---
title: "In-Depth Analysis | Frontline City Manager: Cultivating 'Lighthouse' Key Accounts to Win the Battle for Urban High Ground"
description: "As the pandemic subsides, foot traffic in hypermarkets is recovering, but sales haven't fully bounced back. However, a closer look reveals that big-store channel sales haven't declined; online-to-home plus offline sales have even grown slightly. This article argues that big stores remain the most important 'lighthouse' channel and marketing high ground in every city, and provides a comprehensive playbook for city managers to plan, execute, and drive growth in these stores, covering both traditional and new (O2O) scenarios."
author: "许翔 Ryan Xu"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2020-06-20"
language: "en"
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# In-Depth Analysis | Frontline City Manager: Cultivating 'Lighthouse' Key Accounts to Win the Battle for Urban High Ground

> As the pandemic subsides, foot traffic in hypermarkets is recovering, but sales haven't fully bounced back. However, a closer look reveals that big-store channel sales haven't declined; online-to-home plus offline sales have even grown slightly. This article argues that big stores remain the most important 'lighthouse' channel and marketing high ground in every city, and provides a comprehensive playbook for city managers to plan, execute, and drive growth in these stores, covering both traditional and new (O2O) scenarios.

As the pandemic draws to a close, foot traffic in hypermarkets is gradually returning. Yet, Lao Wang is not happy. Despite foot traffic recovering to 80%, sales haven't followed suit...

Wrong! In fact, sales in the big-store channel haven't declined.

The earlier illusion was only from the perspective of offline big-store sales. After careful analysis, Lao Wang found that online-to-home sales plus offline store performance haven't dropped; they've even seen a slight increase since the pandemic began.

What was the hottest topic recently? The street-stall economy! This past week, my social media feed has been bombarded with colleagues and peers showing off their street-stall sales... After the pandemic, new channels have been multiplying, and now even street stalls are joining the fray.

Facing increasingly fragmented channels, dear city managers, please stay calm and don't panic!

**More channels are not scary; what's scary is blindly following trends and losing sight of priorities!** No matter how channels further split and re-differentiate, as frontline commanders for FMCG manufacturers, city managers must remain objective, composed, think calmly, simplify complexity, and adopt an incremental mindset!

The FMCG industry covers many categories. Due to differences in consumption characteristics and scenarios, the proportion of business each category contributes to each channel varies.

This article uses daily chemical products as an example, breaking down from strategy to key actions, to discuss how city managers can develop the correct 'big-store mindset' and plan, layout, and continuously drive growth in big-store business.

**-01-**
**The Correct 'Big-Store Mindset' for City Managers**

In the era of traditional deep distribution, every big store was the most important stronghold in each city. **Now, in the era of omni-channel distribution under the new retail backdrop, I still firmly believe that big stores remain the most important lighthouse channel and marketing high ground in every city, and their importance is even greater than before!**

Why do I say this? In the past, FMCG business was driven by channel thinking. In the deep distribution era, business was divided by geography and channel, with provincial, municipal, and county-town distribution networks established at various levels, and distribution carried out step by step based on territory size and business volume.

After each distributor secured their territory, they further divided it by channel, selling to consumers through big stores, BC community supermarkets, traditional wholesale, circulation small stores, special channels, etc.

**In the deep distribution era, channel thinking was more prevalent, but in the omni-channel distribution era driven by new retail, the industry is shifting from channel thinking to traffic thinking.**

In the past, FMCG sales were more channel-based; under deep distribution logic, those who controlled distribution gained the upper hand, and those who controlled terminals won the market. From now to the future, we need to switch to traffic thinking—those who gain traffic win! We cannot simply operate business with pure channel thinking; instead, we must build and create new omni-channel business models based on traffic.

**Channels are relatively tangible, but traffic is intangible!** Channel thinking emphasizes how much physical display each brand occupies in target channels and terminal outlets, ultimately converting physical presence into sales. Traffic thinking focuses more on the time consumers spend in your channel or platform, ultimately converting time into sales.

**Speaking of traffic, where does the traffic in a city market mainly go? Online and offline, it still ends up in big stores! Big stores! Big stores!**

You'll find that even during the pandemic, the leading big stores in each city market didn't see sales decline; they even grew. Latest data shows that compared to the same period last year, hypermarket foot traffic has returned to about 80%. Driven by government pandemic subsidies, the significant increase in average transaction value has steadily boosted sales at leading big stores!

Facts prove that the main consumer force is still in big stores; new scenarios have just replaced some old scenario performance. Undoubtedly! **The big-store channel is the bridgehead and main battlefield for both sales contribution and brand building in a city market!**

Although new retail has spawned and incubated many new scenarios, in reality, many are extensions and upgrades of old scenarios. For example, the O2O-to-home business and community marketing that major hypermarkets are currently promoting are essentially big-store business, just with different scenarios!

With the correct 'big-store mindset,' let's clarify the positioning, balance, and operation of national and regional hypermarkets in a city.

**-02-**
**Lighthouse Terminals:**
**National or Local Hypermarkets?**

Every hypermarket is a lighthouse in a city market; the lower the city level, the more significant the lighthouse effect!

But frontline sales teams treat these lighthouse stores unevenly—basically, where you sit determines what you see; you do what your KPIs dictate.

Often, national chains like RT-Mart and Walmart are directly supplied by brand manufacturers, seemingly having no direct relationship with local distributors and city managers. Distributors and local teams might only handle delivery and shelf tidying, and some city managers even view these stores as competitors.

**I believe we shouldn't treat these direct-operated stores as competitors; instead, we should consider how to leverage and learn from them.** National centralized-purchasing hypermarkets like Walmart and RT-Mart have significant local influence, with the largest offline and online traffic in the city. Many small stores and wholesale channels benchmark against these stores, observing what they sell, what promotions they run, and how much discount they offer. These national stores can be considered dual bellwethers for both channels and consumption in the local market.

Frontline city managers should approach these big stores with a learning mindset: on one hand, learn efficient offline operations; on the other, learn advanced online-to-home practices. Marketing plans executed well in these stores can be replicated and promoted to local big stores and various channels.

Additionally, although sales targets for these national centralized-purchasing stores typically don't belong to the local frontline sales team, it's recommended to visit them more often. Sometimes national stores have more resources and are prone to price-breaking. More store visits mean more mutual supervision—check for low-price bulk backdoor sales, expired products, and other service needs, and provide timely ground feedback to the headquarters key account team.

Apart from national stores, the remaining local big stores are basically within the city manager's control. **For these, city managers can divide them into head, waist, and tail tiers using a 10%, 20%, 70% ratio, with different attention and resource allocation for each tier.** Based on the tier, further implement product, price, and promotion strategies for each level.

**-03-**
**Key Action Breakdown to Achieve Synergy Between New and Old Scenarios**

Once we correctly understand big stores and classify them properly, the next step is to design a city manager's operational blueprint for big stores. **Starting from the channel, use traffic thinking to make old and new scenarios work together for synergistic efficiency.**

Accelerated by the pandemic, new scenarios primarily manifested as O2O have developed rapidly. This chapter will focus on breaking down specific actions for new and old scenarios, drawing on market practice experience, to share and discuss with you.

**I. Key Action Breakdown for Old Scenarios**

**1. KC (Key Customer) Store Old Scenarios**

NKC (National Key Customers) mainly operate under a direct supply model, belonging to international or national chains. Their professionalism and operational standards are relatively standardized, with strong systematic management. All marketing actions are customer-led. Brands need to fully integrate into customer-led projects, establishing joint business plans while meeting basic customer needs.

Since sales targets for national KC customers are mostly not tied to local city managers, this article mainly breaks down key actions for RKC/RKA and DT big stores, as these are more controllable and practical for every city manager.

**2. RKC/RKA Store Old Scenarios**

**A. Planning Level**

**1) Understand the Retailer**

This year, with the pandemic, retailers have faced dual pressure on sales and profits, prompting early transformation. Measures such as refined management, profit optimization, faster turnover, and improved cash flow have been implemented simultaneously.

**As customer managers, we need to re-examine and understand retailers: What are the changes in core customer needs? Have their development strategies adjusted? How should we adjust investment direction based on these changes?** These are questions city managers need to consider.

For example, a certain RKC customer in Shenzhen had a development strategy at the start of the year focusing on digitalization, supply chain optimization, and experiential enhancement. With the pandemic, digitalization was prioritized, and the target for online business share was raised from 15% to 25%, actively expanding new retail business. Meanwhile, experiential projects requiring significant investment, including new store expansion, were postponed.

When sales growth didn't meet expectations, retailers quickly adjusted their KPI structure, making profit the core KPI. Various measures to boost profit were swiftly implemented: increasing promotional gross margin, enhancing comprehensive returns from new products, expanding fresh food areas and to-home business scale, and compressing standard SKUs. These actions are retailers' emergency responses.

**As frontline city managers, upon learning about changes in local key retailers, investment strategies should definitely increase investment in to-home business, optimize product mix, improve product profitability, and efficiently manage inventory.**

Below, I'll detail the implementation of these actions. What I want to emphasize here is that you must clearly understand the significant changes at the terminal. Customer development is dynamic; without first-hand customer information, formulating strategy as a manager is like the blind men and the elephant.

**2) Insight into Category Development Trends**

In the past, premiumization was a key driver of growth in the overall FMCG trend. However, this year's Q1 sales data shows that premium product growth is far below expectations.

By category, personal antibacterial and disinfection products have seen explosive growth post-pandemic. Although this growth is mainly due to the pandemic, the reality is that consumer behavior has changed. The pursuit of a healthy lifestyle has subtly influenced many people around us. We must reposition our category mix and business structure.

In the hypermarket channel, fresh food growth far exceeds personal and home care. If you're in fresh or food/grain/oil categories, you must seize this growth dividend period. But relatively slower-growing personal and home care should also keep pace with the growth rhythm.

Whether offline or online-to-home, **hypermarket consumer shopping needs mainly revolve around three points: daily replenishment, exploratory needs, and stockpiling needs.**

Daily replenishment has high brand loyalty, but exploratory needs stimulate consumption and are where brands can make an effort. Stockpiling needs are more about price promotions.

Therefore, understanding category development trends and combining them with channel consumer needs, any brand has business opportunities. As a brand, explore these opportunities at the terminal and quickly adjust brand strategy accordingly.

**3) Joint Business Plan**

After thoroughly understanding retailer needs and formulating brand development strategy, the next most important step is to identify common interests and develop a joint business plan with retailers around these interests. **A joint business plan mainly involves executing business indicators, achieving key customer KPIs, and cooperating on key projects, but the key point is marketing.**

FMCG marketing cycles are typically annual, with key promotional periods and DM (direct mail) as the main methods. Most customers use 14-day promotional periods, with 26 posters per year. Key festivals include Spring Festival, 3/8, 5/1, Dragon Boat Festival, Qixi, Mid-Autumn, National Day, New Year's Day, and online 6/18, Double 11, and Double 12.

Plus customer anniversaries, all marketing is spread across these time points. At these important nodes, how can brands obtain customer terminal resources in the form of projects? How can brand resources efficiently combine with customer traffic surges to trigger sales and achieve win-win outcomes? These are worth considering.

**A good joint business plan is the core driver of brand sales growth and the bridge connecting retailers and brands. More importantly, it unifies thinking, aligns actions, and improves efficiency.**

**B. Execution Level**

**1) Store Business Breakdown**

At the planning level, the focus is on the customer as a unit, but sales originate from the terminal, which is each store under the city manager's responsibility. One of the core abilities of hypermarket sales personnel is number crunching!

First, you must understand your own business: the sell-through data for each SKU in each store, sales share, and sources of sales growth. You can't manage a messy account. In execution, the first step is to break down the business of the stores under your management.

In daily work at big stores, weekly and monthly business reviews are essential. Focus on trends in secondary sell-through, comparing year-over-year and month-over-month or week-over-week, down to each brand's each SKU.

Is growth due to promotional activities? Is decline due to out-of-stocks? Are there slow-moving inventories? You must know the inventory days for each SKU, the comprehensive return for each SKU, and the actual profit generated for the store. The level of detail in these tasks determines sales professionalism, which directly affects store cooperation.

**2) Perfect Store KPI Achievement**

What is a perfect store? It's when the brand's presentation at the terminal is better than its market performance.

For example, a shampoo brand has a 10% market share. If the store's shampoo shelf has 10 sections, and the brand's shelf space is more than one section, exceeding its market share, that's achievement. The same logic applies to other terminal KPIs: sales share, poster positions, secondary displays, etc.

If each store's category sales capacity is relatively stable, brand sales growth largely involves grabbing business from competitors in a 'zero-sum game.' The small wins at each terminal store accumulate into a big win for the entire customer system. Without accumulating small steps, you can't reach a thousand miles.

**3) Eight Elements of Store Management**

Distribution, display, price, promotion, sales aids, inventory, customer service level, and relationship management are the eight elements of store management. Good terminal execution means excelling in all eight. The first six are easy to understand; I'll emphasize customer service level and relationship management.

Each customer has unique characteristics and operations. No industry sales manual can cover all customers, but 80% of customer common needs are the same. All cooperation actions with stores must align with the customer's actual service level.

For example, if the customer's supply chain takes 3 days from central warehouse to store, and a corporate labor protection order needs pickup tomorrow, you can only communicate a delay to 3 days with the current delivery time. Don't make promises or take actions beyond the customer's capabilities.

Next is relationship management. Building relationships is a long-term process, but the core is dealing with people. Credibility is always the most important, followed by meticulous work attitude and professional competence.

**3. DT Big Stores**

**A. Distribution Strategy**

**Distribution is the foundation of everything and the most primary infrastructure work for frontline city managers. You must plan and layout short-term, mid-term, and long-term, and implement specific actions.**

Step 1: For already covered stores, first identify gaps. Refer to the company's perfect store execution standards to find distribution gaps, especially for bestsellers—they must be distributed! Also, reference competitor bestseller SKUs for additional distribution.

Step 2: Analyze the surrounding environment. For example, if the area is mainly residential, focus on large-size products; if it's near schools or migrant workers, focus on small sizes.

Step 3: Push new products and sell high-end. If you only sell bestsellers, many distributors' gross margins can't support their operations. You need to promote suitable new products into big stores to increase sales and supplement distributor margins. The above is for already covered stores.

For uncovered stores—those not purchasing from the brand's designated distributor—first understand why there's no cooperation. The main reason is price. For price issues, look at the overall business and use products with smaller price differences for distribution.

For newly opened stores, sell in the company's perfect store distribution requirements in one go, plus products suitable for the new store's surrounding environment. Distribution is not about being as broad as possible, but as precise as possible.

**B. Pricing Strategy**

**The price system design for DT big stores is very important because it needs to consider distributor operating costs and wholesale market prices. You can't treat all big stores the same; you need to precisely design the price system for big stores.**

Step 1: For regular products, the price system is generally between 100%-105% (based on company guidance price at 100%). For sensitive bestsellers, it's generally 95%-100%. For high-end new products, it's 105-110% to supplement margins on sensitive items.

Step 2: Every salesperson must remember the price of each product. No need to give a price list by SKU; just organize a one-page summary for different sub-specifications of the same specification (e.g., fragrance). Especially for new salespeople, they need to remember prices immediately for store checks and negotiations.

Step 3: Understand the supply and retail price systems of local stores of similar size. For example, international key accounts have a 100% supply price, with front-end gross margin around 15% and promotional gross margin 3-5%. Regional key accounts have front-end gross margin 15%-17% and promotional gross margin 6-8%.

Given this, DT big stores' regular and promotional prices need to be set reasonably; otherwise, they won't be competitive. Also, if any store is found breaking prices, report it to the company promptly to protect DT big store interests.

Step 4: For price execution, have a unified system management standard. For example, secondary displays cannot show regular prices; retail prices must be changed within 24 hours before and after promotional periods.

**C. Promotion Strategy**

1) Classification of promotional activities: free strategy, discount strategy, proactive price reduction, creating illusion, tiered pricing, bundled promotions, tie-in promotions, accepting pre-orders.

2) Design a promotional calendar for DT big stores: Plan a promotional calendar around annual holidays, set 60-day reminders, and prepare promotional plans in advance.

For example: New Year's Day, Spring Festival, Valentine's Day, spring school opening, Women's Day, Labor Day, Mother's Day, 618, Dragon Boat Festival, Father's Day, Qixi, autumn school opening, Teacher's Day, Mid-Autumn, National Day, Double 11, Double 12, Christmas. That's at least 20 festivals a year, almost every month you can anchor two promotional activities.

3) Understand internal promotions thoroughly: Obtain company information promptly and fully understand promotional rules and resource application logic.

4) Externally collect store annual activity schedules and make a store-level annual activity plan.

5) Set up a competitor activity early warning mechanism: If a competitor has a mega event at a store, report to superiors immediately.

6) Design promotional plans based on different environments: For residential/industrial areas, focus on large-size family pack specials; near schools, focus on small-size specials.

**D. Sales Aid Strategy**

Visual merchandising isn't just for looks; it's for selling.

1) Purpose of sales aids: Build and enhance brand image, effectively convey product information, make our products stand out on the shelf, help consumers identify our products and make purchases.

2) Main sales aid tools:

> a. Posters, string flags, hanging tags, in-store light boxes, pillar ads, TG poster stands, floor stickers, etc.
>
> b. Shelf cards, wobblers, shelf frames, shelf strips, promotional gift displays, promotional content cards, etc.
>
> c. Promotional display items, in-store broadcasts, in-store TV ads, in-store promotional bulletin boards, etc.
>
> d. Product mini tags, product instructions, small recipe cards, etc.
>
> e. Self-made sales aids designed according to local conditions. For example, in Guangdong and Guangxi, 'hui nan tian' (return of wet weather) refers to severe humid weather. Since antibacterial and anti-mite products are suitable for cleaning clothes in such climates, you can design 'Hui Nan Tian Exclusive' POSM to hang on product shelves, increasing consumer purchase desire.

**E. Display Strategy**

Display: It's about solving where and how to place products on store shelves.

Displays are mainly divided into three types: primary display, secondary display, and cross-display.

**Product Display Principles:**

1) Best display position in the store: On the sunny side of shelves along the main aisle, at the front end in the direction of customer flow.

2) Best line of sight: The best line of sight is generally the reachable display range from shoulder to hip. Products displayed in this range sell best; it's called the golden zone. Effectiveness decreases as you move up or down.

3) Vertical primary display: Vertically, display different sizes of the same product; horizontally, display different products of the same size.

4) Size importance ranking: Depending on the surrounding environment, size display varies.

5) Product display order and corresponding display space: The larger the sales volume, the wider the display space. Don't simply remove old products to replace with new ones; you need to fight for additional display space.

6) First-in, first-out principle for shelves.

7) Display in 'tofu blocks': vertical, neat, with visual impact. For a 1m² floor display, it's recommended to display only one brand, and for one category, only one size with no more than two fragrances.

8) Special displays: Depending on store type, you can use light boxes and other special displays.

**F. Inventory Strategy**

Common DT big store inventory management should consider the following 6 factors:

> 1. Store shelf inventory;
> 2. Store warehouse inventory;
> 3. Slow-moving inventory;
> 4. Near-expiry inventory;
> 5. Promotional period inventory;
> 6. Seasonal product inventory.

**How to effectively manage store inventory:**

1) Visit stores regularly and spot-check product shelf life.

2) Require sales reps to improve product display according to display guidelines at each store to speed up product turnover.

3) Ensure order rationality, especially for new products. Distribute correct SKUs, check primary shelves, and avoid overstocking high-value and high-end products on deep shelves.

4) Timely transfer slow-moving inventory to stores with fast turnover.

5) Establish a near-expiry product handling system: Conduct monthly near-expiry inventory checks and report numbers. Handle at 10-30% discount within half a year, 50% within one year, and 60% within one and a half years. Try to handle in-store to avoid secondary transfer damage.

6) Set store safety stock: Safety stock = shelf inventory + average sales during delivery period.

Shelf inventory: For bestsellers, shelf depth should be at least 2/3.

Promotional inventory = display inventory + estimated promotional sales.

Display inventory: The quantity needed to fill the entire display. We usually recommend ordering enough for the promotional period at once, with estimated sales typically 3-5 times normal sales.

**G. Customer Service**

Customer service level is a hallmark of a qualified supplier/salesperson. Many large supermarkets have included these indicators in supplier assessments, so please pay attention to these three points:

1) Order fulfillment rate: Don't place orders for out-of-stock items; deliver promised promotional goods.

2) Delivery accuracy: Ensure orders are delivered promptly and accurately, especially special-request items. If an order expires, replenish it promptly.

3) Invoice accuracy: Keep order/receipt confirmation documents safe and establish a monthly review mechanism.

**H. Relationship Management**

Relationships need long-term building and maintenance. Only by helping customers in business can you earn their respect, which is more reliable and lasting than treating them to meals or illegal bribes.

Step 1: Understand customer information, development direction, real-time dynamics, and KPIs.

Step 2: Build stable relationships: Align with customer KPIs and your own development, and help customers solve problems within reasonable limits.

Step 3: Maintain close cooperation: Hold a small meeting once a quarter and a large business review meeting every six months.

**II. How to Break Down Actions for New Scenarios?**

**1. O2O Introduction**

O2O is now the hottest topic. Post-pandemic, its market share broke through 5.4%, and its share of hypermarket business once surged above 20%. Major retailers have accelerated their layout and investment in to-home business.

From a channel perspective, the five major platforms represented by JD Daojia (JD Daojia, Duodian, Taoxianda, Ele.me, Meituan Waimai) account for 76% of business, while KA self-operated platforms (Hema, PUPU, Bubugao) account for 24%. The to-home formula is traffic * conversion rate * fulfillment rate = GMV. Deepening traffic and improving conversion are top priorities. Specific terminal actions are as follows:

**2. O2O Big Store Promotion Plans**

O2O regular promotion mechanisms:

1. Bestseller flash sales;
2. Poster price reductions;
3. Large threshold discounts;
4. Staff incentives.

**3. Five Actions for Implementing O2O Big Store Promotion Plans**

Step 1: Confirm cooperation intention: Communicate with retailers (NKC/RKC/RKA) to understand their willingness.

Step 2: Submit activity plan: The plan AK or DT SR submits 2 months in advance. For self-operated platforms and the five major platforms, strengthen/regional customization. A complete plan consists of 5 parts:

a. Promotional period, mechanism, and purpose;
b. Online + offline exposure;
c. Accurate GMV increment forecast;
d. Resource exchange with the customer;
e. Customized activities with innovative points.

Step 3: Confirm plan details: Channel marketing (marketing middle platform)/customer manager planning personnel/sales tri-party confirmation. Also, customer manager/procurement/platform tri-party confirmation, and execution details:

a. One promotional article;
b. Activity product launch plan;
c. Stock preparation plan.

Step 4: Platform launch + activity execution:

1. Customer procurement notifies platform launch;
2. Provide the promotion team with activity mechanisms and product lists;
3. Sales check product launch and inventory two weeks in advance;
4. Sales confirm activity launch with procurement one week in advance;
5. Sales check offline POSM one week in advance;
6. Sales notify the promotion team one week in advance;
7. Customer publishes articles on the day and mid-period;
8. After launch, sales/DSR check if the activity is live and inventory is sufficient;
9. DSR/MTR/UP check offline POSM exposure;
10. Promoters should create in-store QR code operation stickers, place POSM at multiple points, and track coupon usage.

Step 5: Review the activity:

1. Check online sales + offline POS sales;
2. Real-time check customer online distribution and competitor information;
3. Review POSM execution and effectiveness to better design clearer and more eye-catching POSM using internet graphic tools for the next activity;
4. Execution review: exchanged resources, sell-through of threshold discount bundles, other issues during the period, and improvement plans.

**-04-**
**Use the Elite Troops to Guard the 'Lighthouse'**

**As a city manager, whether with a stock or incremental mindset, channel or traffic thinking, you must hold the line at lighthouse big stores. Doing well in big stores is the most practical lever for every city manager.**

Channel fragmentation actually calls for focusing on the core. This is the most important thing. Head lighthouse big stores not only have high sales share but are also the focus of brand promotion because they have the most traffic. Therefore, using the elite troops and the most experienced people is obvious.

When using elite troops to operate big stores, how should daily work time be allocated? I have a core logic: All actions from Monday to Thursday should serve Friday and Saturday. Because foot traffic and sales are highest on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. For big store operations, I've always adhered to this philosophy; I suggest you try it.

From Monday to Thursday, the big store sales team shouldn't have too many extra actions; they must prepare for Friday to Sunday. Are promoters in place? Has training been executed? Have materials been warehoused by Thursday night? Has the floor display been set up Thursday night? Have you secured the best positions? Have goods arrived? Are promotional materials in place? Have prices been adjusted?

During these four working days, business should communicate in real-time with regional resource departments, with the boss, logistics, third-party advertising agencies, and distributors, ensuring that every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, the brand has the best sales atmosphere in big stores.

The above is the thinking on how city managers should correctly understand and layout big stores. Although in the past, city managers also valued big stores, in recent years, due to various external factors such as retail store operations and channel diversification, especially during the pandemic, the surge of various online e-commerce to-home has confused city managers: Should they deploy core energy and elite troops to big stores?

Through the above analysis, **I think city managers should be confident—big stores won't shrink or collapse! They are not only the lighthouse channel for brand manufacturers but also the lighthouse for every city manager in a city market. You must guard them with elite troops! Guard them with heavy troops!**

Of course, besides recognizing the importance of big stores and allocating quality resources and manpower, city managers' urgent task is to adjust and upgrade marketing strategies for big stores. Only with a mindset of innovation and perfect execution of key actions can we continue to win every brand battle on the urban high ground!

The pandemic rapidly matured the to-home business,
The pandemic fully activated live-streaming e-commerce,
The pandemic effectively drove community marketing,
After this pandemic, Lao Wang finally figured it out!
Big store business must not only integrate online and offline but also make to-home, live-streaming, and community marketing work together synergistically! The big store channel won't become outdated; it will only become more important!

Bio: Xu Xiang, currently Sales Director for South China at Unilever, with 20 years of experience in FMCG daily chemicals, dairy, and condiments, deeply involved in regional market management and customer marketing. Willing to exchange ideas with peers for mutual progress. The above article represents only personal views.

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