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In the food industry, baijiu (white liquor) is a category that tends to "eat alone" (i.e., rely on exclusive distribution). Manufacturers use policy leverage to keep distributors obedient, avoiding the cumbersome market operations that other FMCG industries require. Baijiu industry marketers even escape the ordeal of "selling at a loss" to distributors. Influenced by manufacturers, baijiu distributors have also learned to teach secondary distributors to "eat alone." That is, baijiu distributors typically implement exclusive distribution for township secondary distributors, or rely on a large secondary distributor with special policy support to achieve distribution to other secondary distributors or retailers. Even though these distributors select township exclusive secondary distributors that match the strength of their brands, does this mean everything is fine?

Facts prove otherwise. This "lazy" and "freeloading" approach by baijiu distributors directly leads to several negative consequences: First, it causes poor distribution during product introduction or new product promotion, failing to achieve market coverage and share, resulting in too narrow a contact surface with consumers, making products unavailable and inaccessible. Second, setting up township exclusive secondary distributors, even with secret discount policies, still directly affects the enthusiasm and initiative of other secondary distributors, hindering product entry and rapid market capture. Third, the selfish desires of township exclusive secondary distributors continue to expand, making them increasingly difficult to control, as we often see them "holding the emperor hostage to command the princes" (i.e., rebelling against the distributor). Fourth, distributors lack effective control and management over these township exclusive secondary distributors, leading to underutilization of secondary distribution network resources and affecting market output.

Enterprises also bear unshirkable responsibility for these unresolved issues, as they lack understanding and operation of market channel resources. In practice, baijiu enterprises mostly start market operations from terminal hotels, firmly believing in the principle: "If hotels are not booming, circulation will not be active." Then, why is circulation still inactive after hotels boom? The answer must be that circulation channel operations are misguided, neglecting research on circulation channels, especially secondary distribution resources.

Enterprises should implement full-process marketing for secondary distributors to achieve "synergy effects" in channel resources.

In baijiu market operations, there is absolutely no principle of successfully operating hotel terminals first and then circulation. Although hotels directly face consumers and can quickly achieve consumer awareness, recognition, and purchase of the enterprise and its products, hotels are not the only or exclusive venue for baijiu consumption. No one can assert that without hotel terminals, circulation channels cannot be successfully operated.

In practice, if we can comprehensively understand the market and its channel resources, adopt a strategy of simultaneously developing hotel terminals and circulation channels, and use products of different levels and categories to effectively combine terminals and circulation, we can generate "synergy effects" from channel interaction.

At the initial stage of market launch, enterprises should have a comprehensive understanding and evaluation of secondary distributors in the specific market, and formulate corresponding plans for positioning, setting up, developing, and operating secondary distributors, so that secondary distributor operations are synchronized with terminal hotel operations, thereby achieving market visibility and share. This will lay a solid foundation for future market development in the early stages of market operations.

At the same time, full-process marketing for secondary distributors not only avoids channel operation conflicts and internal strife that cause "internal friction," but also enhances the enterprise's control over the market, especially the secondary distribution market. In reality, an enterprise's control over the market is not its ability to control distributors, but its ability to control secondary distributors and even terminals. Therefore, to make market operations and development controllable, enterprises must implement full-process marketing for secondary distributors.

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