---
title: "Distributors: Still Selling Products from Ten Years Ago? Aren't You Tired?"
description: "Due to consumption upgrades and business needs, manufacturers launch new products every year to cater to the market and gain new profit increments. In this context, if distributors fail to cooperate with manufacturers, it will significantly impact their own business. Not promoting new products fails to meet the manufacturer's task requirements, the need to adjust product structure, and the distributor's goals of increasing volume and profit. In the era of stock, it's very difficult for distributors to rely on old products for growth. New products are developed by upstream brands with time, effort, manpower, and material resources, and they represent future trends, offering sufficient profit margins and market potential, as well as opportunities for distributors to expand their business."
author: "李锋"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2020-10-06"
language: "en"
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# Distributors: Still Selling Products from Ten Years Ago? Aren't You Tired?

> Due to consumption upgrades and business needs, manufacturers launch new products every year to cater to the market and gain new profit increments. In this context, if distributors fail to cooperate with manufacturers, it will significantly impact their own business. Not promoting new products fails to meet the manufacturer's task requirements, the need to adjust product structure, and the distributor's goals of increasing volume and profit. In the era of stock, it's very difficult for distributors to rely on old products for growth. New products are developed by upstream brands with time, effort, manpower, and material resources, and they represent future trends, offering sufficient profit margins and market potential, as well as opportunities for distributors to expand their business.

Due to consumption upgrades and corporate operational needs, manufacturers launch numerous new products each year to cater to the market and secure new profit increments. In this context, if distributors fail to cooperate with manufacturers, it will significantly impact their own business.
Not promoting new products fails, first, to meet the manufacturer's task requirements; second, to meet the need for adjusting product structure; and third, to meet the distributor's goals of increasing volume and profit.
In the era of stock, it's very difficult for distributors to rely on old products for volume and profit growth. **New products are developed by upstream brands with time, effort, manpower, material resources, and future trends in mind; they inherently have sufficient profit margins and market potential, and are also opportunities for distributors to grow their business.**
However, many distributors resist new products, finding them hard to sell. But to win in the fiercely competitive market, only by actively promoting new products can they adapt to evolving consumer demands, win more customer resources, and thus expand their business.
So, how can distributors most efficiently promote new products? I believe there are two dimensions: organizational management and terminal management. Today, I'll mainly discuss how to do well in new product promotion at the terminal level.
**-01-**
**The stores that can sell new products weren't selected!**
New product promotion requires a gradual approach. If you encounter a "Waterloo" at the start, it can be a significant blow to the morale of both distributors and salespeople. In fact, often the "Waterloo" is caused by the distributors themselves.
Most distributors, when promoting new products, directly send salespeople to push them at terminals, without selecting stores. This leads to a phenomenon: **the stores where salespeople place products are those where the boss is easy-going and the relationship is good.**
Can these stores sell new products well? Not necessarily. Most stores that can sell new products are those with excellent business and high negotiation difficulty, which are precisely the stores salespeople are unwilling to "hit their noses" against, as it takes time. If new products are placed in stores that can't sell them, no matter how hard you try, it's all for naught; it may even backfire and waste resources.
Another issue is that distributors distribute new products too quickly, blooming everywhere within a month, resulting in inadequate service, continuous customer feedback on after-sales issues, and failure to address them promptly, wasting customer goodwill.
The key to effectively solving these problems lies in selecting target stores and determining their quantity. New product distribution should proceed in three stages, layer by layer, gradually breaking through:
> 1) First month: distribution rate 10%, select top 15 stores; 2) Second month: distribution rate 15%, select top 20 stores; 3) Third month: distribution rate 20%, select top 25 stores;
After three months, check customer activity once, summarize the new product distribution work, solve problems for problematic stores, summarize experiences from fast-moving stores, and finalize the distribution plan.
Of course, during the distribution process, there are five points to pay special attention to.
First, team building and momentum creation during distribution are crucial. The personnel for distribution activities should be jointly formed by the brand and distributor, with teams competing against each other to create a distribution atmosphere.
Second, the timing of distribution is very important; it's best to distribute just before the peak sales season. For example, for Mid-Autumn Festival gift boxes, it's best to distribute at the end of July.
Third, salespeople should be able to calculate accounts for store owners. During new product distribution, the biggest concern for terminals is whether they can make money from selling this product. If the owner thinks they can make money, they will proactively sell it.
Fourth, train on product selling points. Generally, new products are mid-to-high-end priced, lacking price advantage, so selling points must be emphasized. For example, for organic milk, tell the terminal that from cow breeding to feed to production, every aspect is healthy.
Fifth, introduce successful cases, telling stores that their competitors are doing well, and use communication skills to impress customers.
**-02-**
**Poor Display Equals Zero**
**"Good display leads to good sales." No matter how good the product, if consumers can't see it, the result is zero. Therefore, after new products arrive at stores, the first issue to address is display, making the owner pay attention and making it easy for consumers to see and reach.**
**1) Normal Display: Leaning on the Big Shot**
**Place new products next to best-selling products in the same category, commonly known as riding on popularity, to enhance consumer awareness.** Not all consumers have brand awareness. For example, female consumers calculate when buying daily necessities, but most male consumers have low brand awareness for daily products and often buy whatever is expensive.
Take cooking oil as an example: Luhua peanut oil is in the high price range, so high-end new products from other brands can be placed next to Luhua. Luhua targets mid-to-high-end consumers, and the consumer base for new products matches, increasing the chance of fast sales.
Another classic case: when Pepsi initially distributed, its displays were always next to Coca-Cola. Through Coca-Cola's fame, they opened up sales networks. With the same consumer base and similar taste, once promotions were run, sales basically increased.
**2) Special Display: Vivid + Atmosphere**
**When promoting new products, you must attract consumers' attention; only if consumers are interested can there be sales. The best display effect is: see it, reach it, buy it.**
Authoritative institutions once provided data: 71% of consumers' purchase decisions are made at the terminal, 90% of impulse purchase interest fades after 10 seconds, and consumers typically stay in front of shelves for no more than two minutes.
Display is about fully showcasing products to maximize consumer purchase desire, capturing consumers within these two minutes to drive sales.****
Simpler methods like cut-case displays, pillar wraps, shelf displays, dedicated back displays, and checkout counter displays are key areas for distributors to focus on. Especially the checkout counter, which is the core area of a terminal store and a must-pass for consumers. For example, use banners, posters, price tags, wobblers, endorsement certificates, and side panels to stimulate consumers' purchase desire with vivid displays.
**-03-**
**Educating Consumers Is Not Just Talk**
We often say "the terminal is king," **the core logic being that the terminal is the ultimate battlefield for product success. No matter how good online advertising is, if consumers can't see it, it's zero.**
Therefore, terminal advertising placement and consumer education are indispensable. Here, I want to mention the concept of "three-dimensional promotion." After salespeople have done well in getting new products into stores and displaying them, the final key element is terminal pull.
Consumers can see the product, but they haven't established product awareness. Terminal pull should not only make the product visible but also audible and recognizable. For example, in the beverage industry, invest in freezers and KT boards at stores, and even in larger supermarkets, place TV loop ads.
At a higher level, make store clerks promoters of product selling points. **The channel where consumers can hear is the clerk; products are sold through them, so first train clerks to know the product's selling points and functions, making consumers more convinced.**
In this regard, Nongfu Spring is worth learning from. Wherever Nongfu Spring reaches, you can basically see their freezers. Moreover, they have been doing water tests for terminal store owners for over a decade, telling terminals that the product is naturally weak alkaline and beneficial to health.
From the consumer perspective, distributors can do a lot too. Conduct tastings, lucky draws, and small games to bring products into close contact with consumers. For example, rice has low profit margins, and ground promotion isn't cost-effective, so we use a rice cooker and tray, plus a blackboard to introduce selling points, creating an overall scene to enhance the consumer experience.
In addition, **community promotion is an important part of consumer education. Target communities in each city's urban areas and break through one by one.** First, find community stores, make store signs, do good displays and distribution in community stores, then on weekends, set up tents for outdoor promotional activities based on different consumer groups, with promoters demonstrating on-site.**
There are no unsellable products, only people who can't sell them. As long as the activity is well-planned and comprehensive, there are always more solutions than difficulties.
**-04-**
**Peers Are More Persuasive Than Distributors**
Shi Yuzhu summarized the Brain Gold marketing case: **"Sample markets must not be rushed; national markets must not be slow."** This saying is equally applicable to distributors' new product distribution. Creating model stores is an important step in new product distribution. No matter how well distributors describe the product, it's not as good as seeing it with your own eyes at the store.
The essence of a model store is to set an example, with the best product sales format, highest profitability, and replicable marketing methods. **Through model store creation, leverage points to drive surrounding stores, making other stores proactively request new products.**
Creating a model store first requires selecting stores. The "28 law" applies here as well: 20% of stores contribute 80% of sales. **Model store selection should also be among the top 20% of key customers.**
After selecting stores, the next step for distributors is to invest high-quality resources to quickly establish the new product's image and create a best-selling atmosphere. Every space, shelf, floor stack, and position in the store should have the new product's label.
For example, when promoting a high-end product from Arawana, we established a 40-square-meter image store. Through scenario-based layout, we attracted a large number of consumers to take photos and post on social media, invisibly bringing in many potential consumers.
After the preliminary work is done, later maintenance must also be emphasized. Customers are watching the sales of model stores, so it must be done well. For instance, model stores should hold effective promotional activities irregularly to quickly move new products, while also giving downstream customers confidence to promote new products.
In summary, the role of an image store is actually to create a fast-selling atmosphere, set an example, and dispel store owners' concerns, making them believe the product sells well. Often, whether a product sells depends on people's mindset.
**Final Thoughts:**
**Doing well in new product promotion is not only key to a distributor's volume and profit growth but also a reflection of a distributor's capability and strength.** With a new product, under the same environment, how are you doing compared to other distributors? Conversely, many distributors shy away from new products, not even daring to try. Can they grow big?


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