When you see this title, I believe many distributors will sneer: "We don't even know how much longer the distributor business will last, how can it be worth re-engaging the terminal market?"

When distributors say this, I understand their meaning: "I'm in the oral care category, paper products, or snacks. Young people are buying online, and offline share is shrinking irreversibly. Offline sales are declining, so how can you talk about re-engaging the terminal?" I believe this is how the vast majority of distributors understand their business. But looking back, offline business capacity is decreasing while online is increasing. Does that mean offline truly has no opportunities?

In September this year, I visited a Jinluo distributor in a certain region. He told me that in the past, their business was only over 10 million yuan, but this year they can achieve over 90 million yuan. Nearly 10 times offline growth—this can almost be described as terrifying.

How did he do it? In fact, the strategy is nothing new: re-engage the terminal market. Previously, there were only a dozen in-store promoters; now there are 200 full-time promoters.

How exactly? Store by store, they conquered them! For example, in a certain store, the ham sausage category had Shuanghui at 70,000-150,000 yuan, while Jinluo only had 10,000-20,000 yuan. First, they had frontline salespeople focus on that store for a period, improving shelf placement and display. When sales reached over 20,000 yuan and costs could be supported, they then assigned a full-time promoter.

On weekends, they did tasting and shouting, with salespeople accompanying as practice, continuing to grab share in every sub-category. In the words of the distributor boss, it feels like fighting a battle every day in the terminal stores.

This is a real case of re-engaging the terminal market.

No More Incremental Growth; Only Seizing Existing Share

Previously, many distributors asked me: What is the future path for distributors? I said there is only one path: seize existing share and become a large distributor.

Let's talk about seizing existing share first. Indeed, as most distributors believe, the capacity of most categories is declining, especially in daily chemicals, paper products, and washing care. On one hand, young consumers' habits are migrating online; on the other hand, even with consumption upgrades and diverse, personalized demands, these scenarios still occur online.

On offline physical shelves, it's hard to impress consumers with just static products and familiar names. Online, through short videos, host interactions, social recommendations, and content seeding, a consumer who had no plan to buy toothpaste might become interested due to a scene shown by a short video blogger, hitting their pain point, and then making a purchase.

Incremental growth is online—this is an indisputable fact. Offline only has existing share. To grow, you must seize it. Seize what? Seize the sales of other distributors in the same category.

I often use this example: For dairy giants Yili and Mengniu, does the sales volume of these two brands in a regional offline market depend on the brand or the product? Frankly, it doesn't matter much. Both are household names; consumers can choose either.

So what is the key to winning in a regional market? It's the operational capability of the distributors of these two brands. Whichever has better operational capability, that brand's business will be better.

Distributors must not just stare at the brands they represent and complain: "11.11 is offering special prices online again, so low. How can we do business?"

Perhaps while you're complaining, your neighboring distributor has poached one of your stores, directly affecting a core store that loses 2 million yuan in annual sales.

If you calculate by business amount, the online sales of a certain brand averaged to your city are negligible. If your business is not doing well, it's not because online is stealing your business, but because neighboring distributors are stealing your business.

From another dimension, when your peer distributors are complaining, if you seriously focus on digging out single-store output, you can also gain your own business increment.

What's Behind Becoming a Large Distributor?

A few days ago, I noticed an interesting phenomenon. When you ask distributors what industry they are in, 99% will say: "I'm in beverages," "I'm in paper products," "I'm in laundry and daily chemicals"... Almost no distributor thinks from the heart: "I'm in the trade and distribution industry, the agency industry..."

Frankly, whether it's snacks, paper products, or condiments, these are just carriers of business. The essence of a distributor's business is transmission: purchasing, moving, and selling goods. What goods matter, as it's the foundation, but it's not the only thing.

The only thing that matters is the downstream store customers and the efficiency of purchasing, moving, and selling. In the past, brands came first, then distribution. Many distributors grew their business by riding on brand dividends and category growth, overly relying on upstream.

Accustomed to manufacturers giving business, the final result is complacency. Strictly speaking, when a distributor reaches a certain scale, with capital strength, operational capability, and stable customers, they should think about how to do well in their local area.

How to do well in your local area? Focus on the city's trade and distribution business, not on a single category or manufacturer.

Let me give a simple example: Suppose the paper products category has a 50 million yuan share in a regional market, and you achieve 30 million, holding 60% share. Due to intense competition among brands in the category, even if you put in 200% effort, you'd likely struggle to reach 40 million in sales; other brands are not pushovers.

What should a distributor do then? Maintain stability, focus on defense. Transfer the operational capability of managing this brand to other brands and categories, broaden your horizons, and look at the trade and distribution business.

Through a combination of multiple product lines and categories, continuously reduce the operating cost of a single brand and increase the comprehensive output per person and per store. When the offline share of paper products drops to 30 million one day, and your competitors, because they operate a single brand, can't bear the cost pressure, then you can integrate, harvest, or even monopolize.

Summary:

In the past, why has New Distribution always emphasized that distributors should become large? Because behind value transmission, there is only scale effect; there has never been a small and beautiful business. Brand owners are value creators; they can target a specific type of target group, meet niche needs, and be small and beautiful, but distributors can only become large.

Of course, I'm talking about becoming large with a logical sequence, not immediately expanding categories and product lines. If you can't even achieve the first or second place in a category, it means your management and operational capabilities are flawed. If management is flawed, even if you handle more categories, you'll only scratch the surface.

First, focus on one brand and grow it to the top three in a regional market. The method is: re-engage the terminal market, conquering one store at a time. Then focus on one category and grow it, using channel reuse and resource reorganization to attack a category. At that point, you'll have trained a good team, then carry out organizational fractalization, and expand categories through a category partner structure.

This is the correct business development path for a regional distributor. Forget the impact of online e-commerce, reduce dependence on upstream brands, reorganize your team, and re-engage terminal stores. When you actually practice this, you'll find that offline business is far bigger than you imagined!

Focus on FMCG distributor new distribution/innovative consumer brand cases

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