“ B2B来了,生意受影响最大的是经销商;视频直播电商来了,生意受影响最大的是经销商;社区团购来了,生意受影响最大的还是经销商。为什么所有的新零售业态开始布局线下时,最受伤的永远是经销商? ” In recent years, it has become a consensus that business in the FMCG industry is difficult. This difficulty stems partly from changes in the market environment: the national economic growth rate has slowed year by year, and we are gradually entering an aging society. On the other hand, changes in consumer behavior and consumption patterns have given rise to a constant stream of new sales channels. The market is finite, and as new entrants keep coming, distributors' business is inevitably diverted. But returning to the essence of the distributor business, why is it that every time a new retail format begins to penetrate offline, distributors' business is always the first to be impacted? Why is distributors' business always the first to be hit? When all internet companies start to penetrate offline, why do distributors always suffer the most? This brings us to the fragility of the distributor business. Undeniably, distributors provide upstream functions for brand owners such as capital advances and inventory warehousing, and downstream they provide market services and logistics distribution to retail stores. As connectors between brand owners and stores, the importance of distributors is self-evident. Especially in an era of information asymmetry and poor information flow, when small stores cannot find supply sources and manufacturers cannot find channels to sell products, the emergence of distributors played a crucial role in promoting commodity circulation and balancing supply and demand, leaving huge room for their survival and growth. But with the development of society, relying on information asymmetry and using product price differences as the main source of income has become the "original sin" of distributors. The business model that once allowed them to "win by lying down" has now become the reason why many distributors choose to "lie flat" in resignation, which is naturally inseparable from the impact of changes in the macro environment on distributor business. First, the development of the internet and e-commerce has changed the way people access information and consume daily, gradually erasing the information gap between supply and demand. Small stores can now purchase not only from distributors and wholesale markets but also from B2B platforms like X Xitong and X Jiupi, weakening the role and value of distributors as middlemen. "Originally, we could only get goods from distributors, but now we can buy online with lower prices, more variety, and more choices. Why would I put all my eggs in one basket and only buy from distributors?" said a grocery store owner. Second, low entry barriers, low competitive barriers, and weak competitiveness mean that the number of distributors is severely excessive, necessitating mergers and consolidation. This is also an important reason why internet giants are scrambling to "snatch" distributor business. According to incomplete statistics from New Distribution, there are 600,000 to 700,000 FMCG distributors nationwide. Excluding objective factors such as overlapping coverage of supermarkets, KA channels, and restaurants, if we calculate based on the existing 5.6 million traditional grocery stores nationwide, this means each grocery store has nearly 10 distributors serving it, illustrating the sheer oversupply of distributors. This inevitably leads to vicious competition among distributors, such as price undercutting, cross-regional selling, and price inversion, making mergers and consolidation among distributors imperative. Furthermore, the chaotic internal management and non-standardized business practices of most distributors are also important reasons why many internet giants covet the distributor business. Family-run operations, decisions made on the fly, and inadequate rules, regulations, and performance appraisal systems are common phenomena among most distributors. "There are only a few people, and they are all acquaintances, so formal rules seem too distant. Since the money is in our own accounts, we just check the accounts at the end of the year to see if we made a profit," is the norm for most distributors' daily operations. This extensive management style may not be a problem in the early stages of business when everyone is fighting together. But once the business scale expands, problems gradually emerge. Inability to recruit, retain, and effectively utilize new employees, along with weak capabilities, low efficiency, and management difficulties of old employees, become the biggest constraints on improving distributor operational efficiency. This state of "outwardly strong but inwardly weak" creates the fragility of distributor business, making it easy to understand why even a slight disturbance can impact distributor business to varying degrees. The "Barbarians" Not to Be Underestimated When advanced productive forces begin to gradually replace traditional ones, it is because the latter's efficiency can no longer meet new efficiency demands. At this point, traditional forces can either passively accept change or actively embrace it and seek transformation. The two approaches may seem to lead to the same end, but the actual results are vastly different, and we will not elaborate further here. When facing the impact of internet companies on offline business, many distributors easily fall into a misconception, believing that all new formats are just a passing fad. Although they may cause some short-term impact, they cannot fundamentally shake their foundations. As a result, they adopt an attitude of indifference and neglect towards various new retail formats, ultimately leading to a failure to see, understand, or appreciate the changes happening in the industry. Once these changes complete a qualitative shift from quantitative accumulation, it is too late for distributors to adapt. Ask yourself: when an order is generated, how many distributors can immediately and clearly answer what the profit on that order is? What is the warehousing and distribution cost? What is the net profit? Most distributors probably cannot answer these questions. But internet e-commerce platforms can. Take a domestic B2B platform as an example: how many store terminals do market salespeople visit in real time? How long do they stay at each store? Do they slack off during market operations? How many stores have been activated? Which important stores are being impacted by competitors? What types of products are suitable for which stores? All this information and data is clearly displayed on the internet e-commerce platform. This information can also be fed back to platform managers in a timely manner, allowing them to track problematic stores, slacking salespeople, and even problematic orders, maximizing the avoidance of business losses. In contrast, most distributors' current business models, management methods, and operational models have not changed at all compared to three, five, or even ten years ago. In the new era, how can we expect distributors who remain stuck in the past to do well now, let alone in the next three, five, or ten years? How Can Traditional Distributors Save Themselves? So, in the face of various new retail formats, how should traditional distributors save themselves? Digitalization is an unavoidable topic. Distributors face a completely new, internet-based market environment. When our consumers and users are on WeChat, Xiaohongshu, Douyin, Taobao, and other apps, we must also use new tools and methods to communicate with our users, achieve digital distribution, avoid user loss and disconnection, and thereby help distributor business become efficient, data-driven, and visualized. Digital distribution also means the onlineization of every business link for distributors. To quote Mr. Zhao Bo, founder of New Distribution, on the onlineization of distributor business: " Market onlineization: Where are expenses invested? Are they invested in precise stores? Have they produced results? Are they settled in a timely manner? ” Order onlineization is a key point in digital management. Through online orders, you can know the flow of goods, the distribution of product categories and items sold in stores, and then formulate corresponding promotional policies to meet terminal demand. Inventory onlineization: complete data on product outbound, inbound, and flow allows for calculating safety stock and reducing risks of overstocking and cross-regional selling. Personnel onlineization: all work of factory employees, distributor employees, supermarket promoters, and supervisors is online, so all work can be reached, allowing distributors to use measurable numbers to identify excellent employees. Customer onlineization: through digital tools, terminal store owners can communicate with the enterprise online, place orders in real time, and settle expenses promptly, greatly improving overall digital efficiency. Business onlineization inevitably requires the support and implementation of digital tools. Recently, Zhoupu Data, a leading domestic provider of comprehensive digital solutions for FMCG supply chains, officially launched Zhouyi, a business decision-making tool specifically developed for FMCG distributor owners. As a BI business intelligence solution, Zhouyi has four analysis modules: employees, customers, products, and funds. It helps distributors quickly gain insights into and manage important data in their business, grasp the overall picture of enterprise operations, and thereby help business owners make better and faster business decisions. For example, as business scale expands, employee management becomes a major headache for many distributor owners. Employees come and go early and late, but market operation efficiency is declining, and improvement seems elusive. Many distributors are also at a loss about which regions and brands have not yet been distributed in their area. Zhouyi, under Zhoupu Data, can help distributors move from data discovery to decision-making, providing comprehensive intelligent analysis of enterprise business data: 1. Assist distributor owners in setting enterprise performance goals, intelligently break them down to each employee, monitor goal completion, and provide detailed interpretation of employee progress toward goals. 2. Monitor the product movement of each customer at any time, analyze customer contribution types from multiple dimensions, and help distributors understand customer operations and adjust strategies promptly. 3. Understand the distribution status of specific brands or products by channel, brand, region, and salesperson, and drill down into movement and non-movement situations. 4. Analyze sales collections, customer arrears, gross profit, and net profit by time and channel to avoid financial risks. Traditional distributor business has been impacted by internet e-commerce and new retail formats more than once. The consumer market is changing, and distributors have undergone different stages of iteration. But no matter how the macro economy changes or how the consumption environment shifts, the channel transformation of China's FMCG industry is an extremely complex process, and internet e-commerce will never monopolize the circulation channel business of the FMCG industry. However, the irreplaceability of the industry does not mean there is no elimination within it. Especially in today's world of rapidly changing internet development and consumer behavior, distributor business is no longer simply about capital advances and inventory warehousing; it will place more emphasis on efficiency, service, and operations. In this era, the traditional distributor group will inevitably undergo a new round of replacement and upgrading. Only those distributors who actively change and adapt to these changes will not be eliminated by the market. -END- Are you "watching" me?