, cooperate, and sustain losses during that period? Would a B2B platform do such a thing? With the overall upward shift of mainstream price points, more products like "Tang Daren" will be launched in the future. I call such products "strategic products." Strategic products require a long cultivation period, and it's uncertain whether they will succeed, but long-term investment is essential. The cultivation of strategic products cannot rely solely on brand owners or brand driving; it requires channel participation and channel driving. If B2B platforms won't do this, brand owners will find others to do it. ⁍ 1 As of now, B2B is still just an efficiency system. Although overall efficiency is not high, B2B costs are generally higher than channel costs (with individual exceptions). An efficiency system can barely solve the problem of channel stock. Once a B2B system is established, improving the coverage rate of branded products should not be a big problem. Currently, even for brands like Coca-Cola, there is still significant room to improve terminal coverage through B2B platforms. This is why people are optimistic about B2B platforms. But how to solve the increment problem? How to cultivate strategic products? With the rise of the middle class, current mainstream products are lagging behind overall. The pressure for product upgrades and cultivating new mainstream products is very high. For example, 2-yuan bottled water is currently mainstream, but the mainstream price point is rapidly transitioning to 3 yuan, and 4-yuan bottled water is already being positioned. The market cultivation for 3-yuan and 4-yuan bottled water is very important. This problem is at least unsolvable for B2B. ⁍ 2 Zhao Bo from New Distribution once wrote an article saying that distributors may have "no stores to supply" in the future. I agree with that statement, but it doesn't mean distributors will disappear. Even if there are no stores to supply, distributors will still exist, but their functions will change—they just won't supply goods anymore. "No stores to supply" only strips away the order-taking and delivery functions of distributors, which were never their strengths. Even with franchise stores, even facing platforms that claim to control a million stores, distributors still have work to do. Moreover, without distributors, brand owners will lack the power to check platforms. Some things are more suitable for distributors to do, such as strategic promotion. ⁍ 3 Some say B2B platforms also have promotion personnel! Yes, for example, city partners are doing promotions, but it's still immediate promotion for stock realization. Even so, it's still very difficult. Even for stock promotion, it can only serve a few brands. Serving a few brands only plays the role of "setting an example." For example, a city's B2B platform is currently promoting a few brands, and the manufacturers are fairly satisfied. I ask: The platform certainly won't promote only 6 brands; it will promote more in the future. If it's 60 brands, 600 brands, 6000 brands, 60000 brands, then would the platform's promotion staff need to increase ten-thousand-fold? That's impossible. Large scale is not necessarily a multiple of small scale; it can only be a change in small scale. ⁍ 4 Strategic new product promotion requires strategic channel partners. Strategic channel partners usually have exclusivity. For example, if a platform promotes both Yili and Mengniu, and both are strategic cooperations, and the two are adversarial competitors, how can the platform be a strategic partner for both? (I mention these two brands because they are well-known, no other intention.) When B2B platforms become strategic partners for all brand owners, strategic cooperation ceases to exist, leaving only bidding cooperation.
Traditional media have many strategic partners, but they must bid.
Search platforms have many strategic partners, but they must bid.
B2C platforms have many strategic partners, but they must bid. Once bidding is involved, is it still strategic cooperation? Are they willing to pay for long-term promotion of strategic new products? ⁍ 5 Whether B2B can eliminate distributors depends on manufacturers. Big brands must have exclusive channel partners; otherwise, they cannot control their own destiny. Without channel power, brands have no power at the terminal and with consumers, and brand and value are lost. For manufacturers, acknowledging the value of B2B platforms is important; equally important is acknowledging that B2B platforms are not omnipotent. For channel functions, handing over the efficiency system to B2B order platforms and the delivery system to B2B same-city delivery is an unstoppable trend, and there's no need to resist it. Distributors will still exist, exclusive channel systems will still exist, and they will coexist and synergize with B2B platforms and same-city delivery systems. Reducing dimensions to platforms, and platforms collaborating—this is the spirit of the Internet. ⁍ 6 In the past, distributors were omnipotent. Is that normal? No. Distributors in Europe and America are not like that. If B2B takes away the order function, and same-city delivery takes away the delivery function, are distributors still distributors? I never accept the saying "what exists is reasonable"; existence may be a path toward reasonableness. In the past, distributors did many things they shouldn't have done and did inefficiently; now they need to become more reasonable. Manufacturers retain distributors' functions of channel relationship and new product promotion; this is essential. At this point, they are no longer distributors; I prefer to call them "promoters." ⁍ 7 B2B will not eliminate distributors, but it will definitely change them. How distributors survive in the B2B era will be the result of tripartite collaboration among brand owners, B2B platforms, and distributors. For B2B platforms, they must admit they are not omnipotent, have a collaborative mindset, and not harbor thoughts of eliminating anyone. For distributors, they must adapt to the new environment and find new roles. For brand owners, both platforms and distributors are their channel roles, and in the future, they will have a balancing effect. B2B platforms will inevitably move toward oligopoly. As long as it's an oligopoly, they will "bully customers." A tripartite structure is a balanced and healthy pattern. -END-