---
title: "Sales Manager Discussion: How to Handle Low Repeat Purchase Rate After Product Launch?"
description: "New products often face low repeat purchase rates after launch, which may not mean consumers reject them but that they haven't been reached. This article discusses strategies such as effective communication, adjusting price systems, strengthening distribution, countering competitor attacks, and organizing themed activities to improve product turnover."
author: "谭长春"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2015-01-27"
language: "en"
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# Sales Manager Discussion: How to Handle Low Repeat Purchase Rate After Product Launch?

> New products often face low repeat purchase rates after launch, which may not mean consumers reject them but that they haven't been reached. This article discusses strategies such as effective communication, adjusting price systems, strengthening distribution, countering competitor attacks, and organizing themed activities to improve product turnover.

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Although new products involve significant investment and high expectations from the company, they may not be immediately accepted by consumers after launch—a common issue for many companies. However, no company wants its new product to fail or die prematurely. We all know that after a new product launch, we must not only look at distribution coverage but also the secondary repeat purchase rate, which is crucial as it reflects the true acceptance by channel distributors and consumers. But what should we do if, despite all efforts, the repeat purchase rate remains low?

In fact, a low repeat purchase rate may not mean consumers don't recognize or will never accept the product; it could be that consumers haven't even come into contact with it! Excluding the possibility of a "defective product," if the product itself has no issues, we should look inward to find the root cause and treat it accordingly.

**1. Effective Communication to Ensure Consumers See and Feel the Product or Its Image**

Besides advertising through media by the marketing department, the sales department's own work includes many activities that also serve to communicate and attract consumers. For example, conducting merchandising services at consumer consumption points, encouraging distributors and terminal store owners to actively recommend the product, or even another round of distribution and targeted terminal store development and maintenance can effectively let consumers come into contact with and learn about the product.

"Merchandising" has been continuously used by large international companies, but it's only in recent years that domestic companies have adopted it. Why? Domestic companies used to rely solely on TV and other media for communication, hoping a single ad would make the product known nationwide, but they fundamentally ignored the power of orderly, clean, eye-catching, and extensive product displays and terminal displays to communicate and persuade on their own. The terminal interception of Slek Shampoo is an outstanding example: making consumers feel Slek's presence before, during, and after entering the store, thereby seizing market share from international brands and creating a miracle of a domestic shampoo brand defeating international brands.

Using distributors and terminal store owners for communication is a clever marketing strategy of "borrowing a boat to cross the sea." When Coca-Cola launched Ice Dew water, they satisfied distributor interests, prompting distributors and terminal store owners to actively promote the product to consumers, even hiding or not refrigerating some famous purified water brands to minimize competition.

Of course, if the first distribution round has no effect, setting up merchandising materials is also an option. Ting Hsin, which operates Master Kong products, once paused distribution when new product repeat rates were low, but strictly posted merchandising materials like posters, stickers, and banners at every terminal store, letting consumers see these product-related items and then seek out the product. This is also a method worth trying.

In the beer industry, when repeat purchase rates are low, many companies adopt a "harsh" blockade: if their own product's repeat rate is low, they first eliminate competitors from the same consumption venue (the so-called "lock stores," forcing competitors' products to exit), so the store owner has no choice but to sell their product! Why do this? When there's no other way to guide consumers, they target competitors, leaving consumers with no alternative, believing that will surely bring up the repeat purchase rate!

**2. The Price System May Be Problematic; Adjust to Provide Reasonable Profit Margins at Each Level**

Often, if the profit margins for terminal stores or distributors are not designed reasonably, they won't be willing to sell or actively promote. When product differentiation is low, distributors and terminal owners only look at profit and turnover speed. If the new product's profit is lower than competitors', and since it's new, turnover speed will also be hard to match, the company must promptly identify this and use promotional policies to adjust accordingly.

Several purified water companies launched new products in the same year. In a famous park in Beijing, during peak tourist season, there was huge consumption of purified water, with nearly 60-70 sales points (even mobile vending carts sold large volumes). So, the seasonal sales of purified water were very substantial. Every company distributed their products there, but initially, only one product had a high repeat rate; others never saw a second purchase after distribution.

Why? Because this company, the most famous purified water brand, designed very reasonable and even generous profit margins for distributors and terminals, yet still sold at the highest price!

This is not to encourage companies to compete in spending, but to focus on a reasonable price system. Many companies' price systems have issues, such as distribution policies being intercepted by distributors, leaving terminal stores unmotivated; or if terminal store investment is high but distributor profits are too low, they may turn against the company. At this point, salespeople should report market information to leadership, making them realize such issues cannot be solved by salespeople alone, and adjustments should be made promptly for the new product's healthy growth.

**3. If Distributors and Terminal Stores Are Not Actively Promoting, Strengthen Distribution Efforts**

In many companies' minds, distribution means the product's first run off the production line, or delivering to distributors who must buy a certain quantity (e.g., 100 boxes or a truckload), or squeezing in some time during routine sales visits to pitch to terminal stores, then leaving it to distributors or natural sales. This is the biggest misconception about distribution!

Distribution is not just about getting the product into distributors' warehouses but also into consumers' sight or minds. So, if distribution hasn't reached consumers, it may be ineffective or incomplete, and should be strengthened. Having distributors deliver products one by one to terminal stores, having terminals display products for consumers to understand, and having the sales team follow up and replenish after the first round are all key tasks after the initial distribution. Never neglect the new product, letting it fend for itself in the market!

At this time, it's also important to communicate with distributors, helping them understand the benefits the new product can bring and the impact of poor performance, encouraging them to strengthen product promotion from within.

**4. Be Prepared to Counter Competitor Attacks**

Competitors cannot sit idly by when a new product launches; they are likely anxious and want to suppress the new product, hoping it never recovers. Frontline employees fear competition more than anything. The same applies to new product launches.

If competitors counterattack with strategies to suppress the new product, we must take them seriously strategically and respond flexibly tactically, avoiding hasty reactions. This requires analysis; don't easily counterattack based solely on their market hype without studying their actual motives and actions. Understand the competitor's suppression capability, effectiveness, and possible duration (since a policy won't be withdrawn immediately). Usually, when formulating policies, we should anticipate competitors' possible measures and prepare accordingly. For example, competitors might use higher investment, larger sales policies, expand promotion scope, or increase promotion intensity, but sometimes it's just thunder without rain, and being late, they may not have an advantage. So, recognizing their response capability is crucial. If the competitor's promotion is indeed strong and fierce, we must do everything to disrupt and nip it in the bud.

Competitors may also use propaganda to spread negative information about the new product, such as poor quality, low grade, shoddy materials, inferior raw materials, no selling points, etc., not only through salespeople's word of mouth but also covertly through media, even fabricating so-called insider news to tarnish the product's image. In this regard, besides strengthening positive publicity, the company should counter-suppress at the terminal, letting facts and the product speak for themselves, and encouraging word-of-mouth after consumption, thereby building a wall in front of consumers to shield them from negative influences. This can also increase the repeat purchase rate.

**5. Use Themed Activities to Rescue**

Often, a low repeat rate means consumers' awareness of the new product hasn't reached a critical point. At this time, a themed brand activity is best to rescue.

Themed activities mean the company finds a promotional point and revolves all efforts—consumer, channel distributor, advertising media, and promotional items—around this point to promote, publicize, and sell, making the product suddenly hot, creating a spectacular scene of a new product with a grand promotion, surrounding consumers so they try or fully accept the product.

Some large foreign companies often use themed activities to promote new products, such as roadshows combined with supermarket displays, terminal store merchandising promotions, distributor travel incentives, sponsoring large sports events, unifying themes, printing unified posters, and conducting promotions and publicity across multiple channels and venues.

When these activities are executed well, the effects are incomparable and leave lasting impressions on consumers. Thus, the problem of low repeat purchase rates is easily solved!

Low repeat purchase rates for new products require high coordination between the sales and marketing departments. Like parents of a child, both must be responsible for the product's healthy growth. So, more communication, more cooperation, thorough preparation, and no slackening later are important principles for solving low repeat purchase rates.

Daonong recently opened a public account specifically about how traditional enterprises can do WeChat marketing. If you're interested, you can follow it. Search for the WeChat ID above or scan the QR code below to follow.

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