Warm reminder: Click the blue text above “FMCG Distributor Professional Consulting” to learn more about marketing and distributor internal management. For distributor friends, choosing a few good products at the Sugar and Wine Fair is probably the happiest thing. With the rapid development of China's food industry, the development of China's sugar, tobacco, alcohol, and food products has shown a state of blooming flowers, providing consumers with more choices. Of course, for distributors, facing a dazzling array of products, it's no wonder they get confused. For them, the Sugar and Wine Fair is truly both loved and hated. How to choose a good product has become the most headache-inducing issue for many distributors. Enterprises need recruitment strategies for attracting distributors, and distributors also need product selection strategies. Neither should be blind, otherwise it may harm both parties and not be worth the loss. Below are eight strategies for distributors to select products at the Sugar and Wine Fair, shared with distributor friends: Strategy 1: Big brands' strategic big single products are like "white, rich, and beautiful" (ideal choices), so prioritize them. As a distributor, everyone wants to choose good products under big brands. However, often such enterprises already have enough distributors and rarely recruit at the Sugar and Wine Fair. But big brands also need to innovate with new products. Every year at the Sugar and Wine Fair, many big brands launch innovative products, which requires distributors to have discerning eyes. Ren Lijun reminds distributor friends that not all innovative products launched by big brands are "white, rich, and beautiful." If they are supplementary products that are not crucial to the enterprise's development strategy, we suggest distributors be cautious in choosing them. For example, new flavors of instant noodles launched by instant noodle companies carry high risk. If the innovative product is a strategic big single product, such as the noodle sauce launched by a soy sauce company, it is clear that the enterprise expects this product to support its development strategy. Such products should be considered "white, rich, and beautiful." Basically, over 99% of strategic big single products under big brands are products that distributors can prioritize. Although competition will be fierce, distributors should not give up the opportunity to "marry the white, rich, and beautiful" and should try their best to strive for it. Strategy 2: Products where small brands' category innovations are followed by big brands are likely to achieve "loser counterattack" (rise from obscurity), making them the first choice. Based on years of experience attending the Sugar and Wine Fair, distributors often pay attention to certain innovative products for one or two sessions, or even longer. Often these innovative products come from "loser" enterprises (small companies). Due to insufficient enterprise strength and limited marketing capabilities, although the product has the potential to become a "tall, rich, and handsome" (successful product), it cannot stand out due to resource constraints. It should be known that the space for innovative products is getting smaller and smaller. Discovering innovative products is often one of the important purposes for big brand enterprises to attend the Sugar and Wine Fair. When these big brand enterprises find innovative products with market potential, they will spare no effort to imitate and launch them. With their strong enterprise strength and marketing resource advantages, they quickly turn them into star products, achieving a "loser counterattack." Distributors should not miss such products. For example, the products that have become popular in recent years, such as Six Walnuts and Kvass, as well as Wahaha's Nutri-Express, also originated from product innovations by other small enterprises. The rock sugar and pear drink that became popular nationwide in 2012 was also an innovative product from a small enterprise in Hebei, but it was expanded and divided by several major beverage giants. Strategy 3: Medium-sized enterprises' combined attack with innovative products belongs to "middle-class rise," so select carefully. Many regional medium-sized food enterprises were once strong brands in their local regional markets, but due to limited enterprise strength, they cannot enter the national market. If such enterprises suddenly change their appearance and appear at the Sugar and Wine Fair with a brand-new look, and propose to challenge the national giant brands, it is mostly because these enterprises have obtained support from some capital. This is a precursor to the "middle class" becoming the "big shot." Distributors can make correct judgments after carefully collecting information, and choosing it still has considerable potential. Once a distributor follows a middle-class brand and grows into a big-shot brand, then the distributor themselves will also transform from a "loser" distributor to a "tall, rich, and handsome" among distributors. The reason for requiring distributors to do a good job of information collection is to worry that some enterprises may fool distributors to raise money at the Sugar and Wine Fair. I believe many distributors have been fooled in this way and will not make similar mistakes again. Strategy 4: "Homebody" products in unattended categories can be chosen for distribution. Many local specialties and small foods are very delicious, but due to lack of publicity and promotion, they have not been recognized by the market. Basically, they are "homebound" in their place of origin for sales. It is possible that through the sales of far-sighted distributors, these small products can realize the dream of "leaving the poor mountain valley." When selecting such products, distributors must evaluate them from the perspectives of consumer demand, consumption habits, and consumption psychology in their own region. Once suitable, they can decisively make a move. In recent years, many small-category products have achieved the goal of coming out and realized the dream of becoming famous big brands. For example, JDB Herbal Tea (originally Wanglaoji Herbal Tea), which was originally sold in Guangdong, is the most typical case, achieving a hundred-billion-yuan herbal tea market. There are also Fuling Zhacai, mushroom sauce, chicken feet, beef jerky, and other products, which have evolved from regional small categories into popular small foods nationwide. Strategy 5: Emotional innovative products belong to "moaning without illness" (pretentious), so avoid them. Many enterprises, in pursuit of innovative appeals, when there is no room for product quality innovation, think of emotional innovation. Distributor friends should remember: if it is an old product that has been unchanged for years but with innovative emotional appeals, no matter how beautifully it is presented, do not choose it. If the product has made significant quality improvements that are beneficial to the market and has appropriate emotional appeals, it might be a good product, but scientific consumer demand evaluation should also be conducted when selecting. Ren Lijun calls those products that specifically make emotional appeals "moaning without illness" type. They are easy to make marketing researchers, including enterprise marketing personnel and distributors, excited. But when they come to ordinary people, ordinary consumers do not buy products with a research mindset, and your emotional appeal may be greatly discounted. There was an enterprise that launched a rose drink with a love theme, but the market response was cold, and it had to withdraw from the market. Moreover, a large number of food enterprises have launched promotional slogans with concepts like love, affection, care, etc., and the effects have been basically poor. Strategy 6: "Pseudo-high-end products" caused by cost control cannot be chosen. At the Sugar and Wine Fair, many enterprises will focus on the high-end card, blindly positioning some new products that have undergone simple innovation as high-end. Ren Lijun points out that this kind of product, which is high-cost due to poor cost control by the enterprise, is forced to implement high-end positioning, but it is not a truly high-end product. As the saying goes, high price does not mean high positioning. Distributors must avoid falling into such traps. Consumers will not be fooled by such products. In the Sugar and Wine Fairs we have attended over the years, we have found many such blindly high-end positioned products. On the basis of no substantial improvement in quality, they create pseudo-high-end products through packaging changes and price increases. This is only a self-deceiving poor performance by the enterprise and will not be accepted by consumers and the market. Of course, distributors should not blindly choose such pseudo-high-end products. Strategy 7: International or imported products that do not conform to Chinese consumer culture should be carefully selected. Each country has different consumer cultures, which is particularly evident in food consumption. For example, everyone recognizes that olive oil is a healthy cooking oil, and the price has gradually decreased. However, in the Chinese market, although olive oil has big brands from large enterprises, it has never made much progress in the share of cooking oil. An important point is China's consumer culture and consumption habits. We often see some internationally innovative products and imported products appearing at the Sugar and Wine Fair, and "arrogantly" claiming what market capacity the product has in Western countries, believing that in the near future China will also become an important market for the product. Obviously, such reasoning logic is not realistic. Distributors should still carefully understand the product, see whether Chinese consumers have any resistance in consumer culture and consumption habits, and then consider whether to distribute it. Do not decide to distribute solely based on its international innovation or imported label. Ren Lijun points out that many imported foods have retail prices comparable to or slightly higher than Chinese products. For such products, distributors must consider and investigate very carefully. After traveling across the ocean, plus transportation costs and tariffs, if the price is not very high, it indicates that the production cost abroad is very low. Then, will there be quality issues? Or is it the lowest-end similar product abroad? Strategy 8: Products with beneficial additives that are difficult for ordinary people to understand or lack awareness should not be chosen. Many enterprises always want to win by surprise. Among many regional small and medium-sized enterprises, super innovation often appears, such as adding many so-called beneficial additives to food that are difficult for ordinary people to understand or lack awareness. Although it seems very reasonable when introducing the product and is also the general direction of market demand, it is not easy to operate in practice. For example, an enterprise with a professional scientific research background uses biotechnology to add antioxidants to rice when planting, claiming it can slow down aging and prevent the incidence of diseases such as the three highs and Alzheimer's. Although the company can produce a large stack of awards from the United Nations down to the municipal science and technology commission, such products still need to be carefully selected. We know that when Ye Maozhong made Yake V9, he added vitamins, creating the sub-category of vitamin candy. But can vitamins be added to unlimited foods? We see that some enterprises launch vitamin soy sauce, some launch vitamin flour, some launch vitamin cakes, and so on. Ren Lijun points out that these seemingly beneficial additives, to some extent, do not necessarily bring good luck to the product, and often make consumers unable to understand or accept them. Of course, there are also products like adding konjac flour to noodles, making convenience noodles from coarse grains, etc. Although these behaviors conform to the idea of product innovation, they are not necessarily good ideas that meet market demand. When selecting products, distributors must not blindly choose distribution just because of these new technologies, good innovations, or beneficial additives. Instead, they should look at consumers' consumption habits, consumption concepts, and acceptance levels. Ren Lijun points out that expecting to make a product into a "all-purpose tonic" all-round product is unrealistic and does not meet market demand. Therefore, in terms of product use value appeals, the simpler and more singular, the better; the more complex, the more confused consumers become. -------------------------------------- Like this article? Feel free to click the top right corner to share it to your circle of friends; About us: WeChat name: FMCG Distributor Professional Consulting Management Account introduction: 20 years of experience in FMCG distributor operations and management, professionally targeting distributor internal affairs: Click the "Read the original" below to enter our micro-community for interactive communication and questions. Learning and exchange QQ group: 344257092 Reply 1 to enter the micro official website to view historical messages. -----------------------------------------