Source: oilcn油讯 (oilcnweixin)
This year's Mid-Autumn Festival falls on September 15, and the edible oil sales peak season is approaching. It's a time when every oil brand competes for market share, and promotional activities are naturally indispensable.
How can you control costs, improve sales effectiveness, avoid wasting expenses, and make your investment more productive? Time is tight, and there is much preparation to do—market research, channel preparation, promotional planning, and more. So get started right away!
01 Market Research: Determine the Promotional Tone
Research is mainly to obtain information in two areas:
First, understand competitors' current market policies and focus areas, and choose a reasonable plan accordingly.
For example, if a leading brand in a market focuses its efforts on retail stores but neglects promotions in the catering channel, we can exploit this gap and integrate some resources.
Second, research consumer preferences for promotional items in different regions.
For instance, rural consumers prefer practical promotional items like daily necessities; you can choose low-cost practical items such as basins or laundry detergent to attract purchases.
Urban consumers, on the other hand, prefer novel promotional items. In cities, you can use methods like lucky draws or smashing golden eggs to engage people. The winning rate doesn't need to be high, but there should be attractive "grand prizes," such as an iPhone for the first prize, to entice purchases.
02 Select Channels Carefully: Don't Overextend
Today's Mid-Autumn market is no longer an era where casting a wide net catches fish. Channel selection must be meticulous—put the best steel on the blade.
Supermarket Channel
Supermarkets today are not what they used to be. They usually have average sales volume, high fees, and tough attitudes, which can be frustrating. However, during holidays, supermarkets remain the primary shopping venue in first- and second-tier cities. When cooperating with supermarkets, pay attention to the following:
- End-cap Displays
"The store is valuable, but the end-cap is more so; if it's for promotion, you have to pay." During holiday promotions in supermarkets, you must secure end-cap displays. It's known that during holidays, due to the huge foot traffic, the final purchasing behavior follows the "traffic flow" designed by the supermarket. Products along the traffic flow are often the best sellers. If you purchase several end-caps in large chain supermarkets, ensure consistent visual presentation.
Edible oil is different from other FMCG products; it's hard to create overly flashy end-caps. Therefore, color coordination should be festive, promotional signs and posters should be eye-catching, and the end-cap should be neat and clean. You can deliberately remove a few products to create a "hot sale" illusion, and ensure timely restocking.
- Sales Guides/Promoters
Having promoters in supermarkets may be wasteful on regular days, but during holidays, you must set up professional sales guides/promoters, not just hire one or two part-timers to handle it. Most consumers don't have a clear preference when choosing holiday edible oil, or they hesitate between several options. The value of a sales guide is to nip that hesitation in the bud. This requires the guide to be professional, not only knowing product features inside out but also being familiar with promotional offers, and being articulate and pleasant without being annoying.
- Warehouse Inventory
A large supermarket chain often has 7-10 stores in a city. If you negotiate with two or three of them, you need to stock up sufficient inventory for the holiday period. Prepare warehouse stocking, transfer, and turnover plans in advance to ensure smooth execution of holiday shipments.
- Timely Returns
Some supermarket systems have promotional return clauses with suppliers. For example, the "7 before, 8 after" clause means that the promotional price is applied for settlement with the supplier for seven days before the promotion starts and eight days after it ends. If you miss this window, suppliers may supply goods at promotional prices but return goods at normal prices, causing a loss. If the promotional discount is 20%, it means the supplier gives away 20% of profit to the supermarket. Therefore, it's crucial to process returns promptly after the supermarket promotion period ends.
- Price Control
The biggest obstacle to increasing volume in supermarkets is the high prices, which reduce consumer purchase enthusiasm. To boost sales during Mid-Autumn, you need to adjust product prices to align with market prices. Of course, supermarkets are price benchmarks, so you can't blindly lower prices. Instead, use promotional methods like buy-one-get-one-free or spend-and-reduce to lower the actual transaction price, not the listed price.
- Promotional Methods
(1) Post posters in prominent locations in major supermarkets (posters showing activity details). (2) Advertise promotional offers in the supermarket's DM (direct mail) publications. (3) Apply for end-cap displays in the supermarket to support promotional activities. (4) Use explosive tags on supermarket shelves. (5) Set up outdoor booths with promotional staff wearing advertising T-shirts to expand publicity.
Not all promotional activities must be done in supermarkets, nor do you need to secure every supermarket. In some third- and fourth-tier cities, supermarkets may not be well-developed; in first- and second-tier cities, foot traffic varies. In such cases, prioritize supermarkets with high foot traffic, reasonable fees, and standardized settlement. Supermarket promotions are relatively straightforward; the key is to have "buy one get one free."
Consumers have almost no resistance to "buy one get one free," and it appears to be the most generous and effective promotion in supermarkets. In practice, you can slightly raise the original price and then offer the buy-one-get-one-free deal. Additionally, pairing with mooncake gifts is also a good option; it's best to collaborate with a well-known local mooncake brand for joint promotion.
Grain & Oil Shop Terminals
If you don't have supermarket resources, or if your sales volume requirements are lower and you focus more on product (e.g., new product) promotion and support terminal sell-through, you can consider focusing on grain & oil shops during Mid-Autumn. Of course, you should also select core terminals for activities, targeting with precision.
- Selection of Core Terminals
(1) Larger scale, with unified and standardized store signs and facades. (2) Located in residential areas with wide coverage, able to serve as outdoor advertising. (3) High foot traffic during business hours, able to serve as in-store advertising. (4) Preferably have some group-buying resources.
- Ensuring Terminal Enthusiasm
Competition among core grain & oil shops is no less intense than in supermarkets. Terminals worry about thin margins, so ensuring the profitability of core terminals is key to enhancing their push. How can you generate high profits during sales and avoid terminals just shouting without results? You can adopt an inverted trapezoid probability promotion to protect terminal interests.
The inverted trapezoid probability promotion is essentially a game rule. Each time a terminal completes a certain sales amount, it gets a reward card. Prizes are set from first to X-th prize, with prize amounts decreasing progressively, but the number of prizes for each level is not decreasing; instead, the first prize and the last prize have the same number, each accounting for 20% of the total, while the other prizes have equal numbers. This way, terminals cannot calculate the probability of winning, thus completely avoiding the phenomenon of undercutting each other to chase sales volume and abandoning sales policies. On top of this, if you add a special prize to create a sales competition among terminals, you'll achieve twice the result with half the effort.
Inverted trapezoid promotion prize settings:
Due to sales uncertainty, based on actual sales, if the total number is insufficient or exceeds the total number of cards, you can adjust the rules for increasing or decreasing prizes. Of course, determining the appropriate sales amount required per card based on terminal sales forecasts is the key to success.
Additionally, you can offer travel rewards for reaching a certain order quantity to maintain terminal relationships. This can be executed in advance because August is the peak travel season, and terminal staff's family members and children may have travel needs. Let terminals stock up in advance, and if they reach a certain amount, they get a free trip, combined with corresponding promotional policies. This is quite attractive to terminals.
- Promotional Methods
Promotions at grain & oil shop terminals are more diverse, common ones include:
Buy One Get One Free: Can be buy one get one free of the same product, or give a small bottle of oil or a lower-priced product from the same series, depending on the product price.
Buy Oil Get Mooncakes: Buy one bottle can get a coupon for mooncakes; buy a case can get a box of mooncakes. It's best to choose a well-known local mooncake brand.
Fuel Card Rewards: For customers who may generate group purchases, give fuel cards when they buy a certain amount.
Lucky Draw: In the early stage, you can combine with roadshows and give big prizes to attract consumers; later, focus on small prizes or grain and oil coupons.
- Promotional Materials:
Promotional materials must have consistent and clear themes, with offers clearly and directly stated. Taking a core terminal store as an example, typical materials include:
In response to the requests of many distributor friends, the fourth B2B e-commerce inspection class of this public platform will go to Nanjing and Hangzhou from August 15-18 to inspect two platforms: Qianmi.com and Alibaba Retail Link. Distributor friends interested in transformation can join us for on-site inspection:
Activity Process:
Time: August 15-18
August 15-18
Nanjing · Hangzhou 15th: Check in at designated hotel in Nanjing; 16th: On-site inspection of Qianmi.com, then high-speed rail to Hangzhou in the afternoon; 17th: Participate in the "FMCG Distributor B2B Transformation Exchange Summit"; 18th: On-site inspection of Alibaba Retail Link in Hangzhou;
Distributor friends interested in transformation are welcome to join us to learn and inspect on-site:
Organization Format
- Company visit
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Participating distributor friends only need to pay a registration fee of 200 yuan.
Other expenses are self-covered.
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Interested distributor friends can register by scanning the QR code below.
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Photos from previous inspections:
Group photo of the 3rd B2B e-commerce inspection, from top to bottom: Yunbao Shangmeng, Weijie City Distribution, Wanshang Yizhan.
Group photo of the 2nd B2B e-commerce inspection, from top to bottom: Jinhuobao, Caiba, Yishang.
Group photo of the 1st B2B e-commerce inspection, from top to bottom: Piduoduo, Beiquan, Yishang.
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