---
title: "How to Revitalize Old Products? Transparent Prices, Shrinking Margins, and Reluctant Retailers—What to Do?"
description: "When a company's main product transitions from maturity to decline, it faces a sales growth bottleneck. The key is to find new marketing strategies and techniques that can help achieve higher growth and boost the product's momentum to consolidate the existing market. Therefore, revitalizing old products and injecting fresh vitality into them is one of the essential strategies for a company to remain unbeaten in the market. As is well known, old products generally face challenges such as overly transparent pricing, price chaos, varying retail prices across stores, relatively low profit margins at all channel levels, channel disorder, and frequent cross-regional selling."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2014-12-14"
language: "en"
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# How to Revitalize Old Products? Transparent Prices, Shrinking Margins, and Reluctant Retailers—What to Do?

> When a company's main product transitions from maturity to decline, it faces a sales growth bottleneck. The key is to find new marketing strategies and techniques that can help achieve higher growth and boost the product's momentum to consolidate the existing market. Therefore, revitalizing old products and injecting fresh vitality into them is one of the essential strategies for a company to remain unbeaten in the market. As is well known, old products generally face challenges such as overly transparent pricing, price chaos, varying retail prices across stores, relatively low profit margins at all channel levels, channel disorder, and frequent cross-regional selling.

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When a company's main product transitions from the maturity stage to the decline stage, it inevitably faces a bottleneck in sales growth. The key is to find new marketing strategies and techniques that can help the company achieve higher-level growth and enhance the momentum of old products to consolidate the existing market. Therefore, how to revitalize old products and inject fresh vitality into them will be one of the company's magic weapons to remain invincible in the market.
As we all know, old products generally face the following symptoms: overly transparent prices, chaotic pricing with inconsistent retail prices across stores, relatively low profit margins at all channel levels, channel disorder, and frequent cross-regional selling. When consumers actively seek to buy, retailers are reluctant to sell, and sometimes they even spread rumors about product quality, leaving companies feeling helpless.
When a product is boycotted by channels, its life is quickly approaching the brink of death. Even if consumers are highly loyal, they will switch to new products after several failed attempts to purchase. To address the main issues facing old products, two aspects need to be activated: first, ensuring consumers can buy the product; second, ensuring channels push the product. Among these, solving the channel or terminal push issue becomes critical.
So, how exactly can old products be revitalized?
1. Revitalizing Old Products from the Product and Brand Perspective
Generally, after an old product sells well in a regional market for a certain period, two things happen: on one hand, a large number of competitors will follow and imitate; on the other hand, if the company fails to keep up with product packaging, public relations, terminal image maintenance, after-sales service, and price control, the product gradually ages, brand activity declines, consumer groups gradually shrink, and the product enters decline.
To address this, we often adopt the following measures to revitalize old products from the product and brand perspective:
First, while maintaining the overall visual identity of the product, update the packaging in a timely manner. For example, keep the outer box and bottle shape unchanged, raise the price of existing products (wooden box, iron box, gold card), and fill the original price point with new products (white card, plastic printing). Therefore, rely on product upgrades for flexible price increases, and absolutely avoid naked price hikes—directly raising the retail price—as this will lead to resistance from channels and terminals.
Second, strengthen the product's image maintenance at the terminal. Product displays and terminal visual merchandising must be neat and standardized, with strict management and maintenance, so that consumers feel the vitality of the old product as soon as they arrive at the terminal.
Third, in addition to good media publicity, plan irregular public relations interactive activities with target consumers, such as event marketing around hot topics of the times, mass tours, community charity events, etc., to maintain brand activity, bring the brand closer to the target consumer group, and avoid a gradual decline in brand influence.
Fourth, in product packaging design, naming, and promotion, reflect unique aspects to minimize opportunities for competitors to imitate and follow, creating a clear distinction from similar products.
2. Revitalizing Old Products from the Channel Perspective
Old products have large sales volumes and high market share, and their sales channels are generally long, typically including three levels: distributors, secondary wholesalers, and terminal retailers.
1. Analysis from the Distributor Level
First, due to reduced channel profits, distributors lack the enthusiasm to maintain the market. The solution is to strengthen guidance and transformation of distributors, enhance the market development and maintenance team, and implement deep distribution to increase blank outlets or markets to boost distributor enthusiasm. If that doesn't work, consider channel sinking to reduce channel levels and increase channel profits—that is, eliminate distributors and let secondary wholesalers directly handle old products to increase their enthusiasm. For example, implement a "small regional exclusive agency system" to create a monopoly pattern (even forming exclusive distributors for 2-3 townships).
Second, old products have low profit margins, and there isn't enough profit to support market maintenance. The solution is not to compete with competitors on absolute strength, but to leverage the scale sales advantage of old products to integrate promotional resources, seize favorable seasons, and carry out promotions and maintenance at all channel levels in a flexible and covert manner, timely occupying channel funds and inventory to curb competitor introduction and expansion.
Third, guide distributors to introduce new products in a timely manner, using old products to drive new products, and filling the low profit points of old products with the high profit points of new products.
2. Analysis from the Secondary Wholesaler and Terminal Level
At the secondary wholesaler and terminal level, the common problem is that due to low profits from old products, enthusiasm for selling them decreases, and they easily shift to promoting competing products. The most effective measures to address this are:
First, under the condition of ensuring price system stability, carry out promotions and stock pressure on secondary wholesalers in both off-season and peak season, occupying their funds and storage capacity. Use methods such as vague rebates and cumulative rewards to push inventory, avoiding customers lowering prices for sales. After stocking, control supply and raise prices to increase channel and terminal profits. Seizing the core interests of secondary wholesalers means seizing sales volume. Distributors (secondary wholesalers) can see a gross profit increase of about 100% (secondary wholesalers' average gross profit is very low, making them the weakest and easiest point to break through). The "two halves" characteristic of the circulation channel: half of sales occur during the 'two festivals,' and half of sales occur through 'two wholesalers.'
Second, strengthen business tracking of secondary wholesalers, conduct sales training, and organize phased sales competitions to boost their enthusiasm.
Third, through terminal display merchandising support or display competitions, indirectly increase terminal sales profits, while strengthening terminal image maintenance and creating a best-selling atmosphere to stimulate terminal sales enthusiasm.
In fact, there are generally two methods to ensure the channel's "first recommendation rate": Rule 1: Ensure material benefits: the 1.5 gross profit rule (don't discount on price; use display fees, vague rebates, cumulative rewards, etc.); Rule 2: Ensure emotional benefits: strengthen customer communication, management, and service.
3. Revitalizing Old Products from the Price Perspective
Stable prices and reasonable channel profits are the lifeline for old products to continue selling well. Old products often face the following price-related issues:
First, low channel profits weaken the ability to counterattack when attacked by competitors. The common strategy we use in practice is to strengthen market forecasting and competitor information collection, carry out promotions and stock pressure before competitors, minimize competitor opportunities, and simultaneously introduce strategic products with strong promotional intensity and high profit margins to counter competitor attacks.
Second, continuously strengthen rigid price management for old products, extend their life cycle, guide terminal channels to strictly follow the company's recommended retail price, strictly prohibit terminal price reductions, and accelerate the death of old products.
Third, raise the retail price. The most critical point to save mature products is how to increase channel profits. Specific methods are:
Method 1: Seize price increase opportunities, such as economic inflation, raw material price increases, product packaging upgrades, or competitor price increases; raise the supply price to terminals to lift the terminal retail price.
Method 2: Use old products to drive new products, indirectly increase material rewards, and replace profits.
Method 3: Take small steps and run slowly, with promotions as the lead. The "small steps, slow run" price increase method makes it easier for consumers to accept a 5%-10% price increase cost (30 yuan * 5% = 1.5 yuan; 60 yuan * 5% = 3 yuan); set a reasonable reason for the price increase (avoid naked price hikes); start with price increases on individual products, not all at once.
Fourth, control the policy for major accounts. The major account policy is the root cause of low-priced cross-regional selling and market price fluctuations. To address this, strengthen control in three aspects: first, unify product supply prices, adopt vague reward policies for major accounts, and price maintenance reward policies; second, strictly manage product flow; third, strictly punish cross-regional selling behavior.
4. Revitalizing Old Products from the Promotion Perspective
Old products often face the following promotion issues: first, being constrained by competitors, following their passive promotions with little uniqueness; second, promotions becoming sales policies that can only be added, not reduced, leading to a gradual decline in prices.
The main solutions to promotion issues are: strengthen market information collection and forecasting, enhance the planning, planning, proactiveness, targeting, timing, and controllability of promotional work; emphasize clever and novel promotional forms, and avoid simply reducing prices for promotions, as that can only lead to the product's sudden death.
5. Five Unified Strategies for Revitalizing Old Products
Manufacturers lead the market, expanding upward and downward to create products, ensuring the full series sells through, strengthening the manufacturer's strength, and increasing the manufacturer's investment base. (Terminal retailers find it difficult to raise prices on their own or voluntarily; they must rely on manufacturer leadership.) Adopt five unified strategies: unify the leading product, unify the pricing strategy, unify the network structure, unify the promotion policy, and unify the assessment standards (what is needed, what is assessed).
6. Eight Strategic Points for Regional Baijiu Price Increases
1. "Multi-product rotation": When raising prices for old products, never raise prices simultaneously. If a price increase fails, it can cause the old product to quickly exit the market. Therefore, adopt multi-product rotation to reduce risk and collective resistance.
2. "Step by step": Take small steps and run slowly, with small amounts and multiple times, one yuan per piece. When the price increase is large, it's not advisable to do it all at once; it should be divided into several small stages, breaking it into parts. Try to ensure each price increase doesn't cause excessive consumer tension. Based on experience, each price increase should be controlled within 5%-10%; if it exceeds 15%, the risk is greater.
3. "Secretly crossing the Chencang": Product differentiation, making a feint to the east while attacking the west. (Order meetings, more policies for price-increased products, use other products to compensate for the low profits of old products.)
4. "Leak the news in advance": Before raising prices, intentionally or unintentionally reveal information to distributors so they can stock up in advance. If a price increase is announced suddenly, distributors may adopt a wait-and-see attitude, stop or reduce purchases, and raising prices without their preparation can easily trigger resistance.
5. "Vertical and horizontal alliances, shared interests": Making price increases benefit manufacturers, distributors, and channels together is one of our goals. Find allies. Divide and conquer those who don't support. (Secondary wholesalers' interests are greater than distributors'.)
6. "Promotion cover": Every promotion is an opportunity for price increases, and every price increase generally needs supporting promotions.
7. "Fill the gap": Use "low-cost same products to fill the gap" to prevent competitors from taking advantage.
8. "Hunger effect": Control supply and raise prices. Sometimes, limited product sales can actually expand the market.
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