New Distribution has reported on many outstanding distributors, including those who successfully transitioned across industries, benchmark distributors achieving regional TOP1 for a single brand, and top merchants growing from zero to millions in a short time. Too many success stories have led many to believe that these excellent distributors were born 'excellent' or were 'excellent' enough to ride the wave of the times. However, almost every excellent distributor has suffered losses and setbacks before becoming 'excellent.' In Fuyang, Anhui, there is such a distributor who, after 15 years of entrepreneurship and several near-bankruptcies, kept experimenting within controllable risks, eventually reviving his company, achieving full-channel coverage locally, with 16 sales staff, 1,500 monthly active stores, a business scale of 60 million yuan, and monthly sales of over 8,000 self-assembled gift boxes. He is Yao Qifu, General Manager of Fuyang Yaoji Trading.
Recently, New Distribution had an in-depth conversation with Yao Qifu, General Manager of Fuyang Yaoji Trading, to hear about his entrepreneurial journey, methods for business growth, and insights on self-assembled gift boxes.
15 Years of Entrepreneurship: A Bumpy Road Yao Qifu's experience has been quite tortuous. Before graduating, he was sent to an electronics factory in Guangdong as a salesperson under the guise of 'recruiting apprentices.' Six months later, he joined a classmate in trading to work as a stock clerk at Master Kong, then was transferred to run business in townships. After three years, he jumped to Haitian as a salesperson for a year, then left to Xi'an to become a sales manager for a manufacturer. After eight years of moving around, compared to running the market daily, Yao Qifu envied distributor bosses who could sit in offices and negotiate business, so he planted the seed of starting his own trading company. In 2008, he started his own business. Initially without brand agency, Yao Qifu bought a second-hand military tricycle, found some snacks like chicken feet, pig trotters, and beef jerky, and went to townships to sell. The psychological gap from being a factory manager to doing business himself was huge. Previously, he saw other bosses chatting and laughing, but when it was his turn, earning 200 yuan a day was not easy. He continued selling goods alone on a tricycle until 2012, when he gathered a few people to try Nongfu Spring. However, the market was chaotic at the time, with 9 distributors locally, and he had no experience in water, losing 300,000 yuan in over a year. From 2008 to 2013, Yao Qifu wanted to give up countless times, but on November 14, 2014, 'luck' arrived. That day, Yaoji Trading obtained the agency for 'Lucky Instant Noodles,' becoming a regular player, starting to build a team and connect products. With his 'reckless energy,' Yao Qifu and his team invested in the market without counting costs. In the first year of taking over, Lucky Instant Noodles achieved doubled growth, with market share exceeding 10 million yuan, and Yaoji Trading established a foothold in the local trading industry. At that time, some major brand manufacturers approached Yao Qifu to discuss cooperation, but he refused. Learning from the failure of Nongfu Spring, Yao Qifu understood that trading business must be done step by step. Since Lucky Instant Noodles had achieved a small victory, he should expand its influence, starting with instant noodles, and continue to expand in the leisure food sector, doing channel penetration well. Good food is not afraid of being late; in this process, cultivate the team's professionalism and expand the team size. 2017 was the second turning point for Yaoji Trading. That year, Yao Qifu did something big. At that time, the original distributor of Qiaqia gave up the agency, with over 680,000 yuan of near-expiry products in the warehouse. Taking over Qiaqia's 'mess' would require sacrificing 2-3 years of profits, and no one in Fuyang dared to take it. But Yao Qifu believed that to survive in fierce market competition, the company must take a brand route, and a single brand agency could not support the enterprise's development. With this consideration, he decided to gamble and gritted his teeth to take over Qiaqia. And it turned out that Yao Qifu's decision was undoubtedly correct, and Yaoji Trading was also lucky to catch the new policy of national price control and strict investigation of cross-regional sales. By 2023, Qiaqia's sales tripled, with local market sales exceeding 20 million yuan.
User-Centric Selling: Self-Assembled Gift Boxes with Monthly Sales of 8000+ From several losses and near bankruptcy to now a business scale of 60 million yuan covering all channels in Fuyang, Yao Qifu said that doing business requires trade-offs. The seemingly loss-making 'reckless behavior' in the past actually accumulated brand and customer resources for the company, but for long-term development, new growth points must be found. Yao Qifu turned his attention to self-assembled gift boxes. Benefiting from Anhui Province's gift-giving culture, Fuyang has a strong gift box atmosphere. During festivals, weddings, and funerals, a large number of gift boxes are sold, with high market demand. However, the common gift boxes on the Fuyang market have some problems and do not match local consumption habits. For example, the best-selling biscuit gift box is light in weight and lacks value; a certain nut gift box has a high unit price. If we can differentiate gift boxes and launch products more in line with local consumption habits, this could be a good business. How to solve the problems of low value perception and high premium in gift boxes? The core is to grasp the underlying logic of gift box consumption: Gift-giving emphasizes sincerity, requiring both face and substance. In self-assembled gift boxes, Yaoji Trading also made differentiation around this point:
Content products are set as 'eight major items' : First, the quantity makes consumers feel value for money and gives face when giving gifts; second, eight is homophonous with 'prosperity' in Chinese, implying good luck;
Products are uniformly selected from popular items within major brand product lines with good sales and reputation , so both givers and receivers feel full sincerity;
Include beverages in leisure food gift boxes to increase total weight , making them feel heavier and more valuable in hand;
Customize eye-catching packaging, and the overall size should be larger than other gift boxes on the market , ensuring they stand out on shelves;
Pricing is based on local consumption conditions , with the first self-assembled gift box priced at 55 yuan.
With good packaging, heavy weight, large quantity, and a combination of major brands, it solves both face and substance issues. Although the price is on par with most gift boxes on the market, or even lower than some, in reality, the total price of the gift box is higher than the sum of the retail prices of the internal products, ensuring profit. This self-assembled gift box was all set, just missing the final push. To this end, Yao Qifu held an ordering meeting, displaying 200 gift boxes in a stacked display at the venue, supplemented by sound and light to create an ultimate atmosphere, allowing attending customers to have a more intuitive experience. According to Yao Qifu, the initial sales target was 2,000 boxes, but when the gift box was actually launched, one ordering meeting sold over 2,300, and monthly sales exceeded 8,000 boxes.
A Combat-Ready Team is the Foundation for Market Success Typically, trading companies adopt a sub-area management approach in sales. The advantage is that salespeople can settle down for long-term service, but it also easily leads to difficulties in tackling some blank outlets. In response, Yaoji Trading has innovated on the basis of sub-area management, encouraging salespeople to compete across regions. This cross-regional competition is not about vicious competition or overlapping areas, but rather, during special stages, salespeople can choose 'golden stores' in other areas, with a one-month development period. To be selected as a 'golden store,' it must have large customer traffic, local influence, and a certain amount of regular unloading. The standard for successful development is to reach cooperation with the golden store and display all 50 boxes (300 units) of products on shelves, seizing display space. During this month, the salesperson is protected: first, to avoid vicious competition, the salesperson can fully develop the store; second, to avoid duplicate service. If not successful by the deadline, it is returned to the original salesperson. For example, during the new product distribution stage, a salesperson in Area A can choose 1-2 golden stores in Area B for development. If successful within a month, the store's subsequent business is handled by the salesperson from Area A; if not, it continues to be handled by the salesperson from Area B. It is worth mentioning that regardless of the situation, Yaoji Trading adheres to a principle of no price breaking. For some core stores, maximum discounts can be given through product combinations or gifts, but not breaking the price is the bottom line. According to Yao Qifu, in the past, the company had nearly 10 million yuan in overdue receivables each year, seriously affecting normal operations. Coupled with the implementation of the 'cross-regional competition' model, to ensure a healthy cash flow and prevent salespeople from making arbitrary promises when developing stores or promoting new products, leading to uncollectible payments, at Yaoji Trading, except for large stores of 1,000-2,000 square meters, a unified model of zero credit period and cash settlement is adopted. For stores with special circumstances that cannot settle in cash, the salesperson responsible for that store tracks the payment, with settlement within one month, and the salesperson pays a late fee of one-thousandth of the owed amount per day. A combat-ready team is the foundation for market success. In addition to individual combat capability, team stability is equally important. Compared with local peers, Yaoji Trading does not have a significant advantage in salary, but internally, there is almost no loss of old employees. In internal organizational management, Yaoji Trading pays special attention to emotional connections with employees, treating them as family. New employees have a 'novice protection period' for the first three months, during which they do not participate in credit period assessments, and the company covers any difficulties encountered. From three months to half a year after joining, Yao Qifu conducts one-on-one communication with them. In this process, he considers whether the employee matches the company's development. If they match, even with negative performance growth, they are kept; if not, or if attitude or character is poor, they are gradually eliminated. After continuous screening, the remaining are talents who are of one mind with the company. For old employees, whether they encounter problems at work or in life, the company tries its best to provide help and care. For example, recently, when a salesperson's family member passed away suddenly, Yao Qifu gave all employees leave and organized everyone to drive the company's dozen or so cars to the salesperson's home to help. Currently, Yaoji Trading has 32 employees, of whom over 50% have been with the company for more than 3 years, and those who leave basically do not continue in this industry.
Final Thoughts Many distributors hold a pessimistic view of the future of trading business, but Yao Qifu does not think so. The essence of distributor business is local business doing brand agency. As long as there are strong competitors and blank outlets in the region, distributors still have many growth opportunities. Taking Yaoji Trading as an example, currently doing business with 3 brands with annual sales of 60 million yuan, can it use 4 or 5 brands to grow to 80 million yuan in the future? If peers fall, the vacated market still needs service; can this part of the volume be captured? On the other hand, many leading brands are currently releasing signals of 'distributor consolidation,' because small and medium distributors have limited market service capabilities, and only large distributors can serve large markets well. For traditional distributors, doing 2B business well and achieving supply chain integration is an opportunity and a necessary path for long-term development. In the past, a salesperson serving 100 stores per week alone was the limit, but through supply chain forms, it is possible to improve personnel efficiency and serve more customers; on the other hand, providing one-stop services to stores can deeply bind stores, use scale supply to reduce costs, and enhance bargaining power with upstream and downstream.