For most distributors, selecting a good product is as difficult as choosing a good son-in-law. With intensifying competition, product life cycles are getting shorter. How to choose a product suitable for one's own business from the dazzling array of products has become a puzzle for many merchants.

Now the competition among liquor companies is like "you sing and I take the stage." Which companies will have the last laugh? When selecting new products, many distributors find it hard to predict without any basis or standard, not knowing which cloud in the sky will bring rain. Based on years of frontline experience, I'd like to share my thoughts:

First, Macro-level Grasp

1. Business Credit: Liquor distributors, especially those dealing in baijiu, must consider the company's credit when selecting new products. This is key to whether a new product can succeed in the market. There's a saying in the baijiu industry: "A brand can be toppled within a year." If a company has poor credit, distributors may be dragged down at any time, falling into the "quagmire" of difficult new product promotion. The operation of "Siwu" baijiu in the Henan market once chilled distributors across the province. Due to the manufacturer's financial difficulties, many distributors' products sat unsold and piled up in warehouses, and many went bankrupt or suffered losses.

The credit of a company should be measured through its products, specifically:

  • Low-end products: Examine their brand awareness. Low-end products are channel-driven; without awareness, they are hard to sell in the mass market. When selecting new products, carefully investigate the awareness of the company's low-end products.

Example: A distributor in the Henan market wanted to distribute a beer product. After market research, he found that Jinxing Beer had high awareness across various markets, known to many ordinary people, but there were few mid-range products. So he quickly secured the agency for Jinxing's mid-to-high-end products in third-tier markets. Within two years, he became one of the few major distributors in eastern Henan.

  • Mid-range products: Examine their reputation. Mid-range products are also key for distributors when evaluating new products. In fact, the truly profitable products in the market are mid-range ones: low-end for volume, high-end for image, and mid-range for profit. Therefore, when evaluating a company's mid-range products, reputation is crucial. Awareness alone is not enough, because mid-range products need to consider their premium pricing ability. To sell a product at a good price, brand reputation becomes even more important.

  • High-end products: Brand power and reputation. High-end products emphasize brand; cost-performance is not the main factor driving sales. Brand power has a significant impact on sales.

2. Market Planning: "Forewarned is forearmed." Every company and product should have its own plan. A company should have clear strategic goals and scientifically plan its product line.

For mid-term products, there should be long-term planning. For companies, mid-range products are profit generators with considerable sales volume. Therefore, companies should use different marketing strategies throughout the product life cycle to ensure sustained popularity and delay product decline. Compared to mid-range products, high-end products should have strategic development plans of 5 to 10 years or more. Thus, distributors should consider the company's development plans when selecting new products.

3. 4P Strategy: Judging whether a product can succeed, the 4Ps are a key link.

  • Product strategy: For low- and mid-range products, more attention is paid to price and packaging, while for high-end products, quality and brand are the main considerations.
  • Price: For high-end products, cost-performance is considered.
  • Place: Mid-range products mainly balance circulation and terminals, while high-end products focus on hotels and restaurants.
  • Promotion: Generally, high-end products have fewer promotions; mid-range products often run consumer promotions; low-end products usually have channel promotions.

4. Model Market: Looking at model markets is also a very important button for selecting new products. When choosing new products, distributors should pay attention to model market research, mainly including:

  1. Overall marketing environment of the model market.
  2. Product strategy in the model market.
  3. Market operation process and control in the model market.

5. Management System:

  1. Rules and regulations: Whether there are complete rules, market management regulations, etc. A mature company is quite cautious about launching new products, completing it in multiple steps:
    1. Recruitment and training of organizational personnel.
    2. Market research.
    3. Advertising and publicity.
    4. Pre-launch warm-up for new products, including distribution, display, and visualization.
    5. Channel promotions to stimulate orders.
    6. Consumer pull and brand promotion.
    7. Stocking plans.

In these steps, management systems are very important, such as:

  1. Promotional item distribution system.
  2. Promotional item placement standards.
  3. Standards for establishing exclusive shops.
  4. Measures against cross-regional selling.
  5. After-sales service.

Market competition has become fierce; the days of "broad sowing with thin harvest" are over. For a company to develop successfully, healthily, sustainably, and steadily, it must have a sound management system. This is also a criterion for distributors when selecting new products.

  1. Personnel preparation: If the company has sufficient confidence and planning for the new product, relevant personnel should already be in place. If personnel are still in the recruitment stage, training and management are out of the question, and the promotion of the new product will naturally be greatly compromised.

  2. Team execution: Building a high-performance team is not an overnight task. To do things well, you need a team with high execution, which comes from two aspects:

    1. Improving employees' abilities and qualities. If employees lack ability and quality, talking about execution is wishful thinking. Often, our employees are willing but unable; without company support, their efforts in the market for new products can only be like an arrow at the end of its flight.
    2. Motivating the team through compensation systems and promotion mechanisms. If employees have ability but don't work hard, it's an attitude problem that can be adjusted through leverage. No need to elaborate.

Execution is a systematic issue. Imagine asking a person to ride a bicycle to the moon—can they accomplish that task? To improve employee execution, there must be tools, standards, plans, ideas, and strategies.

Execution is also a criterion for assessing whether a company can operate a new product. The quality of execution directly determines the fate of a new product in the market.

Second, Basic Analysis:

  1. Understand the market operation of similar products. For companies, truly new products don't exist; most new products are upgrades of existing ones. Therefore, understanding the market operation of similar new products provides valuable reference for operating new products.

  2. Identify the unique selling point of the new product. Since it's new, it should have many differences from other similar products, and these differences should be hard to replicate in the short term. Only then can barriers be set, forming a unique selling proposition, which is significant for brand publicity and communication.

  3. Consult leading companies about their attitude toward new products. Mainstream companies represent trends and directions, so their opinions are quite important for new product selection. Whether a product can succeed in a market depends on whether it can adapt to trends. Mainstream companies have the ability to guide market trends and observe new products.

  4. Test marketing: Almost all distributors adopt effective means in specific local markets. This not only tests the product's market reaction but also summarizes experience for the full launch. The situation in the test market can truly reflect the real market conditions of the new product.

  5. Examine market expenses. Market expenses are key to starting a market. As a company recruiting distributors, they should have a relatively complete market expense plan, with annual budget and allocation. Specifically:

    1. Budget for new product launch.
    2. Budget for channel expenses.
    3. Budget for consumer pull.

By examining the budget plan, distributors can have a clear mind and targeted approach when promoting and selecting new products.

Selecting new products is a required course for distributors. Following marketing laws is key to business success. Distributors need to go with the flow, find the patterns, and choose new products suitable for themselves.

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