---
title: "How a Distributor Turned City Distribution Convinced a 'Big Distributor' with Annual Sales of 200 Million to Join Her Warehouse?"
description: "A distributor who transitioned to unified warehousing and distribution shares her experience in recruiting other distributors to join her platform. Despite the challenge of convincing larger distributors, she successfully persuaded major local distributors of brands like Yili, Arawana, and Red Bull to join within six months of founding her company."
author: "袁来"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2018-08-20"
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# How a Distributor Turned City Distribution Convinced a 'Big Distributor' with Annual Sales of 200 Million to Join Her Warehouse?

> A distributor who transitioned to unified warehousing and distribution shares her experience in recruiting other distributors to join her platform. Despite the challenge of convincing larger distributors, she successfully persuaded major local distributors of brands like Yili, Arawana, and Red Bull to join within six months of founding her company.

Distributors who have transitioned to unified warehousing and distribution (统仓统配) all have deep feelings about "attracting merchants": it is difficult to recruit distributors to join their warehouses.
For a distributor of medium-to-upper scale transitioning to warehousing and distribution, it is even more difficult to attract distributors several times larger than themselves, especially within less than half a year of establishment.
Recently, New Distribution interviewed Yuan Xia, founder of Sichuan Bajie Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. As a female distributor in the traditional FMCG supply chain field, she has proven that women are no less capable than men. Within less than half a year of the company's establishment, she successfully persuaded major local distributors of Yili, Arawana, Red Bull, and others to join her platform. How did she do it?

**1**
**No One to Take Over the Family Business, Just in Time for Her Resignation**
Sichuan Bajie Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. was established in December 2017. Before that, Yuan Xia was a distributor mainly dealing in condiments.
She recalls that the predecessor of Bajie Supply Chain was Xingyi Trading Company, established in 2006, mainly run by her father. By 2009, her father had to build a factory and had no one to manage the business. The business, worth over 2 million yuan, was initially intended to be abandoned, but the piled-up inventory could not be sold off quickly, so they had to continue operating. It was at this time that Yuan Xia resigned from her previous job.
It was under these circumstances that Yuan Xia was pushed to the front line to take over the business.
After taking office, because she did not drink liquor, Yuan Xia simply cut off the liquor agency and focused on condiment distribution.
At that time, the trading company represented Jiajia Soy Sauce, with only a few hundred thousand yuan in sales before she took over. Yuan Xia recalled that the company's previous focus was not on condiments, but now there was no choice but to think about how to do well in condiments.
To operate this category, she first needed to know who actually buys soy sauce.
Yuan Xia went to the front-line market, personally investigated and observed, stationed at farmers' markets to see who was buying. She found that the main consumer group in farmers' markets was mostly middle-aged and elderly people, often cooking for their children or grandchildren. These people were the main force in condiment consumption.
After understanding who bought the soy sauce, Yuan Xia found two "kids" to shoot advertisements at a photo studio, made promotional posters of "product + kids," and posted them at various sales outlets. The effect was obvious: sales grew rapidly.
A few years later, in a fifth-tier urban area like Suining, Yuan Xia managed to increase Jiajia's sales from a few hundred thousand yuan per year to 5 million yuan in annual sales. At its peak, the company's annual sales reached nearly 40 million yuan, mainly in condiments, grain and oil, and northern and southern dried goods.

**2**
**Going Out to Learn, Understanding Unified Warehousing and Distribution**
Around 2017, Yuan Xia increasingly felt the strain of being a distributor: making big brands didn't earn much money, capital pressure was high, profits were getting thinner, labor costs were rising, and downstream terminal arrears occurred from time to time.
This situation was not unique to Yuan Xia. To cope with sluggish sales, in August 2017, more than 60 distributors in Suining came together and formed the "Suining Supermarket Suppliers Association."
After the association was established, Yuan Xia, then secretary-general, thought that since they had the association, it shouldn't just be a nominal title; they should do something together.
By chance, she saw that Medlian was holding an efficient operation research class in Chengdu, and she took the initiative to sign up. It was at this meeting that Yuan Xia learned about "unified warehousing and distribution."
After some research and continuous external learning, she clearly recognized the future trend of distributors as middlemen. Soon, she discussed with association members about doing unified warehousing and distribution in Suining.
Yuan Xia told New Distribution that at that time, everyone thought it was feasible and could be done. They all went out to see and were very enthusiastic. However, when they came back and actually had to invest money, many began to hesitate, worry about risks, and finally only she was left.
Yuan Xia recalled, "At that time, there was no choice. After such a long preparation, only I could do it. I never thought I would do it alone; I originally wanted to be an organizer, participant, or assistant."
In September 2017, Yuan Xia registered "Sichuan Bajie Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd." The name Bajie: "Ba" (eight) hopes to welcome guests from all directions and gather wealth from all directions; "Jie" (boundary) hopes to go out of Suining and become bigger and stronger. Currently, Bajie Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. has a warehouse area of 12,000 square meters and 26 vehicles.

**3**
**Successfully Bringing in Major Local Distributors**
Yuan Xia told New Distribution, "Before the company was established, I had planned to approach the two largest local distributors representing Yili, Arawana, and Red Bull, but I never had the courage, after all, these distributors have annual sales exceeding 100 million yuan. After the company was established, there was no choice; besides my own goods, there was a lot of remaining warehouse space. I had to try. Recruiting one big distributor is more helpful for future recruitment than recruiting ten small ones."
From taking over the family business to establishing the warehousing and distribution platform, these things were beyond Yuan Xia's plans, and in the end, it was all "no choice, had to brace myself and push forward."
Yuan Xia tried calling the two big distributors, talking about what Bajie Supply Chain was currently doing and what it planned to do in the future. Fortunately, these two distributors were quite interested, and in the end, they hit it off and it worked! Of course, during the cooperation, Yuan Xia also gave the big distributors some shares.
In August this year, the association held its first anniversary celebration and awarded Yuan Xia the "Leader" certificate of honor. Yuan Xia told New Distribution that during external exchanges, many people were surprised at how fast their recruitment was.
In her view, the credit goes to the association, especially the communication with distributors during the preparation period, which gave local distributors a clear understanding and recognition of the concept of unified warehousing and distribution, and they agreed with the trend of unified warehousing and distribution functions. In addition, distributors of brands like Yili and Arawana often participate in learning organized by brand owners, so they already had some understanding of warehousing and distribution platforms, making communication smoother.
With the entry of big distributors, there is a benchmark effect and influence. Coupled with the association's publicity and government attention and support, distributors of other categories are also gradually being brought in. Yuan Xia told New Distribution that Bajie Supply Chain is currently negotiating with distributors of daily chemicals, alcoholic beverages, and leisure snacks. If cooperation goes smoothly, by the end of the year, Bajie Supply Chain's scale will reach 400 million yuan in annual sales.
Yuan Xia also told New Distribution that recently, Bajie Supply Chain's "front store, back warehouse" one-stop procurement experience store is about to be renovated. The experience store is nearly 500 square meters and will display nearly 5,000 products for new store owners, corporate group purchases, and even surrounding consumers to purchase. The store will also have a coffee area for guests to discuss business.
Yuan Xia said, "In the future, we plan to turn this store into a comprehensive experience hall, positioning it as a circulation hub for fast-moving consumer goods in Suining and surrounding areas. Upstream, it will connect with brand owners, becoming their entry point into the Suining market; downstream, it will connect with small stores, helping them complete procurement needs, and even launch C-end membership services, such as holiday procurement for corporate group clients."
More importantly, through such a full-category experience store, even if some distributors do not join the warehouse, because of the store's procurement needs, the experience store will link with non-warehouse distributors, and then they will further pay attention to Bajie Supply Chain Company.

**Final Thoughts**
The above is the transformation case of Bajie Supply Chain Management Company. The biggest difficulty for distributors transforming into warehousing and distribution platforms is attracting merchants, but why is it not a difficulty for Bajie Supply Chain? In addition to the support of the association and Yuan Xia's courage, in the view of New Distribution, objective factors cannot be ignored. Compared with 2016 and 2017, more and more distributors have now been exposed to unified warehousing and distribution, and they are also under operational pressure, seeking external learning, and gradually accepting new things.
If there are local warehouse resources and distributors with good learning ability, it is worth considering unified warehousing and distribution. Now is the best time, without needing too much education of the market (distributors).
In addition, from the transformation case of Sichuan Bajie Supply Chain, we can draw several inspirations:
1. After establishing a warehousing and distribution platform, in the early stage of recruitment, focus on attracting big distributors first. This can solve two problems: First, big distributors have a demonstration effect, helping the platform establish trust endorsement and credibility. After recruiting big distributors, small distributors will naturally be easier to recruit, and you can even take the initiative in negotiations; Second, if you first recruit a batch of small distributors and then try to recruit big ones, it may have a negative effect. Big distributors look down on small ones. If small distributors join, big distributors will only think, "My coming will bring you more resources," making recruitment passive.
2. To establish a truly unified warehousing and distribution platform, one person's strength is often limited, so it is common for multiple distributors to jointly build a platform. But this brings a problem: it is easy to talk about equity distribution, but difficult to talk about operation and management. After multiple distributors jointly transform into unified warehousing and distribution, originally one company had one boss, but now there are multiple bosses, making daily operation and management more difficult, especially during the transition period. The new business model lacks a relatively mature operating system and requires continuous exploration, trial and error, and iteration. Therefore, it is recommended that when distributors transform into warehousing and distribution, they can first establish a company, organize warehousing and distribution resources, and then discuss equity distribution during the recruitment stage. This makes it easier to take the initiative in later management. Discussing equity cooperation before establishment often affects later operational decisions.

**Extended Reading: Review the exciting reports of "New Distribution 100 People" [Click to view]**
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