---
title: "How Can Small and Medium-Sized Food Enterprises Break Free from the Stagnation of Product Sales?"
description: "In our interactions with small and medium-sized food enterprises, many owners have told us that over the past 2-3 years, their product sales have remained stagnant, making sales growth their biggest challenge. These enterprises range from newcomers with annual sales of a few million yuan to those with sales between 10-30 million yuan, around 50 million yuan, or even exceeding 100 million yuan. Upon further analysis, we found that they lack professional brand planning, relying mainly on product quality and effort, resulting in weak or non-existent brand support. This article summarizes ten reasons for sales stagnation and proposes corresponding solutions."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2015-12-19"
language: "en"
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# How Can Small and Medium-Sized Food Enterprises Break Free from the Stagnation of Product Sales?

> In our interactions with small and medium-sized food enterprises, many owners have told us that over the past 2-3 years, their product sales have remained stagnant, making sales growth their biggest challenge. These enterprises range from newcomers with annual sales of a few million yuan to those with sales between 10-30 million yuan, around 50 million yuan, or even exceeding 100 million yuan. Upon further analysis, we found that they lack professional brand planning, relying mainly on product quality and effort, resulting in weak or non-existent brand support. This article summarizes ten reasons for sales stagnation and proposes corresponding solutions.

In our interactions with small and medium-sized food enterprises, many owners have told us that over the past 2-3 years, their product sales have remained stagnant, making sales growth their biggest challenge. These enterprises include newcomers with annual sales of a few million yuan, those with sales between 10-30 million yuan, some around 50 million yuan, and even a few exceeding 100 million yuan.
Upon further analysis, we discovered that these enterprises have not undertaken professional brand planning. They have relied primarily on good product quality and their own efforts to reach their current sales scale, resulting in weak or non-existent brand support. In terms of brand planning, product planning, market planning, and sales planning, these enterprises are generally in a non-professional state. When they reach a certain stage of development, it becomes very difficult to further expand their brand and market scale. Here, we summarize the main reasons for the stagnation of product sales in small and medium-sized food enterprises into the following ten aspects, and propose corresponding methods to overcome this predicament, which we share for your consideration:

**Reason 1: Lack of True Understanding of Consumer Needs**
By examining the product packaging, corporate brochures, flyers, tri-fold brochures, X-stand displays, and other promotional materials of these enterprises, it is clear that the product selling points presented are superficially correct, as they are the result of long deliberation by business owners and staff in planning and sales departments. However, from a professional perspective, these selling points are too ordinary, lacking effective differentiation from competitors and not addressing the core reasons why consumers purchase such products. Relying solely on experience makes it difficult to truly understand the potential needs of consumers for these products.

**Solution: Conduct Professional Consumer Needs Market Research**
If you are a new entrant or your enterprise is facing stagnant product sales, it is recommended that you conduct professional quantitative market research on consumer needs. Through large-sample consumer questionnaires, statistical analysis using professional software, and analysis by experts, you can understand the real needs of consumers for your products based on research data. Decision-making based on intuition alone is unlikely to lead your enterprise out of the sales stagnation predicament.

**Reason 2: Inaccurate Definition of Target Consumer Groups**
Many food enterprises hope their products will be welcomed by consumers of all ages, genders, incomes, and occupations, aiming to sell to everyone. If the target consumer group is not accurately defined, the result is often that no specific age group, gender, or income bracket will choose your product as their first choice, causing your enterprise to lose all market segments.

**Solution: First Determine Who Your Product Is For**
In today's fiercely competitive market environment, a single product cannot target all consumers. Therefore, based on product characteristics, you must first determine which age group, gender, and income bracket your product is intended for. The brand and product should focus on meeting the needs of this core consumer group, securing a favorable position in that segment, thereby gradually strengthening the brand and expanding market scale.

**Reason 3: Lack of Clear and Precise Brand Positioning**
Some small and medium-sized food enterprises have had products on the market for many years, yet they cannot clearly articulate what their corporate or product brand positioning is. In such cases, it is normal that after reaching a certain market scale, further growth becomes difficult.

**Solution: Brand Positioning First, Then Build and Enhance the Brand**
The purpose of brand positioning is to create a clear place in the minds of target consumers for your corporate or product brand, so that when consumers have such needs, they think of your brand and product. For example, JDB herbal tea's brand positioning of "clearing heat" and Jinmailang instant noodles' positioning of "chewy noodles." Only with clear and precise brand positioning can you build and enhance your brand.

**Reason 4: Product Selling Points Do Not Align with Consumer Buying Points**
The core benefit point of a product refers to the optimal connection between the product's selling points and consumers' buying points for that category. For example, consumers buy iced black tea for good taste and thirst-quenching. If your iced black tea's selling points are nutrition and health benefits, it will not connect with consumer needs for this category.

**Solution: Find the Connection Between Product Benefits and Consumer Needs**
Each food category has many selling points, and consumers have many buying points. The key is to conduct professional consumer needs market research to find the optimal connection between product benefits and the needs of the target consumer group, making it the core benefit point, so that consumers remember your brand and product.

**Reason 5: Failure to Craft Advertising Slogans That Touch Consumer Needs**
Many small and medium-sized food enterprises have not developed brand slogans that reflect brand positioning and core selling points. Naturally, consumers find it hard to remember your product brand and selling points. Small and medium-sized food enterprises need classic brand slogans like "Nongfu Spring is a bit sweet," "Even without appetite, you can still eat it deliciously," and "A little bit makes it fresh."

**Solution: Leverage Classic Slogans to Enhance the Brand**
Brand slogans are an extension of brand positioning and serve as vivid communication language for the core selling point, forming a complete brand planning system together with brand positioning and benefit points. In the early stages of brand growth, small and medium-sized food enterprises do not have large advertising budgets, so they need to create classic brand slogans to create favorable conditions for brand enhancement.

**Reason 6: Confusing Product Line Planning**
Recently, we encountered a food enterprise with annual sales exceeding 100 million yuan. It had 5 series of gift box packaging, with over 10 different styles, uses, and prices. Even the company's own employees could not fully identify the target consumer group for each product. The reason was that whenever the owner or senior management thought of a new use, they added a new gift category, leading to overlapping gift boxes and a very confusing product line. Eventually, this affected consumer perception and further sales growth, prompting the enterprise to realize the need to reorganize its product line.

**Solution: Plan a Clear Product Line**
Product line planning refers to the relationship and rational combination of products with different categories, packaging forms, prices, and forms. A clear product line makes it easier for consumers to identify and remember your product brand and category. Therefore, a clear product line is the prerequisite and foundation for small and medium-sized food enterprises to increase product sales.

**Reason 7: Product Packaging Design Lacks Quality**
Among small and medium-sized food enterprises experiencing sales stagnation, a large proportion have packaging designed by ordinary design companies, or sometimes by printing or packaging manufacturers as a side task. This costs little or nothing extra, but the packaging design remains non-professional, leading to consumer rejection and poor sales.

**Solution: Packaging Design Should Be Guided by Brand Strategy**
First-class product packaging design requires guidance from brand strategy and creative strategy. Designing packaging solely from a packaging design perspective cannot produce the best results. Small and medium-sized food enterprises lack the advantages of well-known brands, so they must surpass national brands in packaging design to reduce marketing risks and gain more market opportunities.

**Reason 8: Products Are Still in the Promotion Stage**
After producing products, enterprises start recruiting sales staff and seeking agents, believing that finding agents will ensure sales. When products accumulate at agents' warehouses, they cannot find effective solutions. Sales remain in the promotion stage, making it difficult to build a strong national brand.

**Solution: Combine Intensive Cultivation of Key Sales Areas with National Recruitment Through Professional Media**
To overcome sales stagnation, small and medium-sized food enterprises can consider sales strategies such as intensive cultivation of key sales areas combined with national recruitment through professional media to expand market scale. Intensive cultivation of key sales areas is mainly for building model markets and training the sales team. National recruitment through professional media not only spreads the brand but also yields excellent recruitment results.

**Reason 9: Relying Solely on Product-to-Consumer Communication**
Some small and medium-sized food enterprises mainly sell through distribution channels. After stocking in supermarkets, they rely solely on the product itself to communicate with consumers, lacking effective promotional activities. They can learn from the terminal operation models of national brands like JDB, Coca-Cola, Huiyuan, Yili, Mengniu, and Nestlé in key sales markets or channels.

**Solution: Establish an Effective Terminal Sales System**
Without TV advertising support, small and medium-sized food enterprises should combine product displays, distribution of terminal promotional materials, and continuous promotional activities at the sales terminal to deepen interaction and effective communication with target consumers, gradually increasing brand awareness and product sales.

**Reason 10: Emphasis on Product and Sales Strength Without Brand Support**
Having good product strength is fundamental, but without brand support, product sales remain very difficult. This is also a major reason for high sales staff turnover in many small and medium-sized food enterprises. Only with continuous sales growth can sales staff compensation increase, giving everyone a sense of purpose and stabilizing the sales team.

**Solution: Brand, Product, and Sales Strength Promote Each Other**
Brand strength refers to the ability to attract consumer attention; sales strength refers to the ability to facilitate consumer purchases; product strength refers to the ability to satisfy consumers after purchase and generate repeat purchases. Therefore, brand, product, and sales strength are mutually reinforcing. All three are indispensable to truly lead small and medium-sized food enterprises out of the sales stagnation predicament.

Beijing Precision Planning – The No.1 Marketing Planning Brand in China's Food Industry. For comprehensive solutions to food enterprise marketing issues or challenges, please visit the website of Beijing Precision United Planning Co., Ltd.

**-END-**

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