On July 21-22, the first session of the 'New Distribution National Benchmark Distributor Study Tour' - Into Jiapin Yunshi, concluded successfully! Originally planned for 80 participants, the scale expanded repeatedly due to the enthusiasm of distributors. From 80 to 120 to 150, ultimately 170 chairs were set up, and the venue was packed. From New Distribution's sharing, to the founders and co-founders of Jiapin Yunshi generously imparting their knowledge, to the study tour of Jiapin Yunshi's warehouse, distributor friends from various regions who came to learn left with abundant gains.

Into Jiapin Yunshi

For every benchmark distributor study tour, New Distribution collaborates with the founders and executives of the toured company to deeply discuss changes in distributor businesses, as well as the business model, development path, and current business strategies of the toured company. In the first session at Jiapin Yunshi, Yuan Lai, Chief Content Officer of New Distribution and initiator of the Distributor Member Club, shared 10 pitfalls to avoid when building a regional B2B platform.

New Distribution Chief Content Officer Yuan Lai

Meanwhile, Mr. Fan Qi, founder of Jiapin Yunshi, and Mr. Zhang Jun, co-founder, also shared the development journey from 300 million to 500 million to 1 billion in six years, along with the gains and losses behind it.

Jiapin Yunshi founder Fan Qi

Jiapin Yunshi co-founder Zhang Jun

In addition, the study tour included an in-depth visit to Jiapin Yunshi's warehousing and logistics system, where on-site staff provided detailed explanations of each step in warehousing, picking, and distribution. They also addressed questions raised by distributors with on-site practical teaching.

In the final session, 'Discussion and Exchange,' the two founders of Jiapin Yunshi provided in-depth answers to the questions that distributors had during the tour.

Through this format of 'sharing + visiting + Q&A,' distributors could see the practical processes and also hear and learn the toured company's understanding and practice of distributor businesses.

Why do we organize the 'National Benchmark Distributor Study Tour'?

In recent years, New Distribution, as an industry observer, has visited a large number of distributor owners. Overall, distributor businesses have indeed become more difficult. On one hand, the traditional core business is under survival pressure, with increasingly thin profits. Downstream retail outlets are extending payment terms, while upstream brands have not reduced growth targets and have increased penalties. Store traffic is declining, sales are down, but the cost of sales staff is rising, with average wages increasing by 5%-10%. Additionally, financial and tax regulations require trading and distribution companies to operate in compliance, driving up various costs. Most importantly, old products are not profitable, and new products do not sell. Old products turn over quickly but are subject to low-price channel stuffing everywhere. Restructuring and promoting new products is extremely difficult. Although single-product gross margins are high, volumes are too small, and there are also slow-moving returns, which together mean little profit. The entry barrier for distributor businesses is rising, and it is also becoming more difficult.

On the other hand, there is intense competition for existing market share, consumption shifts, and constant impact from new business formats. From community group buying to discount stores, snack stores, and flash warehouses, various new formats are seizing distributors' existing business. Industry competition is intensifying, and the demands on distributor businesses are naturally increasing. These are the challenges all distributors currently face. In this context, distributors need to self-iterate and continuously adapt to new changes.

In the past, exchanges among distributors were mostly limited to those within the same brand or manufacturer, with few cross-regional or cross-category exchanges.

New Distribution hopes to use the 'National Benchmark Distributor Study Tour' to bring together outstanding large distributors from different regions but the same category, to deeply discuss, share, and learn around a specific topic. This is also the original intention of the 'New Distribution National Benchmark Distributor Study Tour'. We hope to organize more distributors who want to learn to visit benchmark companies in the industry, learn from their experiences, and put them into practice. Some may think that each distributor operates in a different city, with different resources, different product categories, and different upstream and downstream relationships. However, New Distribution believes that although each market has its own characteristics, the underlying logic behind business growth must involve doing something right. We hope to take distributors to see different markets, various business formats, and deeply analyze them to find what they do right and apply it.

How does New Distribution select benchmark distributors?

Each study tour in the 'New Distribution National Benchmark Distributor Study Tour' is carefully considered and repeatedly evaluated. New Distribution adheres to two hard criteria in selecting study tours: 1) The distributor's business is continuously growing. In the competition for existing market share, sustained growth must have something worth learning from. 2) The distributor has relative influence in a certain local field, such as holding over 60% market share in a category or being very successful in a new business format. Why did we choose Jiapin Yunshi for the first session?

New Distribution founder Zhao Bo mentioned in his opening speech that it is a good business for distributors to become regional platform providers.

New Distribution founder Zhao Bo

First, with competition for existing market share and the market entering a bottleneck period, distributors need to seize existing market share. China's population has entered negative growth, meaning the demographic dividend is gone, and the incremental market will inevitably become a stock market.

Second, from upstream to downstream, there is pressure on distributors to have one-stop supply capabilities. The retail product landscape is highly fragmented, sales per single channel are declining, and delivery and fulfillment costs are increasing. Distributors need one-stop supply to achieve more efficient and lower-cost fulfillment.

Third, globally, in the field of trade and distribution, as the national economy reaches this stage, supply chain integration for distributors is an inevitable result and trend. For example, Sysco and McLane in the United States are supply chain companies with market capitalizations in the tens of billions of dollars. Looking back at the development of supply chain platforms also proves this point: from the wild invasion of the internet, to hitting a low point, to the vigorous development and profitability of regional supply chain platforms.

Jiapin Yunshi is a very successful company in regional supply chains. In 6 years, it has covered over 15,000 stores, with 6,000+ SKUs, and annual sales exceeding 1 billion yuan. New Distribution hopes that through the study tour at Jiapin Yunshi, distributors can gain inspiration and insights into supply chain construction, helping them avoid detours.

Next, New Distribution will continue to visit various regions, engage with distributor owners of all types, find excellent practical cases, organize study tours and content, and discuss and share together. Through one study tour after another, presenting real cases, we aim to help distributor owners solve the difficulties they encounter in actual operations.

If you are interested in the 'New Distribution National Benchmark Distributor Study Tour'

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