---
title: "From Annual Sales of Over 20 Million to Hundreds of Millions in 7 Years: What Did This Trading Company Do Behind Its Rapid Growth?"
description: "This article explores the growth journey of Anhui Sulong Industry and Trade Co., Ltd., from annual sales of 20-30 million to hundreds of millions in seven years, highlighting the strategies of its chairman, Su Jiandong, including information flow, customer service, organizational management, and product selection."
author: "周群"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2021-07-05"
language: "en"
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# From Annual Sales of Over 20 Million to Hundreds of Millions in 7 Years: What Did This Trading Company Do Behind Its Rapid Growth?

> This article explores the growth journey of Anhui Sulong Industry and Trade Co., Ltd., from annual sales of 20-30 million to hundreds of millions in seven years, highlighting the strategies of its chairman, Su Jiandong, including information flow, customer service, organizational management, and product selection.

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Channel fragmentation and consumer segmentation are making the environment increasingly unfriendly for distributors. In the past, distributors could reliably find channels and simply stock shelves, but now they must consider why customers, consumers, and even brand owners choose them, and where their core competitiveness lies. In early May, I attended the launch of "Jukun Supply Chain" in Shanghai and had the privilege of hearing from Su Jiandong, CEO of Jukun Supply Chain and Chairman of Anhui Sulong Industry and Trade. His insights, methods, willingness to practice, and clear understanding of core competitiveness left a strong first impression. Recently, I had the opportunity to visit Mr. Su in Anhui. During nearly two hours of face-to-face conversation, his understanding of the trading business and future plans were refreshing.
Anhui Sulong Industry and Trade Co., Ltd. is located in Hefei Changjiang Wholesale Market. It cooperates with over 200 manufacturers, has more than 3,000 SKUs, and its sales network covers the entire Anhui province, including multiple KA systems and hundreds of distributors, with annual sales in the hundreds of millions. Even in the local snack food sector, Sulong's achievements are undeniable, yet Mr. Su continues to seek new business opportunities. It is hoped that Sulong's practices and methods in distribution can inspire and offer insights to other distributors.
**Six Years of Leapfrog Development**
Before entering the industry, Su Jiandong had a good job as one of the earliest project managers and engineers at Anhui Construction Engineering Group. In 1999, during the reform of the state-owned supply and marketing cooperative system, Su's wife founded Xiaolong Food, the predecessor of Sulong Industry and Trade. In its early days, Xiaolong Food adhered to honest business practices; for example, a 20-kilogram box of raisins would always weigh more, never less. The business lost money for three consecutive years, but during those three years, Xiaolong Food gained recognition from many customers in Anhui. In 2003, Su Jiandong left the construction group and formally registered the company, Anhui Sulong Industry and Trade Co., Ltd. Initially, it operated as a storefront in the wholesale market, relying on past "trusted" customers—a typical "sit-down merchant" where business came to them.
The business followed this path for ten years until 2013, when annual sales remained at 20-30 million. That year marked the first turning point: Su Jiandong attended a distributor conference, where he met peers and joined industry groups. Through exchanges with these peers, he gradually **mastered information flow, breaking information asymmetry, and product information nationwide was shared via WeChat groups.** This gave Sulong a more efficient way to select products, solving the previous problems of difficulty and high cost in sourcing products. In 2016, Sulong officially entered the fast lane. Su Jiandong noticed a market problem: distributors liked to push inventory but did poorly on returns and exchanges. With keen market insight, he saw this pain point as an opportunity. Distributors help dealers do millions of business annually; serving them well is the biggest growth driver. To this end, Su Jiandong re-established return and exchange rules, proactively improving service quality. **Unconditional returns and exchanges are the core principle of Sulong's service to all customers. Unsold goods are Sulong's loss; profits from sales belong to customers.** **Sulong also established a weekly follow-up system: one week after a customer's purchase, sales representatives must visit to track sell-through.** At this point, there are typically three scenarios: **First, the customer has stored the goods in the warehouse and not actively promoted them.** The salesperson's action is to remind, calculate profits, and convince the customer that selling our products is profitable, encouraging them to display the goods. **Second, the customer is selling well and has nearly sold out.** The salesperson should promote new products, increasing order frequency and introducing more Sulong products. **Third, the customer is not selling well and has excess inventory.** The salesperson should proactively help with returns and recommend other best-selling products. The core advantage of this system is that it **fully addresses customers' concerns, making them more willing to sell Sulong products. Additionally, within a week, even returns do not affect the second sale of the products.** These two turning points brought significant changes to Sulong's business. The opening of information flow and improved service quality formed a mutually supportive and trusting ecosystem. In just seven years, Sulong's business grew from 20-30 million to hundreds of millions, and it continues to grow.
**Behind the Growth: Refined Organizational Management**
Improving customer service quality is not just empty talk; it requires the execution capability of the entire team and the rules and regulations that drive employees to execute. This benefits from Su Jiandong's previous work experience as a project manager, which required rigorous engineering and process thinking. He integrated these into his current business, re-evaluating internal management, starting with warehousing and logistics, optimizing employee compensation and performance, giving employees a sense of honor, and using digital tools for efficiency. **1. Zero Base Salary, More Work, More Pay**
The change in compensation plan began in 2017, when Sulong was already doing well in service. But one day in April, a customer came to the store, slammed the table, and complained about slow delivery and unresolved stock shortages. The company immediately arranged for employees to work overtime, but their efficiency was low, and some even smoked and drank, dragging out time to earn more overtime pay. This incident prompted Su Jiandong to re-evaluate the entire warehousing and logistics process: how many deliveries per month, how many customers, and how much per person. Sorting, picking, re-checking, driving, and invoicing were refined to each step. Ultimately, a zero-base salary plan was adopted. **The core idea: this month's salary determines next month's base salary, meaning each month's salary is at least the previous month's.** For example, if Employee A earned 8,000 yuan last month but only 6,000 this month due to poor performance, the company will supplement 2,000 yuan, paying 8,000. Next month, A's base salary is 6,000, and so on. Through this method, employees with poor performance eventually leave because their salaries decrease. Those who remain are high-paid and highly capable. In fact, some delivery team members even bought their own larger trucks because the company's small trucks were too slow and had insufficient loading space. **2. Employees Set Their Own Work Rules**
In Sulong's warehouse, one thing is striking: there is little distance between employees and the boss; they get along like friends. Su Jiandong believes that people must respect each other, and only when employees have dignity and a sense of honor will the company develop positively. **All process rules in Sulong's warehouse are formulated by the employees themselves, including details. The advantage is clear: why wouldn't employees follow rules they set themselves?** Additionally, Sulong has a glory board in the warehouse where employees can earn daily points for actions like voluntary overtime, helping colleagues, or urgent deliveries. Weekly, monthly, and annual champions are selected and publicly announced, providing both honor and monetary incentives.
The improvement of rules and honor systems gives employees a sense of belonging and willingness to take initiative. Most impressive is that in Sulong's thousands-of-square-meter high-rack warehouse, there is not a single piece of paper on the floor; everything is neatly arranged. **3. Digitalized Warehousing and Logistics for Efficient Delivery**
While improving systems, Su Jiandong also recognized the importance of digitalization for efficiency. Relying on manual order writing, inventory counting, and re-checking could no longer meet the company's development needs. So Sulong implemented a complete warehousing and logistics system. Thanks to his process-oriented thinking, Sulong adapted to the system quickly. The day before the system went live, Su Jiandong guided employees in simulating order entry, solving each step's issues immediately. In just one day, Sulong streamlined the digital process, achieving 24-hour delivery for orders within Hefei.
**Know Good Products, Select Good Products, Use Good Products**
An unavoidable topic in the snack food category is product selection. Unlike other categories, snack food has low brand concentration, and consumers have not formed brand awareness, placing high demands on distributors' purchasing capabilities. Sulong's methodology in product selection is worth learning from. In terms of overall category and item, Sulong mainly deals in bulk items, covering a wide range. Before selecting products, one must know the products. **First, divide categories, such as nuts, preserved fruits, pastries (bread, cakes, small cakes), dried tofu, meat products, etc. Then subdivide brands within each category—first-tier, second-tier, third-tier—and finally evaluate products.** This is the pre-selection work; distributors must clearly know what products they need to select good ones. After clear positioning, the selection methods are: **One is the conventional procurement method: choose products based on good appearance, taste, and price, from exhibitions or manufacturers' offerings. Another method is regional recommendation.** For example, select products already validated in other regions, such as nearby cities like Shanghai or Jiangsu, through introductions from friends. Or have the team inspect supermarkets; products with fresh dates on shelves are usually best-sellers.
Selecting good products does not guarantee good sell-through. Sulong's policy of unconditional returns means poor sell-through would result in significant losses. **Sulong implements a bottom-out elimination system, regularly eliminating a batch of products while continuously introducing new ones.** Of course, Sulong also has a terminal sell-through plan: **First, from a category perspective, offer a full range of products—if you need it, we have it—providing one-stop solutions.** For example, other suppliers negotiate with stores on how many jars to fill, but Sulong first asks the store to draw out their jars, specifying positions and quantities, then Sulong provides a plan for what products to fill each jar, with positioning analysis. **Second, divide different positions based on product characteristics.** Sulong numbers all products, with different tiers corresponding to different positions. With a strong logistics system, there is no overstocking; as long as the terminal sells, new goods can be delivered the next day. For instance, traffic-driving products should be placed at end caps to attract consumers, profit products in prominent positions for visibility, and hero products in the center to draw attention.
Through a series of methods from selection to sale, Sulong has formed a systematic sell-through approach. A side note: in 2016, Yonghui Superstores invited Su Jiandong to speak on how to improve sell-through. At that time, Sulong's sales in Yonghui were over 20 million, while another speaker from the Jinlongyu system had sales of 880 million. But Yonghui's management told Su that stores focus on sales per square meter, and Sulong had the highest sales per square meter in Yonghui, so it certainly had a say in product sell-through.
**Final Thoughts:**
When discussing the future of distributors, Mr. Su frankly stated that distributors who rely on brand owners and simply earn price differences have no future. Future distributors must have their own core competitiveness. Taking Sulong as an example, its core competitiveness comes from three aspects: **First, product portfolio capability: providing customers with one-stop product portfolio solutions based on their needs and consumer development trends.** **Second, service and operation capability: through internal process optimization, customers enjoy unconditional return services, fostering trust and stronger loyalty.** **Third, team cohesion capability: using zero-base salary and high incentives to fully stimulate employee initiative, giving the team strong execution.** Of course, this is internal development. In external expansion, Su Jiandong has not stopped. **He organized and co-founded "Jukun Supply Chain," which plans to build the most imaginative FMCG distributor logistics company nationwide, based on local distributor self-built logistics companies, connecting the supply chain and creating an ecosystem.**
Review: Asher
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