What comes to mind when you think of the relationship between brands and distributors? In traditional relationships, although there is a certain degree of interest binding, it is more of a hidden struggle and game between the two sides. Facing this status quo, when an online 'veteran' deeply rooted in e-commerce channels for over a decade aspires to move towards offline distribution, what new possibilities might it bring? On August 21, at the 6th China FMCG Conference, Three Squirrels' 007th employee and General Manager of Offline Distribution, Shu Xiaoqi, delivered a keynote speech titled 'From Online to Offline, Recreating 10 Billion in Snacks,' sparking greater expectations for Three Squirrels' new distribution, which has been undergoing comprehensive transformation and focusing on offline channels this year. Through Shu Xiaoqi's sharing, a new image of Three Squirrels' distribution emerges, based on trust and win-win cooperation, comprehensively empowering distributors. Leveraging top-tier brand momentum, a strong supply chain system, and a proven product creation model, coupled with effective management and coordination mechanisms, it undoubtedly helps achieve the common goals and maximize benefits for both the brand and distributors. In Shu Xiaoqi's view, despite the retail channels facing transformation and challenges under the macro environment of supply-demand imbalance, China's true retail capillaries are in convenience stores, premium supermarkets, membership hypermarkets, and 6 million mom-and-pop stores. The bigger market and opportunities lie offline, in the hands of distributors. In the past, the distribution market has been plagued by many 'pain points': insufficient market supply, with white-label products accounting for over 60%; brand markups, slotting fees, barcode fees, and promotional fees adding layers of costs. From Three Squirrels' own perspective, the business distributors do with Three Squirrels mostly comes from 'festive seasons.' To some extent, the seasonal nature of distribution business is more constrained by rapid product replacement, poor sell-through, and difficulty in daily sales promotion. First, in terms of product assortment, it sets a hurdle for distributors. How can we make terminals sell better and distributors earn more? Three Squirrels' answer is: 'Co-manage a market with distributors.' Adhering to the 'high-end cost-performance' strategy, Three Squirrels' distribution and distributors are more like partners established for win-win outcomes. For distribution business, everything is aimed at terminal sell-through. Based on the high-end cost-performance strategy, removing all non-value-creating links, Three Squirrels' terminals will be more cost-effective. In the new product creation model, the proposal of 'D+N, B+N' paints a new blueprint for distributors. Three Squirrels' distribution product model will transform internet-famous products into products suitable for offline terminals (D+N), and also transform white-label bestsellers into products suitable for offline terminals (B+N). Beyond these, Three Squirrels will also gradually promote 'G+N' customized business on a large scale for distributors. If in the past, products gained visibility through TV advertising, in the internet era, products can quickly become internet-famous bestsellers through short-video platforms like Douyin, creating a unique 'influence' economy. Three Squirrels' 'D+N' product model leverages the wide coverage and deep penetration of short-video platforms to empower all channels, achieving more efficient product reach and operations, ultimately bringing huge sell-through capability to distribution channels. Facing the traditional distribution focus on shelves and the habit of stocking up, Three Squirrels' new distribution has the advantage of e-commerce thinking. E-commerce thinking focuses more on the efficiency of product reach, emphasizing the use of internet technology and data analysis to achieve higher economic benefits, which directly relates to the improvement of product efficiency, including product selection, layout and display, communication, profit, warehousing and distribution, all key links in improving product efficiency in e-commerce operations. 'In distribution, we are serious and meticulous.' 'Today's distribution, Three Squirrels is trying to redo it with new methods and concepts, not just redo it, but let the whole country see a brand-new distribution model.' Previously, Three Squirrels' founder and CEO Zhang Liaoyuan publicly stated his determination to develop new offline distribution. Just last week, Three Squirrels held national touring product-sales co-creation conferences in East China, Central China, North China, and South China, covering nearly 1,000 core distributors. At the co-creation meetings, Three Squirrels brought 105 new products, mostly priced between 1 and 9.9 yuan, covering nuts, roasted seeds, dried fruits, baked goods, meat, sugar and chocolate, and vegetarian snacks. In addition to the nut gift box as a major product, Three Squirrels' new distribution focuses on developing daily-sell quantitative packs, baked gift boxes/snack gift boxes, and bulk items, especially a full price-band matrix of snack gift bags from 29.9 to 79.9 yuan, and comprehensively supplementing the 40-yuan golden price band product matrix for snack gift boxes, achieving full price-band and full-scenario coverage. Three Squirrels also promises to continuously adapt products for distributors across all channels and price bands, and will promote new product sell-through on a quarterly basis. At the same time, it uses business positioning, price bands, products, and policies to differentiate online and offline, ensuring price stability without conflict. Clearly, compared to traditional distribution's 'high-profile' approach that creates short-term brand and product explosions, Three Squirrels' new distribution directly offers strong 'hard discounts,' fully leveraging the advantages of private-brand vertical supply, reducing intermediate links, and lowering operating costs to achieve total cost leadership. It is simple and efficient while deeply mining core competitiveness. 'We will provide distributors with full-channel adaptation, intensive operations, and digital distribution, achieving more products, greater investment, and after-sales support.' At the co-creation meeting, Shu Xiaoqi also clarified the vision of working with distributors to turn a business that only lasted 2 months into one that keeps them busy all 12 months of the year. 'The products alone are enough to give confidence. At the same price, Three Squirrels has better quality assurance; with the same quality, Three Squirrels has lower prices.' 'What I'm most interested in is the sunflower seeds, 400g at 9.9 yuan, very competitive price...' From the on-site feedback of distributors, it is clear they felt the importance Three Squirrels places on distribution and the full sincerity towards distributors. It can be seen that Three Squirrels' distribution is seeking comprehensive transformation: a new distribution that is completing the shift from single supply to full adaptation, from bare-price cooperation to strategic investment, and from a selling mindset to terminal sell-through. Zhang Liaoyuan also firmly stated that in this round of distribution reform, they will highly focus on sell-through, with high-end cost-performance before sell-through, and consumers before that; in the entire distribution chain, the first priority is to ensure terminal retailers keep making money, then distributors make reasonable profits, with Three Squirrels at the end of the interests. In March this year, Zhang Liaoyuan led a team to visit offline markets; in April-May, they officially released the 'Double Hundred' strategy for distribution; in June, they reshaped the distribution organization, established provincial-level combat units, and clarified the partner mechanism; in July, they began product adaptation development, headquarters policy discussions, and digital system empowerment; in August, all staff went to the front line, continuously iterating, paying attention to surprises, focusing on product surprises, channel surprises, and tactical surprises, initially forming Three Squirrels' distribution model. With the exploration of the new distribution model over the past few months, Three Squirrels has seen a batch of visible 'surprises.' For example, the light-baked crispy potato chips achieved sales exceeding 50 million yuan; after the single-product policy in July, sales exceeded 124 tons; in May, distributor-customized canned goods saw initial orders reaching 1 million units; after channel adaptation of the hand-torn bread large yellow box, July order value exceeded 5 million yuan; the water buffalo milk thousand-layer toast saw exponential sales growth, with sales exceeding 20 million yuan... Starting from e-commerce, Three Squirrels achieved 10 billion yuan in sales in 2019, becoming the first enterprise in the domestic leisure snack industry to reach the 10 billion scale. After reaching its peak, it entered a downturn, and in 2023, it emerged from the dark through the high-end cost-performance strategy. In this process, Three Squirrels has accumulated a new methodology: the recognition that only by being different can one succeed. This also laid the underlying logic for Three Squirrels to reinvent offline distribution with e-commerce thinking.