1. Collaborate with manufacturers to tackle supermarkets together

  1. Distributors should not fight alone in negotiations with supermarkets.
  2. Brands and products belong to the company; the products distributed by dealers are part of the company's overall brand. Manufacturers have their own overall plans for market channels. Only by following the manufacturer's brand promotion strategy can distributors achieve twice the results with half the effort.

2. Develop tailored policies for different supermarkets based on local conditions

  1. Facing fierce market competition, major supermarkets are also positioning themselves and developing their core competitiveness. For example, RT-Mart, Carrefour, and Walmart are large-scale supermarkets, while Shandong Uny Yinkang and Yikang are chain convenience stores. The share of high-, mid-, and low-end products varies across different supermarkets.
  2. Therefore, distributors should combine their own product portfolio and provide differentiated expense and promotion support to different supermarkets, doing market segmentation and channel selection well, which often yields unexpected results.

3. Deploy promotional staff to control promotion plans

  1. A complete promotion plan should include: promotion form, promotion time, and budget. To ensure the smooth implementation of the promotion plan and achieve the expected goals, it is necessary to include the cost of hiring temporary promoters in the budget. In supermarket terminal promotions, the main activity is giving gifts to consumers.
  2. During the promotion period, long-term or temporary promotional staff stationed in supermarkets can keep registration forms for gift distribution to prevent supermarkets from intercepting them. In addition, promotional staff can assist distributors in terminal publicity, setting up gift displays, and obtaining first-hand sales data in real time to evaluate promotion effectiveness. For temporary staff, if distributors frequently conduct promotions in supermarkets, they can retain a stable group of good performers for future needs.
  3. During the event, business personnel should regularly inspect supermarkets, maintain close contact, and control the promotion plan.

4. Use payment offsets to cover supermarket expenses and increase supermarket inventory

  1. Distributors typically settle payments with supermarkets on a monthly basis. This means accounts receivable are always outstanding, making cash flow a major problem for distributors. In negotiations with supermarkets, the key bargaining chip is whether payment can be received quickly. If goods are not on shelves, not yet bestsellers, and payment is still held by the supermarket, the supermarket always has the advantage and will delay or deduct payments using various fees. Conversely, the distributor holds the advantage.
  2. In business, some distributors have realized that accelerating capital turnover is equivalent to earning profits. For example, a distributor with 100,000 yuan in capital can turn it over 5 times a month, effectively doing 500,000 yuan in business; if it only turns over once, it's only 100,000 yuan in business.
  3. Finding a balance between business scale and profit is essential for healthy company development. In fact, both distributors and supermarkets are considering how to improve cash flow turnover in their financial accounts. In this cash flow game, distributors can use payment offsets to cover fees owed to supermarkets, thereby increasing supermarket inventory. This significantly reduces cash outlay, effectively increasing cash reserves for other business operations and ensuring normal operating cash flow. Additionally, in fee support negotiations, distributors can cleverly require supermarkets to shorten payment cycles, putting themselves in an invincible position.
  4. Increasing inventory in large supermarkets through various means also increases their sales pressure, prompting them to promote the product, creating a virtuous cycle.

5. Evaluate the process, not just results

  1. Regional sales staff and senior decision-makers often evaluate salespeople only by results, such as shipment and payment collection data, ignoring how the process was executed. This gives salespeople opportunities to exploit loopholes, collude with supermarkets, and engage in corruption. Financial and audit personnel should conduct follow-up visits, focus on process control, ensure revenue growth and cost reduction, and eliminate waste.

6. Establish strategic corporate partnerships with supermarkets

  1. Truly mature corporate cooperation is built on company-to-company relationships. Extensive reliance on one or two sales heroes is not sustainable or deep.
  2. Nowadays, many supermarkets frequently rotate key personnel to prevent procurement corruption, making it impossible for regional sales staff and distributors to maintain long-term good cooperation through personal connections. Therefore, regional sales staff and distributors should take a long-term view, focus on building strategic corporate relationships with supermarkets, and avoid over-reliance on individuals, which can lead to inefficiency.

This article is reposted from the official account: Yuanjing Consulting.

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