The prototype of a trading business starts from the supply and marketing cooperative, gradually transitioning to a wholesaler. This stage only requires people and money; you open a store in a wholesale market, wait for customers to come, and sales are left to fate. The second stage is the transformation from wholesaler to traditional distributor, with a clear function of "promotion" – proactively visiting customers to sell products, which initially demonstrates a certain level of professionalism. The third stage is the transformation from traditional distributor to service provider, where the function shifts from "promotion" to "marketing." Customers only need your products, and you achieve a certain level of irreplaceability in your operating area. Currently, in the field of commodity circulation, most distributors are in the third stage, transitioning from "pushing" to "managing." In this process, some distributors have found new paths and methods, achieving rapid business growth.

Wuxi Dadexing Trading Company, located in Wuxi, Jiangsu, is an excellent example of such a transformation. From being a "product reseller" of imported foods in a wholesale market, it has become a distributor for many well-known imported brands such as Pororo, Little Hero, Hai Pai, Richeese, Crown, and Bega, covering nearly 4,000 retail points. In just six years, it achieved a leap from 50 million to 160 million yuan in sales. Recently, New Distribution interviewed Ms. Liu Bihua, General Manager of Wuxi Dadexing Trading, to see how she rapidly expanded the imported snack business during the transformation. We hope her "business wisdom" can provide some thoughts and inspiration for other distributors.

-01- Starting a Business with Borrowed Money, Standing Out Among 800 Stores

Liu Bihua's first job was under a traditional snack distributor, serving large supermarkets like Walmart and Carrefour. After three years, Liu Bihua developed her own ideas and decided to start a business. Given her background in snacks, she naturally chose the familiar industry. So in 2009, Liu Bihua officially started her business. Her initial capital was only 16,800 yuan, plus 20,000 yuan borrowed from a close friend, totaling 36,800 yuan. After securing her first product, she couldn't even afford a storefront.

The first product was Orleans roasted chicken. Thanks to her past relationships with key accounts, this product successfully entered the Datonghua chain supermarket. Since she didn't even have a warehouse, products were basically shipped directly to the stores.

After this deal, she didn't make much money. Liu Bihua began to think about the future path. This guerrilla approach wouldn't work; a company needs a foothold to develop. So Liu Bihua rented a storefront in the Jinqiao Wholesale Market, officially entering the trading sector.

However, competition in traditional snack brands was too fierce, making it difficult to carve out a place. At that time, few people were dealing in foreign snack brands, and Liu Bihua saw this as an opportunity. Dadexing Trading positioned itself in imported snacks.

With the rise of e-commerce, imported snack products sold well on Taobao, with two brands being TOP bread sticks and dried fruit from Vietnam, which had distinctive product positioning. Without manufacturer resources, Liu Bihua went to Yide Road in Guangzhou to source products, buying from general agents. After getting these two products, other imported products naturally followed.

Leveraging the foot traffic of the wholesale market, Dadexing Trading gradually improved, reaching 50 million yuan in sales by 2015. But at that time, Dadexing was still a "product reseller," with unstable upstream and downstream relationships. Meanwhile, competition was fierce; if you did well with a product, ten neighboring stores would follow suit, making survival difficult.

Therefore, in 2015, Liu Bihua decided to go out, transforming from a passive wholesaler to an active distributor and channel operator, proactively developing channels. Starting from the end terminals, she shifted focus to channel construction, team building, and brand marketing. Liu Bihua further reformed, gradually building a complete organizational structure: purchasing, marketing, sales, finance, and logistics departments. Each department had core backbone staff, each performing their duties, and she also attracted two shareholders with dividend shares. Additionally, she implemented product selection strategies and corresponding performance assessment systems for purchasing and sales personnel.

In terms of channels, she focused on both online and offline. Offline, she actively developed retail chain stores and independent stores, as well as special channels like the Ruixiang system. Online, she set up stores on Pinduoduo, Taobao, and JD.com, as well as community group buying.

With an omni-channel layout, she covered nearly 4,000 retail points: chain snack stores (500-600) + independent snack stores (2,000-3,000) + KA supermarkets + online e-commerce + community group buying. Compared with traditional snack distributors, Dadexing Trading has more precise customer positioning. Traditional snack distributors mainly operate traditional small stores, where the demand for snacks is limited, while Dadexing's target customers are snack stores, whose main business is snacks, yielding higher output in the snack category.

Through such a series of measures, Dadexing Trading stood out among 800 stores in Wuxi's Jinqiao Market. In 2019, Dadexing achieved annual sales of 100 million yuan. By 2020, Dadexing experienced explosive growth, increasing by 60 million yuan in one year, reaching 160 million yuan in annual sales.

-02- Product Selection: Not Just the Product, but Also the People

Liu Bihua told New Distribution that at Dadexing Trading, she positions herself as a purchaser. All products purchased by the purchasing department must pass her scrutiny. In the snack category, good products mean higher shelf placement rates and better displays, which are key to achieving incremental growth.

In product strategy, three main points are focused on:

1. Product: Taste + Appearance + Unique Positioning

When consumers enter a store, the most intuitive feeling is visual impact. This requires packaging with high aesthetic appeal to attract consumers' attention at first glance. After purchase, consumers focus on taste; only when taste meets their needs will they make repeat purchases.

Unique positioning essentially satisfies a specific consumer demand. For example, as society advocates green food, consumers demand health and green products. When introducing products, consider whether they can meet this demand.

For instance, Dadexing sells a product on Pinduoduo called Yinfu Music Lollipop. It has a high unit price but a unique feature: when held in the mouth, music is transmitted to the eardrum, providing a sense of mental relaxation.

2. Well-known Brands: Popularity

All products that have already formed a brand are inherently traffic-generating. Many distributors have a misconception that big brand products are hard to sell. But without a brand, it's even harder. The market resources and channel advantages of branded products are very obvious. Besides continuously finding market hotspots, having several big brands in hand ensures that terminal popularity never goes out of style.

3. Consumption Scenario Positioning: Capturing Demand

Consumers' potential consumption needs are rarely expressed directly, but these latent needs often dominate consumer choices when stimulated by specific scenarios. Therefore, when selecting products, first identify the core consumption needs and scenarios, then reverse-engineer the target audience, price, channels, etc., and finally decide whether to purchase the product.

Dadexing once operated a product, Xueha Coconut Milk Black Glutinous Rice, which the purchasing department opposed because it hadn't sold well before. But Liu Bihua thought differently. First, it's an instant product with seasonal characteristics; second, from a female perspective, it has health and beauty benefits. As it turned out, the product sold quite well in the end.

In managing the purchasing department, strict procurement assessments were established:

1. New Product Introduction Management: For the leisure snack series, introduce 4 new products per month; for daily chemicals and refrigerated products, 2 per month. Similar products cannot be repeated.

New products are assessed at 100 yuan per item, with a monthly standard of 6 items, no upper limit. Failure to meet the standard results in a penalty of 100 yuan per item.

2. Sales Gross Profit Assessment: The standard is 12% gross profit, with a monthly reward of 4,000 yuan. If below 12%, the reward is based on the actual achievement rate. For example, if the gross profit is 9%, the achievement rate is 75%, and the reward is 3,000 yuan. If the gross profit exceeds 12%, the excess portion is commissioned at 0.5%, with no upper limit.

Note: Sales gross profit refers to the comprehensive gross profit point after deducting normal expenses (such as free gifts, inventory consumption, market expenses, taxes, rebates, etc.).

3. Inventory Management Assessment: Reasonable inventory is 50% of monthly sales. If it reaches 60% or above, reasons for inventory must be explained, and work to reduce inventory must begin.

Inventory reward is 500 yuan. If inventory reaches or exceeds 60%, 90% of this assessment reward is deducted.

4. Product Loss Assessment: 10% of product loss incurred from factory shipment to warehouse is deducted from personal wages.

Through these methods, Dadexing Trading has formed a standardized procurement process, representing many imported snack brands such as Pororo, Little Hero, Hai Pai Seaweed, Richeese, Crown, and Bega, with over 900 SKUs.

-03- Behind 4,000+ Loyal Customers Lies Quality Service

In a stock market, having only quality products is not enough. "Good wine needs no bush" – if consumers can't see, hear, or touch the product, even the best product is just a pile of cardboard boxes in a warehouse.

Therefore, Liu Bihua put considerable thought into front-end promotion. During new product launches, the marketing department visits the market immediately, proactively communicates with customers, analyzes their consumer groups, and helps optimize the entire sales process.

For some core brands, Dadexing adopts a strategy of display + tasting + sales guidance. Taking the Crown brand as an example, when new products are launched, tasting events are held in large stores to increase interaction with consumers, and at the same time, quality displays are set up in 40 high-traffic stores, with sales guides actively directing customers.

In the early stages of product launch, "momentum" is crucial. Through such methods, products can quickly establish awareness in consumers' minds, leading to purchases.

Of course, creating "momentum" is just the beginning. Most consumers make purchases in stores, so how to get store owners to proactively promote your products is even more important.

In customer service, Dadexing proactively assumes customer risks. For new product promotions, they promise 100% return and exchange to terminal customers. Regardless of the reason, if a customer wants to return or exchange, it must be executed. All costs for second and third deliveries are borne by Dadexing. There's also financial risk: Dadexing uses monthly settlement with terminals, so customers have no worries about selling goods.

Dadexing's trust in customers has been reciprocated. Over 4,000 terminal customers are basically very loyal; whenever there's a new product, they are willing to promote it immediately.

As Liu Bihua said, in the field of commodity circulation, distributors don't have autonomy over product production; they are just intermediaries. The only reason for their existence is to provide services. For a good brand, when it reaches Dadexing's hands, it can perfectly realize online and offline implementation. That's the value of existence.

Final Thoughts:

Dadexing's product selection strategy is worth considering for other distributors. The core of product selection is: First, the boss must become a procurement expert to guide employees in selecting products and judge whether their choices are correct. In this process, the boss needs to frequently visit the front-line market to hone sensitivity to products.

Second, procurement staff must also become experts in product selection. Employees tend to be lazy, so the procurement process should be standardized into a set of assessment systems, using the system to drive employees to proactively select products and choose good ones according to the requirements. This applies not only to the snack category but also to daily chemicals and seasonings distributors. When you have over a thousand SKUs, product selection becomes a key link for further growth in the category. Besides the boss becoming an expert in this area, the procurement team must also become experts to achieve sustained growth.

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