---
title: "If You Want Products to Sell Fast, Your Hands Must Be Quicker Than Your Feet!"
description: "In today's rapidly changing market economy, distributors have transitioned from 'sitting merchants' to 'traveling merchants,' and those who failed to adapt have declined. With China's economic growth slowing and supply exceeding demand, competition among brands has intensified, making market performance—especially shelf space battles—crucial. This article emphasizes the importance of product display (merchandising) in boosting sales and turnover, and argues that salespeople must be diligent in both physical and mental efforts, as laziness in display and thinking will lead to failure."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2016-07-05"
language: "en"
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markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/if-you-want-products-to-sell-fast-your-hands-must-be-quicker-than-your-f-4e313200.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/_wNROPP9AMBFXCnlZtkrFQ"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E6%83%B3%E8%A6%81%E4%BA%A7%E5%93%81%E5%8A%A8%E9%94%80%E5%BF%AB-%E6%89%8B%E5%BE%97%E6%AF%94%E8%85%BF%E6%9B%B4%E5%8B%A4%E5%BF%AB-4e313200.md"
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---

# If You Want Products to Sell Fast, Your Hands Must Be Quicker Than Your Feet!

> In today's rapidly changing market economy, distributors have transitioned from 'sitting merchants' to 'traveling merchants,' and those who failed to adapt have declined. With China's economic growth slowing and supply exceeding demand, competition among brands has intensified, making market performance—especially shelf space battles—crucial. This article emphasizes the importance of product display (merchandising) in boosting sales and turnover, and argues that salespeople must be diligent in both physical and mental efforts, as laziness in display and thinking will lead to failure.

**In today's market economy, things change every day!** As we all know, distributors have transitioned from the previous 'sitting merchants' to the current 'traveling merchants.' During this period, many sitting merchants who failed to make the transition and continued waiting for customers to come to them have declined. In the current era, especially in the past two years, China's economy has shifted from rapid growth to slow growth, and various industries have experienced varying degrees of oversupply. **Business has become harder, and brands have started fierce market battles. For a long time to come, market performance (i.e., the battle for shelf space) will determine the fate of a large number of salespeople.** Those who do not adapt in this battle will inevitably be eliminated by the market and eventually have to switch to other jobs, because the market's demands on salespeople have further increased!

As a salesperson, are you ready?

Walking into different supermarkets and shopping malls, consumers will notice that some shelves display products with vibrant colors, giving a warm and comfortable feeling that easily stimulates purchase desire. These are actually the results of product display science that merchants have developed after in-depth research and validation. **Never underestimate product display; scientific display can significantly increase sales and speed up product turnover.** Conversely, it can lead to low average transaction value, low inventory turnover, and even product stagnation.

**Purchase Hints in Display**

The most basic principle of all product displays is **richness**, or a sense of overflow. For example, some stack displays must present goods fully, so that customers can see at a glance that the store has a wide variety of products, large quantities, and fresh goods. Besides richness, customers are most sensitive to **price**, and price tags should ideally be directly reflected in the product display.

**In discount stores, prices are directly reflected in box-style displays.** Especially for beer, beverages, etc., they are not unpacked; instead, a small opening is cut in the sample box to show the product, while the rest are displayed in full boxes. This simple and labor-saving box display implies that these goods are low-priced.

Another method is the **'Matsu, Take, Ume' Japanese display method**, where 'Matsu, Take, Ume' represent three price tiers, and most people choose the mid-range 'Take' items. Many retailers display three tiers of similar products side by side, with the mid-range items having the most stock. This capitalizes on customers' mid-range consumption mentality to sell more mid-range products.

How to combine high, medium, and low gross margin products to achieve the store's optimal profit point? Therefore, **highlighting the most critical gross margin products** not only gives consumers a purchase hint but also is a targeted way for merchants to increase gross margin.

There is also an unexpected display hint—**time-based display**. Mannequins in clothing stores change outfits 3-4 times a day. The clothes on mannequins sell the fastest. In the morning, students pass by the most; in the afternoon, housewives; and in the evening, many elderly people go for walks. These three groups have different clothing needs. So, during the day, more youthful and fashionable women's clothing is displayed, while in the evening, inexpensive and good-quality casual wear for middle-aged and elderly people is put on. Many consumers buy based on the display hints from mannequins, thus increasing sales.

**Auxiliary Display Methods**

Besides purchase-hint displays, there are many auxiliary methods that can also boost product sales.

**Color** is a very important auxiliary display method. Most supermarket shoppers are female, and they are highly sensitive to color. Sometimes female consumers buy a product purely because they like a color. A supermarket once did a pink-themed display, placing food, daily necessities, and other items that were pink or related brands on one shelf, making female consumers take a second look when passing by, increasing the possibility of purchase.

Corresponding to color is **lighting** as an auxiliary display method. Watsons uses different lighting for different product areas. Some products that need brightness are spotlighted to make them look very attractive. Although the effect may differ when customers take them home, the lighting display effect in the store has already been achieved. In some high-end supermarkets, the lighting in the wine area is deliberately dimmed to convey a sense of nobility, and wine itself should not be exposed to strong light.

Some products need **'bare' displays**. For example, fruits and vegetables were previously packaged, but now customers want freshness more. More and more merchants are adopting 'open' displays, where unpackaged fruits and vegetables are placed directly in baskets or sacks, making customers feel like they are in a farm setting, which also indicates that these products are very fresh and worth buying.

In addition, **professional displays** are also very important. On the 8th floor of Shanghai Zhengda Plaza, there is a small candy store. In terms of candy alone, sales volume would not be large, so how can they afford the high rent of this 'golden mall'? The trick is that they have a glass kitchen for on-site candy making in the display area, which attracts many onlookers. The reporter saw many people buying flower-shaped and rainbow candies after watching the interesting production process.

Another auxiliary display method most praised by the industry is **thematic displays**. For example, during festivals or major promotions, many merchants paste promotional posters, but these posters may not be as effective as thematic displays.

Display is important, and salespeople know it. Many companies have conducted internal and external training based on their financial resources, and some even spend heavily on training salespeople. **However, most salespeople are willing to learn sales skills, conversation skills, and visit skills, but they are unwilling to do hands-on skills!** This is the nature of salespeople! Especially veteran salespeople, who are like old-timers! They work easily for a morning, just chatting with the boss, placing orders, and saying 'No expired goods, right?' or taking a quick look at a few items, and then the visit is over. As for later expired goods, that's the boss's problem!

One day a friend asked me: You have met many sales elites and successful people. What do you think is the most important factor in their success? I said: **Diligence**. He asked further: And then? I said: Nothing else, only diligence. He smiled, seemingly thinking my answer was too simple.

**Every sales elite I have ever met is diligent.** I divide diligence into two types: one is **physical diligence**, which is obvious and can be seen from work hours and efficiency. (I won't elaborate because it's not unimportant, but its importance is too obvious.) The other is **mental diligence**.

The sales path is tough, and those who are lazy in body cannot become successful 'salespeople.' But those who start with good sales performance and then fail are usually due to mental laziness.

However, many people tend to ignore mental diligence and rely on physical diligence to compensate. For example, those who make the same mistake more than twice and those with procrastination are typical of mental laziness.

**Mental laziness is being unwilling to think through every word the customer says.**

When negotiating a deal, salespeople must repeatedly think about every word the customer says and carefully weigh body language and facial expressions. Only by mastering enough basic information, sorting out clear clues, grasping the core of the problem, and making sufficient quotation preparations can they close the deal in one go.

**Mental laziness is being unwilling to think about problems when a deal fails.**

Even if the customer clearly likes the product and the price is advantageous, they delay placing an order. Is the customer still comparing with other manufacturers, or is there a flaw in the existing system, method, or logic? What is the root cause? And set up corresponding preventive mechanisms to avoid the same problem from happening again.

**Mental laziness is thinking inertia.**

When others raise objections or challenges, do you refute without thinking? Or have you learned a humble posture and habitually accept/ignore them?

The analysis of objections or challenges should not only be applied within your own logical framework but also try to break your own framework and think from the other party's perspective, analyzing the rationality and contradictions of their logic.

Reconstructing a logical framework (commonly known as 'destroying three views') is a complex process; you must try to understand some 'unreasonable' things. But it will make your logical framework clearer and stronger. Breaking inertial thinking is self-repair of thinking.

**Mental laziness is giving up independent thinking.**

Adopting 'authoritative information' without discrimination and letting your thinking be guided is the most dangerous situation. Although it was not intended to criticize any party in this article, it must be pointed out that China's education system is completely destroying our independent thinking ability. While it teaches us skills, it also weakens our ability to learn other knowledge. Independent thinking can minimize confusion.

**Mental laziness is lacking a big-picture view.**

People often say to do the right thing, not just do good things, which emphasizes having a big-picture view. A big-picture view means stepping back from immediate matters, extending the time and space axes, and analyzing problems from a historical and global perspective, considering what impact specific practices will have on the overall situation in the long run. Those without a big-picture view usually use their pitiful morality (whether professional or social) as a disguise.

**Mental laziness is sticking to old habits.**

If you feel you are not innovative enough, or others think you are not innovative, then you are sticking to old habits.

**Mental laziness is tolerating knowledge gaps.**

When encountering something you don't understand, you fool yourself and muddle through. This state is also called losing curiosity or being unwilling to learn.

**The method to solve all the above problems involves the third level of diligence, which has a vague boundary, belonging to both physical and mental, called focus.** I believe that people who can focus do not lack ability. It can even be said that a person's achievements depend on their degree of focus, because the energy generated by focus is extremely powerful. For example, the cumulative effect of N one-minute periods may never reach the effect of a focused 10 minutes. Focus is a state of mental diligence, but it also consumes physical energy. Here, I would like to remind everyone: salespeople who spend all day on Weibo, WeChat, Momo, and have negative thoughts will not have high expectations from their leaders, and naturally will not have much development prospects.

Sales is a job that requires great initiative. You cannot be lazy. If you are lazy to do, customers will be lazy to buy. Of course, they won't buy from you!

**If salespeople are too lazy, communication becomes superficial.**

If you are lazy in preparation, you will fall into a state of 'words without proof,' lacking persuasion, and lose customers at any time!

If salespeople are too lazy, the enthusiasm will decrease, customer satisfaction will drop, and customer loyalty will directly decrease.

If salespeople are even too lazy to do displays, it will lead to reduced sales orders, poor customer relations, poor displays, and many near-expiry and expired products, directly causing a significant decline in salespeople's enthusiasm, and eventually they will exit the industry!

I want to say to those currently in sales: 'If you are too lazy to do displays, then don't do it; switch careers quickly! Sales is no longer suitable for you!'

**Quickly forward this to your colleagues! You know what I mean!**

**At the request of many distributor friends, the third B-end e-commerce inspection class of this public platform will visit three platforms—Wanshang Yizhan, Yunbao Shangmeng, and Weijie Chengpei—from July 9-12. Distributor friends interested in transformation can join us for on-site inspections:**

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Participating distributor friends only need to pay a 200 yuan registration fee. Time: July 9-12, 2016. Location: Changsha, Xiamen.

**Interested distributor friends can register by long-pressing the QR code below.**

**When adding friends, please reply 'Third Phase Registration'.**

**Previous Inspection Enterprise Cases:**

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(Second Phase B-end E-commerce Inspection Team at Yishang Logistics)

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