---
title: "Distribution, More Importantly, Sell-Through"
description: "Wu Xiuzhen, a distributor in Panjin, Liaoning, dealing in baijiu and beverages, selected a wine series from a well-known state-owned baijiu company in Anhui at the autumn sugar and wine fair. After paying the initial 120,000 yuan and receiving the goods, the promised sales manager never arrived, and the company's wine marketing center was dissolved due to poor recruitment results, leaving Wu with unsold inventory and missed sales opportunities."
author: "胡世明"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2015-03-27"
language: "en"
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---

# Distribution, More Importantly, Sell-Through

> Wu Xiuzhen, a distributor in Panjin, Liaoning, dealing in baijiu and beverages, selected a wine series from a well-known state-owned baijiu company in Anhui at the autumn sugar and wine fair. After paying the initial 120,000 yuan and receiving the goods, the promised sales manager never arrived, and the company's wine marketing center was dissolved due to poor recruitment results, leaving Wu with unsold inventory and missed sales opportunities.

**Introduction:**
Wu Xiuzhen is a distributor in Panjin, Liaoning, dealing in baijiu and beverages. At last autumn's sugar and wine fair, after careful screening, Wu ultimately decided to distribute a series of wines launched by a well-known state-owned baijiu company in Anhui. During the fair, Wu confirmed the intention to cooperate through repeated negotiations with the company's staff. After the fair, he visited the company's marketing center in Hefei and personally met with the deputy general manager in charge of marketing. After a pleasant conversation, Wu paid the company an initial 120,000 yuan for goods, which arrived a week later. Wu waited confidently for the sales manager the company had promised to send, to jointly plan the market launch. However, nearly a month passed, and the sales manager never appeared. After repeated contact with the negotiation manager from the contract talks, Wu finally learned that due to poor recruitment results at the fair, the company had dissolved the wine marketing center, and all sales work was now handled by the original baijiu sales system. But the company's baijiu had almost no sales in the Northeast, so it was impossible to send a dedicated salesperson to serve Wu. As this was Wu's first time distributing wine, his experience and resources were severely lacking, and he could only watch as the products in the warehouse missed the optimal sales window.

**Commentary:**
On the surface, this case reflects a distributor being trapped due to careless product selection, but in reality, it is a typical example of a distributor failing to integrate resources and successfully operate the market after selecting a product. This article will elaborate on the various steps a distributor should take to operate the market after successful product selection.

**Successful product selection stems from scientific planning**
The current market is vastly different from the past. The premise for any distributor to successfully select a product is to combine their own situation with scientific planning to derive appropriate needs. The era of relying on luck to find new products is long gone.

In a successful distributor's product structure, each brand and product form must have a clear division of labor and a clear mission; it is by no means a random pile-up or blind combination. This point is elaborated in detail in the "Distributor Product Line Planning Model" from Dongshengsheng, and industry peers have also put forward many pertinent views. Therefore, we say that "successful product selection must originate from scientific planning," but due to the focus and length of this article, we will not elaborate further on this point.

**Successful distribution lies in product sell-through**
There is a classic saying in the industry: "Choice is more important than effort," but it does not mean that after making a choice, effort becomes unimportant. If choice determines the direction, then effort determines the pace. Therefore, after making the right choice, sustained effort may be even more important. For a distributor, product selection is a decision that determines success or failure for a period, but market operation after successful selection is even more critical. Hence, we say that "successful distribution lies entirely in product sell-through." So how can one achieve successful product sell-through?

**1. Take the initiative, integrate resources, and formulate a plan**
Since each manufacturer has different market operation methods, cooperation models with distributors, and policy support, distributors must conduct in-depth research and communication to gain a profound understanding of the manufacturer's market plan and marketing techniques. Then, combining market conditions and their own company resources, they should form a systematic marketing plan and reach consensus with the manufacturer.

When formulating the marketing plan, distributors should take the initiative, effectively integrate all resources, and avoid resource stacking and waste. Some distributors always try to squeeze out manufacturer expense support, turning the manufacturer's market investment into their own profit source. From a business perspective, this is understandable, but it is not commendable, especially for those distributors who aspire to grow stronger and bigger. It is not the key issue, so we will not elaborate further here.

The main aspects of resource integration include channel expansion, channel promotion, team division of labor, consumer promotion, warehousing and logistics, and effective use of operating funds. Generally, each distributor has relatively strong channel resources, which are directly reflected in channel connections. With these resources, distributors can achieve low-cost channel entry. At this point, distributors can appropriately transfer the manufacturer's channel investment to channel promotion and consumer promotion, and can reasonably adjust or jointly promote among the products they distribute to achieve common healthy growth of the brands they operate. However, all manufacturers dislike distributors diverting their investment to other products. At this time, flexible operation methods and effective communication with the manufacturer are crucial.

A detailed marketing plan should include target channel details, budget, channel entry strategy, channel promotion strategy, consumer promotion strategy, product mix and joint promotion, media support, annual and phased budgets, team plans, and each aspect must have clear timelines and responsible persons. This ensures the operability of the marketing plan.

It should be noted that any manufacturer's market investment is limited, even during new product launch. When a manufacturer's salesperson says that the company will invest according to market needs, they are actually not telling you the internal budget ratio, not that the budget is unlimited. Therefore, for savvy distributors, it is necessary to find ways to understand the manufacturer's investment ceiling and methods. Only then can they truly integrate resources and avoid losses caused by blind promises from the manufacturer's sales staff.

Of course, some manufacturers (usually industry leaders) only require distributors to play the roles of capital platform and warehousing/logistics platform, while the manufacturer handles other functions, such as Master Kong and Coca-Cola. These brands generally have large sales volumes, occupy more distributor capital but have lower unit profits. Distributors choose such products mainly to build networks. In front of these manufacturers, most distributors are in a weak position, so the operation of new products in this situation is a different matter.

**2. Equip a team, clarify responsibilities, and set clear indicators**
After the plan is clear, execution is the most critical. The scientific nature of the distributor's internal organizational structure and personnel division is very important. In recent years, some large trading companies have gradually adopted divisions based on brand, channel, category, region, etc., to divide departments or form specialized business units to achieve refined marketing management. However, except for some very small manufacturers, many manufacturers send sales personnel to each regional market (especially medium and large markets) to assist distributors in marketing work. At this time, it is common for manufacturer personnel and distributor personnel to either have overlapping functions or unclear responsibilities, leading to mutual buck-passing. Therefore, for distributor bosses, how to coordinate with the manufacturer to ensure both sides' personnel maximize their functions and achieve efficient collaboration is particularly critical. If the distributor's own business control ability is strong, they can negotiate with the manufacturer to incorporate both sides' personnel into the distributor's management scope, and maintain this relationship by fulfilling performance commitments to the manufacturer. Alternatively, they can strive for additional expense support from the manufacturer to save some personnel costs, and also ensure the continuation of this relationship by achieving performance commitments. Of course, the case of large manufacturers forming professional teams for deep distribution is an exception.

After team responsibilities are clarified, clear indicators and strict timelines are necessary means to ensure the indicators are achieved on schedule. Therefore, in the marketing plan, there should be clear provisions for the expected completion time of all target plans, with corresponding monitoring, rewards, and penalties, and responsibilities assigned to individuals. Especially, inspection methods and reward/punishment measures are more critical because most employees pay more attention to routine inspection content than other daily work arrangements.

**3. Channel expansion: easy first, then difficult, step by step**
Just like gaining consumer recognition, new products being accepted by channels also takes a relatively long process. Therefore, when expanding channels, it is necessary to grasp the principle of easy first, then difficult, allowing easily accepted channels to enter first, then gradually penetrate other channels, ultimately achieving full entry into target channels. The "difficult" and "easy" here are dialectical. Most channels have low acceptance due to disagreements on trade terms during negotiations. Therefore, under different manufacturer expense investments for new products, there is a dialectical difference between "difficult" and "easy." With sufficient funds, it is natural to first enter influential large terminals; if funds are limited, it is appropriate to first consider outlets with low entry costs but also some influence.

**4. Terminal momentum, channel linkage, and effective connection**
After channel entry, creating terminal atmosphere and deep communication with consumers is the final step for product sell-through. How to make our products first gain consumer recognition at the terminal? Many manufacturers have endless marketing techniques. Theoretically, placing the product in front of consumers is the channel's responsibility, while putting the product into consumers' minds is the brand operator's responsibility. However, for distributors in the traditional Chinese market, if they entrust the heavy responsibility of new product acceptance to the manufacturer, they may end up hurting themselves again. This is another aspect of the survival environment for FMCG distributors in the cracks. If the brand succeeds, it belongs to the manufacturer; if the brand fails, the goods rot in the warehouse, and it is the distributor's loss. Although with intensified market competition, many manufacturers have proposed after-sales service commitments, not many truly provide full service without discount. Therefore, when products are fully distributed at the terminal, distributors cannot relax on consumer promotion. Moreover, to truly succeed in operating the agency products, even if the manufacturer's online media support is in place, the distributor's offline promotion is still indispensable.

At the same time, through targeted promotional communication at various terminals, ultimately forming linkage between channels, it is not far from forming a good sales atmosphere for the new product. It can be said that this is the last step from distribution to sell-through, and it is a particularly important link.

Through the effective connection of the above steps, I believe that for a product that can be accepted by the market, the goal of successful promotion can basically be achieved. Of course, for products with poor quality or inaccurate positioning, the faster the promotion, the faster they die. Such issues test the distributor's ability to discern good products during selection, which is not in the same category as successful sell-through. Finally, I wish all distributor friends, after careful product selection, can achieve successful sell-through, because only the success of sell-through means the success of distribution!

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