Every year after the 15th day of the first lunar month, the sales characteristics of candy undergo a fundamental change, turning from a "necessity" before the Spring Festival into a leisure product after the festival. This indisputable phenomenon indicates that the candy industry will enter a painful nine-month "off-season dormancy period." Facing this relentless reality, how should our candy companies respond and utilize this "holiday" to "internally refine" their operations? I believe this is a difficult problem that every candy company is pondering. Here, I propose five suggestions for discussion with industry peers.
Repositioning of markets within the region: After the past year's operations and the Spring Festival sales boom, each market in the region has undergone significant changes and differences in terms of terminal performance, customer cooperation, and sales contribution. The original core markets may have become "chicken ribs" markets for various reasons, while potential markets may have become "dark horses" in sales contribution. Therefore, in the new year, it is necessary to reposition the existing defined markets with the latest market positioning. Redefine which markets are core, key, potential, "nail" (difficult), or "chicken ribs" (marginal) markets. This has significant strategic implications for accurately planning marketing resource allocation in the new year.
Adjustment of channel strategies within the regional market: As the sales network of the regional market, channels play a key role in achieving the regional market's goals for the new year. Therefore, adjusting channel strategies is also a top priority. In the past year, we may have achieved unexpected results in modern terminal channels, lost competitive advantages in the traditionally strong wholesale distribution market, or made significant breakthroughs in online shopping channels. Thus, in the new year, we must precisely customize channel strategies to adapt to the new round of competition and maximize sales across all channels.
Repositioning of regional distributors: In the current Chinese FMCG market, 99% of companies achieve sales through distributor channel platforms, highlighting the core position of distributors in regional market operations. In a given regional market, a strong distributor can easily help a company achieve its sales targets. However, water can carry a boat but also overturn it; the "attitude" of regional distributors determines the company's performance achievement rate in the new year. After the previous year's "marriage," we should rationally analyze whether your distributors can still meet the new year's regional market development needs. If they do, it's a win-win. If not, there should be at least three sets of solutions (first, help them improve to meet the company's development needs; second, find supplementary distributors; third, cut their product lines or reduce their distribution scope; fourth, replace distributors, etc.).
Re-layout of product categories in the regional market: Current candy companies typically have the following category layouts: in terms of packaging form, there are bulk candies and fixed-weight packages. In terms of sub-categories, they mainly include hard candies, soft candies, milk candies, gum-based candies, aerated candies, crispy candies, chocolates, jellies, and snacks. As the regional market operator, you should organize and analyze last year's sales data for each candy category in detail, then customize the regional market's core category portfolio and core item portfolio to align with the new year's product line planning.
Re-adjustment of regional team personnel: Every company's sales personnel management and sales team building is, in my opinion, the most headache-inducing task for managers. With the growth of the post-80s and post-90s generations, they will become an important part of each company's sales team in the next one to two years. After a year of observation and use, regional operators have gained deep insights into most team members, making it clear who can be used and who cannot. To achieve the new year's performance goals, the candy "holiday" is the best adjustment period for each sales team. With an efficient sales team, achieving performance targets will be easy.
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