---
title: "More Beverages Sold, Less Money Earned: Some Distributors Begin to Recalculate a 'Non-Mainstream Category'"
description: "A beverage distributor with ten years of experience described this year's business as 'selling more goods but earning less money.' As promotions pile up, profits thin out, prompting more distributors to reconsider their product mix. In this context, some are turning to non-mainstream categories like areca nut, with new-style products such as Bingqi gaining attention for their longer shelf life and higher margins."
author: "Amy"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2026-03-24"
categories: "Consumer & Categories, Dealer Operations"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/more-beverages-sold-less-money-earned-some-distributors-begin-to-recalcu-e620b1bf/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/more-beverages-sold-less-money-earned-some-distributors-begin-to-recalcu-e620b1bf.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/29DtOJn6marq-C_AnpkJjg"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E9%A5%AE%E6%96%99%E8%B6%8A%E5%8D%96%E8%B6%8A%E5%A4%9A-%E9%92%B1%E5%8D%B4%E8%B6%8A%E8%B5%9A%E8%B6%8A%E5%B0%91-%E4%B8%80%E4%BA%9B%E7%BB%8F%E9%94%80%E5%95%86%E5%BC%80%E5%A7%8B%E9%87%8D%E6%96%B0%E8%AE%A1%E7%AE%97%E4%B8%80%E4%B8%AA-%E9%9D%9E%E4%B8%BB%E6%B5%81%E5%93%81%E7%B1%BB-e620b1bf.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/more-beverages-sold-less-money-earned-some-distributors-begin-to-recalcu-e620b1bf/"
citation: "Amy. “More Beverages Sold, Less Money Earned: Some Distributors Begin to Recalculate a 'Non-Mainstream Category'.” New Distribution, 2026-03-24. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/more-beverages-sold-less-money-earned-some-distributors-begin-to-recalcu-e620b1bf/"
usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt"
---

# More Beverages Sold, Less Money Earned: Some Distributors Begin to Recalculate a 'Non-Mainstream Category'

> A beverage distributor with ten years of experience described this year's business as 'selling more goods but earning less money.' As promotions pile up, profits thin out, prompting more distributors to reconsider their product mix. In this context, some are turning to non-mainstream categories like areca nut, with new-style products such as Bingqi gaining attention for their longer shelf life and higher margins.

"The more goods we sell, the less money we make."
A beverage distributor with ten years of experience used this sentence to describe this year's business.
Goods are moving, and terminals are selling, but with rounds of promotions, profits are getting thinner. For big brands, you have to compete on displays and activities; for small brands, you bear the risk of slow sales. When it comes to settling accounts, many distributors feel that profits are getting worse year by year.
In the past, people were more accustomed to choosing products within major categories—selecting a brand that could move volume and had momentum. But in the past two years, more and more distributors have started to change their thinking:
Should we change the way we calculate?
It is against this backdrop that some categories not originally in the mainstream product mix are being re-examined.
Among them is areca nut.
As beverages become increasingly competitive,
distributors begin to re-evaluate their product mix****
Distributors feel the changes in the beverage industry most directly over the past two years. There are many new products, fast pace, and increasingly fierce price competition. The terminals look lively, but the profits that actually fall into distributors' hands are shrinking. Especially for some leading products, they can be distributed and sold, but the profits are not necessarily ideal.
So now many distributors are doing one thing: re-evaluating their product mix.
They no longer just look at "whether the brand is big," but at more specific things: Does it take up warehouse space? Is turnover fast? Can profits be retained? If it doesn't sell, will it become dead stock? The product's characteristics and operational logic are increasingly valued, rather than the brand size itself.
It is in this process of recalculating that some categories that were not previously focused on are beginning to re-enter the spotlight.
Areca nut is one of them. It is not a new consumer concept, nor a sudden new trend, but a category that has always existed but has rarely been seriously calculated by FMCG distributors in the past.
## **New Changes in an Old Category:**
## **New-style Areca Nut Begins to Attract Attention******
The areca nut category has always existed. In some regional markets, it still has a stable consumption base, but in terms of product form and channel logic, changes have been taking place in recent years.
Traditional areca nut has always had two practical problems on the channel side: first, the terminal experience—the texture is hard, the stimulation is strong, and it is unfriendly to the mouth; second, more direct inventory pressure—the shelf life is usually about two months, giving terminals a very limited sales window. For distributors, if the rhythm of this category is misstepped, it is easy for the product to expire and become a loss.
Against this backdrop, some companies have started to innovate from the product form, and new-style areca nut has emerged. In this path, Bingqi is one of the earlier companies to enter.
According to public information, its areca nut product is in gum form. By restructuring the raw material composition and removing crude fiber, it offers a variety of flavors and, most importantly, extends the shelf life to about 18 months.
Beyond the product itself, there is another calculation that has made many distributors take this category seriously. A major distributor in Central China who has been in the beverage business for many years, surnamed Chang, once calculated: the profit from a truckload of beverages is roughly equal to the profit from two boxes of Bingqi. As channel profits in mature tracks like beverages continue to thin, he later added Bingqi to his product mix.
From a market structure perspective, the new-style areca nut track like Bingqi is still small in scale, but the concentration is already relatively high.
According to industry data cited by CIC and Bingqi publicly, the national market size for new-style areca nut in 2024 was in the hundreds of millions of yuan, with Bingqi accounting for over 90% of the market. This means that in a new track still in its early stages, Bingqi has already become one of the brands that cannot be ignored.
## **From Product to Channel,**
## **Bingqi is Rebuilding a Traditional Category**
## **in an FMCG Way******
If you only look at the word "areca nut," it is easy to understand it as a traditional tobacco and alcohol-like addictive product. But from Bingqi's overall approach to product, channel, and market, it seems more like an attempt to rebuild a traditional category using FMCG methods.
### **First, turn the product into a series that is easier to understand**
On the one hand, the Bingqi brand uses different series to cover consumers with different consumption intensities; on the other hand, it introduces a perception grading system like the "Bingli Index," so that products are not just simply differentiated by flavor, but are closer to the standardized, tiered expression common in FMCG.
In addition to the main product, Bingqi is also extending into related product lines such as oral care, hoping to pull the consumption scenario from a single one to a more complete lifestyle.
From traditional circulation to a more standardized terminal system
Bingqi's distribution is clearly no longer just at the level of scattered trial sales. According to the brand's public information, as of the end of 2025, it has cooperated with 1,000+ distributors, covering 500,000+ circulation terminals, and has entered chain convenience store systems such as Sinopec Easy Joy, Every Day, Shizu, and Youke.
With 30,000+ CVS points, this category is not only spreading in traditional circulation but also beginning to appear in more standardized systems like convenience stores, with channel touchpoints extending to chain terminals.
### **Let consumers perceive the difference first, then complete conversion**
Behind this change, there is actually a set of sales promotion ideas different from traditional areca nut. In the past, traditional areca nut relied more on terminal recommendations; Bingqi emphasizes letting consumers first "perceive" the product, then complete conversion. Tasting, display, scenario interaction, and offline experience are all part of this approach.
According to brand information, Bingqi has previously brought related activities into music festivals, local large-scale events, and terminal roadshows.
### **Link distribution, sales promotion, and store inspections into a complete set of actions**
If we look further at the channel support level, this "FMCG-ization" feature becomes more obvious. Bingqi has proposed a "six-in-one" support approach on the channel side, covering headquarters empowerment, team management, store distribution, point-of-sale materials, sales promotion enhancement, and activity promotion.
In other words, it is not simply distributing goods, but hoping to run a complete set of actions from store entry, display, tasting, activities, to store inspection management and data review.
Specifically, this support system includes both conventional terminal materials, tasting and gift promotions, activity planning, and more systematic store inspection management tools and team collaboration support. Including distribution incentives, terminal displays, store inspections, point redemption, and regional training, all are placed within a relatively complete operational framework.
This approach is actually very close to the channel strategies of mature FMCG brands like beverages.
Of course, for distributors, what really matters is whether subsequent sales promotion can be stable, whether consumer acceptance can be sustained, and whether regional markets are suitable. But at least from the approach, Bingqi is not following the traditional areca nut path of "pressuring sales—selling goods," but is trying to put a traditional category into a more standardized and modern channel operation framework.
## **Conclusion******
In the FMCG industry, new variables appear from time to time. Whether you can keenly capture this trend in its early stages requires the "sharp eyes" of distributor friends.
Of course, new-style areca nut is not yet a mature track, but it at least offers a different possibility—when the original category becomes increasingly competitive, can you leave some space in your product mix to look at other directions?
In late March, the National Sugar and Wine Commodity Fair is being held in Chengdu. Bingqi will appear at the Tibet Hotel exhibition area (March 20-25) and the Century City Convention and Exhibition Center (March 26-28, Hall 9, Booth S9C024T).
Distributors interested in this category can visit the site for more information.


---

## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: Amy
- Published: 2026-03-24
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/more-beverages-sold-less-money-earned-some-distributors-begin-to-recalcu-e620b1bf/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/29DtOJn6marq-C_AnpkJjg

## Copyright and AI use

This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL.

Contact: zhaobo258@gmail.com · +86 158 5481 7671