If there's one hottest topic in the FMCG industry since 2026, it's definitely special channels. Almost all distributors are squeezing into special channels—billiard halls, esports venues, internet cafes, script murder games, campus stores, highway service areas—every reachable special channel scenario is being flooded with money, manpower, and promotional policies. Everyone sees special channels as a lifeline, hoping to escape the price wars of traditional distribution and capture a wave of high-margin growth. But the real industry status is brutally honest: despite the seemingly booming track, most players simply can't make money. Many distributors, after heavily investing, end up with inventory pile-ups, inverted costs, severely imbalanced input-output ratios, and even losses after a year of hard work. The root cause is never that special channels aren't profitable, but that distributors' strategies are wrong. Special Channels Are Hot Today's special channels are no longer the long-tail small channels that secondary wholesalers once looked down upon; they've become a coveted prize across the industry. Traditional distribution has already entered a dead-end of stock competition: supermarket foot traffic continues to decline, hard discount stores and e-commerce are siphoning market share, street-side shops and traditional channels are mired in endless price wars, margins are squeezed thinner, and many distributors' core business is shrinking year by year, with past annual sales in the millions now halved. In the predicament of no incremental growth, special channels—with their closed nature, stable customer bases, and natural avoidance of low-price competition—have naturally become everyone's hope for a breakthrough. Young people's third social spaces, represented by billiard halls, esports venues, and script murder games, are booming. These scenarios don't rely on street traffic; they retain people through atmosphere, social interaction, and emotional value. Consumers' core need is entertainment and relaxation, and they rarely haggle over prices, offering high premium potential, completely different from the value-for-money logic of traditional channels. More importantly, the core value of special channels has been deeply understood by leading brands. Unlike traditional channels' simple product sales, special channels are natural bC integrated scenarios where sales and consumption overlap highly. Young people consume, check in, and spread the word within the scenario, carrying a natural grass-planting attribute, making them an ideal ground for new product trials and capturing consumer awareness. As a result, top brands have established dedicated special channel departments, continuously increasing resource allocation, fully igniting the entire special channel track, turning originally fragmented niche scenarios into a massive incremental market. Fatal Misconceptions The dividends of special channels are visible, but most distributors' strategies have gone astray. Many distributors still cling to distribution thinking, pinning all hopes of growth on opening new stores and distributing new products, blindly pursuing the number of outlets while completely ignoring single-store sell-through and refined operations. Salespeople visiting terminals only do two things: taking orders and chasing payments, never deeply engaging with store scenarios, analyzing customer needs, or executing any on-the-ground sell-through actions. On the surface, stores seem to multiply and book data improves, but in reality, single-store sales keep declining, inventory piles up, and all growth is fake, propped up by continuous resource investment and new outlet openings. As more players enter, major brands engage in bidding-style investment, channel costs rise, and small and medium distributors, lacking the resources and scale of top brands, end up as "blood bags" sucked dry by the market, working hard but earning no profit. More fatal than extensive operations is the inverted business thinking of most distributors. Everyone focuses on the windfall of special channels, crazily chasing unfamiliar new scenarios, while completely neglecting their existing core business cultivated over years. Many hold a large number of quality traditional terminal customers but have never segmented them or deeply operated high-value customers. Instead of mining low-cost, high-certainty incremental growth from existing customers, they cross into completely unfamiliar campus and entertainment channels, starting from scratch, which not only doubles costs and raises trial-and-error risks but also easily leads to resource overextension. Meanwhile, extensive product and service models also cause many distributors to miss high-margin opportunities. The core essence of special channels is to meet the exclusive needs of specific groups and scenarios, requiring customized product portfolios and solutions. But the vast majority of distributors still use one set of products for all scenarios, whether it's middle school students seeking value-for-money, college students chasing trendy discounts, or young billiard hall customers with high repurchase and high premium—all get the same standard allocation. They don't optimize SKUs or create package combinations based on scenario, group, or occasion, and they don't know how to provide scenario-based solutions, relying only on low-price credit sales and concessions to win cooperation, gradually draining channel profits and failing to retain quality terminal customers. Finally, most distributors are still trapped in the outdated mindset that "special channels rely on connections." They think winning channels depends on relationships, gifts, and networks, but they fail to build supply chains, operational systems, and team mechanisms suited to special channels. Without a robust warehousing and delivery system, they can't meet the instant replenishment and urgent delivery needs of closed scenarios; without professional operational capabilities, they can't execute scenario activities or cultivate terminal KOS; and with rigid team incentive mechanisms, salespeople have extremely low motivation to serve terminals or proactively develop new business. Cooperation maintained purely by personal connections, without professional service and value support, will ultimately be easily replaced by peers who operate with refinement. The Path to Breakthrough Competition in special channels has long shifted from competing on relationships and resources to competing on professionalism, refinement, and solutions. In my view, to establish a foothold and earn real money in this track, one must completely abandon old distribution thinking and adopt a new operational logic. The core prerequisite for deeply cultivating special channels is to first revitalize your existing business, then expand into external increments. True experts never blindly follow trends to expand; instead, they first use the refined operational thinking of special channels to transform their existing traditional terminal customers. By segmenting customers to identify high-value stores, deeply analyzing their consumption habits and pain points, and optimizing product structures and operational methods accordingly, they turn ordinary distribution stores into single-store incremental effects like special channels. In the process of deeply cultivating existing business, they gradually hone the team's capabilities in scenario insight, customized assortment, and service implementation. Once the entire operational model is proven and profitable, they steadily expand into external special channel scenarios, greatly reducing trial-and-error costs and avoiding blind pitfalls. In channel layout, abandon the mindset of wanting everything; focus on a single niche scenario for deep cultivation. Don't try to cover all special channel tracks; based on your resources and strengths, lock onto one niche area—campus, billiards/esports, or highway scenarios—and do it thoroughly. Root yourself in the scenario, understand core customer needs, selectively filter suitable SKUs, build an exclusive product matrix, and align with scenario nodes like school opening season, heat prevention season, holidays, and store events to create complete product combinations and benefit packages. Collaborate with terminal stores to launch fun activities and community events, driving on-site sell-through and cultivating store owners as terminal recommenders, leveraging offline scenarios for user grass-planting, allowing the store's brand power to radiate across all channels, truly realizing the business logic of 'grass-planting in special channels, harvesting in distribution.' The key breakthrough for profitability lies in upgrading from a mere delivery intermediary to a scenario solution service provider. Special channel customers never need simple supply; they need full-process, one-stop implementation services. Lock in long-term cooperation with professional, meticulous one-stop services, completely escape the vicious cycle of low-price competition, and build your own operational barriers. Finally, activate the team through mechanisms and lay out the track with a steady pace. Special channel scenarios are scattered and operations are detailed, heavily relying on team execution. Distributors need to completely break rigid salary models, using high commissions, partner dividends, and other incentives to motivate salespeople to proactively serve and deeply cultivate terminals, shifting the team from passive order-taking and payment-chasing to active operations, service, and growth. At the same time, maintain a rational layout mindset: pilot new scenarios on a small scale first, and only after proving the profit model and validating operational logic, replicate and expand in batches. Resolutely avoid blindly spending on fees or grabbing locations, and don't participate in meaningless price wars. Final Thoughts The windfalls in the FMCG industry keep changing—from community group buying, hard discounts, to instant retail, and now the explosive special channels—waves come and go, but the underlying logic of business never changes. Special channels are never a shortcut to easy money, nor a universal remedy for all distributors. They are just an incremental track for professionals and refined operators. Eliminate outdated distribution thinking, relationship thinking, and trend-following thinking; deeply cultivate scenarios, polish services, and accumulate capabilities. First refine existing business, then expand increments, and only then can you escape the rat race in special channels and truly enjoy long-term dividends.