In recent years, consumer awareness has been continuously rising, from simple consumption to fill the stomach, to mature leisure consumption, and in the future, it will develop towards health-oriented consumption. However, the overall technical threshold of China's food industry is very low, yet its imitation ability is superb. As a result, in this era of endless new products and increasingly fierce competition, it has become even harder for products to stand out in the market. Under such circumstances, how should distributors retain consumers and cultivate loyalty to new products? This is a headache for many manufacturers and distributors. The author believes that achieving excellent product display and rational combination is the key to making products stand out at the point of sale. Below, we look at several specific cases. Case 1: Combination of Different Product Categories Representative: Watsons and Personalized Snacks Currently, there are numerous retail stores, whether individual, chain, domestic, or foreign-invested, each presenting its own unique consumer culture to shoppers. In the food sales sector, Hong Kong-based Watsons has certain representativeness and reference value. As is well known, Watsons' display clearly demonstrates its purpose and culture. Watsons precisely targets young consumers with strong purchasing power, high desire for products, and strong loyalty and dependence on goods. At the same time, leveraging this consumer group, Watsons can achieve stable customer bases and high-profit returns with small investments. Careful observation reveals Watsons' thoughtful positioning and exquisite display. Young consumers love beauty and trends, so Watsons offers the trendiest beauty and skincare products as its main product line. Meanwhile, Watsons also hopes that young customers, after buying skincare and cosmetics, will have more purchasing options, so it has set up a small food area within the store. Most of the small foods on Watsons' shelves are imported foods not available in ordinary stores, or leisure snacks with special flavors, as well as distinctive beverages. Upon closer inspection, these products are trendy, cute, and appealing to young people, complementing Watsons' own cosmetics system perfectly. The clear primary and secondary product display achieves effects that ordinary stores cannot match, making Watsons' shelves a sales scene for personalized snacks and attracting many loyal young consumers. Case 2: Practical Combination Representative: Instant Noodles and Lunch Boxes Single-product display and sales test the capabilities of distributors and terminals, because a single product often finds it difficult to stand out on shelves crowded with similar competing products. In such cases, display and product combination can add value to the product. Instant noodles are a bulk consumer product. We often see in supermarkets large packs of instant noodles bundled with exquisite lunch boxes. This not only solves the problem of how to soak bagged instant noodles but also allows the box to be used as a small storage container for various items, with wide applications. As a result, factors that consumers originally prioritized, such as brand and flavor, are replaced by the convenience and practicality brought by the lunch box. Sales of such instant noodles are impressive, leading more brands to adopt similar promotional methods, such as giving away aprons to win over cooking enthusiasts, or giving away ham sausages to attract foodies. In fact, the reason why such bundling and gift promotions with non-product items are effective is that they capture consumers' desire for convenience and value, which is especially important for daily necessities like instant noodles. Case 3: Combination of Different Flavors Representative: Orion Another food giant, Orion, is even more worthy of study by Chinese food companies. In China, only a very few enterprises develop their own products; more follow the market trend with severe imitation. Orion, however, has always led with an innovative attitude. Orion's major product series almost occupy the major retail stores in China. Its product promotions are relatively simple, mainly price reductions, but its model for combining new products is indeed worth learning, even an efficient, low-cost artistic act. For example, Potato Chips (Shuyuan) and Haoxiaomei initially had only three flavors. When flavor sales became unbalanced, they launched flavor combination gift boxes, packaging the three flavors together, or combining two best-selling flavors with one average-selling flavor, then offering special promotions. Under this model, many consumers believe they are getting a bargain, but in reality, the three-in-one special price reduces costs significantly compared to single-box promotions, ensuring balanced product development and contributing substantial profits to Orion. Additionally, when launching new products, Orion often uses its sales channels to do extensive bundling, then decides on positioning based on market feedback. The recently popular honey butter potato chips are bundled with white, refreshing mango-flavored fries, with large labels telling consumers these are tasting samples. Orion's distributors in the Chinese market often use well-established channels to quickly expand market coverage, attract consumers with bundled gifts, and collect first-hand information through market feedback to judge the popularity of new flavors. This model is efficient and profitable, far surpassing other brands' promotional activities. Case 4: Combination of High-Profit and Low-Profit Products Representative: Potato Chips and Roasted Nuts Gift Boxes Generally, heavily promoting profitable products often leads to unbalanced sales among the products a distributor handles. Therefore, distributors often combine high-profit and low-profit products to increase sales. In this process, what combination activities are more effective? Take potato chips as an example: tomato-flavored chips sell best, and distributors often have downstream stores bring in other flavors that sell moderately to combine sales, which is the most basic food combination. Moreover, in the past two years, during the pre-holiday sales peak, many stores have launched beautifully packaged roasted nut gift boxes containing a mix of pistachios, pine nuts, sunflower seeds, peanuts, and other nuts. Individually, pistachios and pine nuts are relatively expensive, but their sales volume may be much smaller than peanuts and sunflower seeds. Peanuts and melon seeds, while affordable and large in quantity, have low added value and profit. Through such pairing, the overall gift box is elevated to a higher grade, the price is more acceptable to consumers, and distributor profits are maximized. For consumers, this nut combination fits consumption trends, making the gift box feel richer, more diverse, more upscale, and more face-giving when given as a gift. Therefore, combining high-profit and low-profit products can achieve a win-win market effect. Case 5: Competitors Can Also Be Bundled Representative: Beer, Beverages, Milk Many products have off-seasons and peak seasons. For example, ice cream is the most popular food in hot summer, but in winter, the industry enters a sales slump, and manufacturers and distributors must endure a dormant period of up to half a year. Other products, though not as pronounced as ice cream, are also affected. For instance, holidays are peak sales periods for beverages, while milk has no distinct off-season because consumers have developed the habit of drinking milk regularly in the morning and evening, so milk sales are more stable than beer and beverages. To increase sales, distributors sometimes bundle or give away seemingly competitive yet similar consumer products like beer, beverages, and milk, often achieving unexpected results. For example, during the pre-Spring Festival beverage sales peak, distributors offer downstream customers a purchase voucher: "Buy 10 boxes of beverages, get 1 box of the same beverage free, plus 1 box of milk for February after the New Year." This means downstream purchasers pay for 10 boxes but receive 11 boxes of beverages and 1 box of milk, maximizing their profits. The distributor may seem to be at a loss, selling beverages at thin margins and giving away a box of milk for free. However, after the New Year is often the off-season for the food industry. By selling a box of milk in advance, the distributor ensures milk sales in February. The distributor simply moves the sales promotion that would have occurred in February to before the New Year, getting a step ahead of others, locking in stable sales, and minimizing costs. This is indeed a clever move in terminal combination sales. From these five cases, it is not difficult to see that even similar or completely different products can find common ground for combination. Only by doing so can products be activated at the point of sale, stand out, and achieve sales and profitability. Reprinted from: Food Board -END- The best learning platform for FMCG distributors in China Focusing on providing professional, practical, and applicable tutorials for enterprises and distributors Committed to helping Chinese FMCG distributors grow rapidly The most professional and practical knowledge base in the FMCG industry Reply with the red number below to get corresponding content Reply with number 1 to view the complete knowledge base | 001 Excellent Article Selection | 002 Distributor Market Operations | 003 Terminal Visit Management | 004 Sales Supervisor Skills | 005 Sales Improvement Techniques | 006 Channel Expansion | 007 Managing Distributors | 008 Distributor Development | 009 Distributor Internal Operations Management | 010 Team Management | 011 Efficient Distribution Techniques | 012 Sales Manager's Eighteen Skills | 013 KA Operation Methods and Strategies | 014 First Lesson for New Salespeople | 015 Internet and Brands | 016 Distributor B2B Transformation | [Long press QR code to follow]