How to Carve Out Your Competitor's Terminal Blind Spots in the Market?

This article is excerpted from Mr. Fang Gang's book "FMCG Veterans Do It This Way: Regional Manager Playbook". To purchase this book, please click "Read Original"

Introduction

High distribution rate and high share are basic features of a base market. Behind these "two highs" are driven large sales volumes and high profits. Many sales managers in base markets, supported by data, proudly boast: "There are no blank spots in my market!"

However, upon deeper inspection, behind the rosy picture, there are always some terminals that resist, selling less of your product or even stubbornly refusing to sell it. These are terminal blind spots.

Every market has terminal "nail households"! The existence of blind spots is not scary; what is scary is that blind spots exist but are unknown! When terminal blind spots accumulate and connect, they form terminal blind zones. Over time, market fault lines naturally form! Once a fault line forms, competitors can exploit it, and the difficulty of repair increases significantly.

Attacking Competitors: Carving Out Their Terminal Blind Spots

Attacking a competitor's base market is a satisfying thing, but when two evenly matched opponents engage in passionate confrontation, it often results in mutual destruction. Therefore, the common strategy for attacking a competitor's base market is: First, penetrate from the competitor's weak points, accumulate and lurk, find the precise chisel point, and then launch an attack.

Attacking the competitor's blind zones is the foundation of penetration tactics. It is the competitor's weak point and the "chisel point" for breaking the ice.

Find

Competitor blind spots exist among the vast network of outlets. Finding them from thousands of outlets is a brain-racking task.

A common practice is: divide a county-level city market into areas and conduct street-by-street reconnaissance, recording the addresses and phone numbers of all target outlets, and tallying the inventory of all brands and varieties in each store.

Analyze

Through this data, you can accurately analyze the competitor's status in each terminal. For example, which store is a blank spot for the competitor's full range, which store is a blank spot for a specific category due to stockouts, which store is a weak distribution point for the competitor, and which street or area is the competitor's weak region.

Analyze the types and value of these outlets to identify target stores where we can specifically attack and distribute.

Deploy

Based on the reasons for these competitor blind spots, formulate corresponding attack plans.

Sticking close to the competitor is the key to penetration tactics. Align with the competitor's product layout by adopting the method of "sealing the head, cutting into the waist, and sticking to the lower end." The so-called head is the top of the competitor's price band; the waist is the mid-range mainstream products; the lower end is the low-end products. Avoid drifting with the tide and following the competitor's rhythm.

Head products determine consumption trends and the orientation of consumer representatives; waist products are the main battlefield to keep the distributor team alive. This layout ensures both the future brand positioning of our products and that the competitor does not easily detect the threat, or even notice our existence.

Lurk

"Sneaking in with the wind, moistening things silently" is the highest state of lurking. Lurking is the most basic foothold of penetration.

The two prerequisites for lurking are the camouflage of our products and the competitor's negligence.

For example, lurk within the competitor's channels (distributors, secondary wholesalers), turning the competitor's exclusive channels and exclusive terminals into mixed channels and mixed terminals.

During lurking, policy and profit temptations are only one aspect; it is best to establish a service commitment system to counter the competitor's weaknesses of high sales but poor service, such as credit sales, regular visits, and exchange of soon-to-expire products.

Strike

Once our products are in the store, follow up with single-store attack actions. For example, remove the competitor's merchandising in the store, move the competitor's products to a hidden place, or cover them with our products, maximizing the display of our products.

Lock

Observe the single-store sales situation at distribution points. When you find stores where our sales volume exceeds the competitor's, you can adopt large-tier loading, volume commitment, exclusive supply, and other single-store policies to lock them down, maximizing the suppression of competitor sales within the store.

Only

Stabilize customer relationships and ensure the price system. Ensure that a single store cannot be supplied by multiple channels (it should be supplied by a unique distributor), as cross-supply can lead to price undercutting and internal friction.

Fault lines always start from blind spots. After establishing a foothold in a single store, it means a beachhead has formed. Then consider expanding the gains in depth, forming from point to line, that is, concentrating distribution along streets or areas, tearing the competitor's blind spots into blind zones, and ultimately creating a market fault line for the competitor.

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