---
title: "Several Overlooked Details That Can Significantly Boost Sales"
description: "When it comes to boosting sales, many people immediately think of advertising, consumer promotions, trade promotions, pushing inventory to distributors, or paying for display space. However, there are many other effective methods that are often overlooked, such as strengthening category management, solving out-of-stock issues, transforming cooperation models, adjusting displays without a budget, and improving the promotional atmosphere. This article explores these details and provides practical advice on how to implement them to significantly increase sales."
author: "李政权"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2015-01-20"
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# Several Overlooked Details That Can Significantly Boost Sales

> When it comes to boosting sales, many people immediately think of advertising, consumer promotions, trade promotions, pushing inventory to distributors, or paying for display space. However, there are many other effective methods that are often overlooked, such as strengthening category management, solving out-of-stock issues, transforming cooperation models, adjusting displays without a budget, and improving the promotional atmosphere. This article explores these details and provides practical advice on how to implement them to significantly increase sales.

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When it comes to boosting sales, many people's first reaction is: advertising, consumer promotions, trade promotions, pushing inventory to channel partners, paying for display space... It is reasonable to believe that among these "many people" are frontline sales staff, regional supervisors, and sales managers. Because of sales pressure, they repeatedly report upward, and even higher-level marketing directors and business owners become part of the "many."

Speaking of this, I recall a conversation with a person from a certain company not long ago. A asked me: "We've hit a bottleneck in sales recently; do you have any good ways to improve?" B added: "Every time we have a sales meeting about sales volume, from salespeople to sales managers, they all say, 'We are a new product, no brand awareness, little advertising and promotion, and no display budget.' It seems all problems are the company's responsibility—in reality, this is just a poor excuse for irresponsible and incapable salespeople to shirk responsibility and deceive their superiors."

In fact, besides the sales-boosting methods mentioned above, there are many other ways to increase sales. If we go into detail, it's not difficult to come up with dozens or even hundreds of methods. What we will discuss below are some easily overlooked but very effective details for boosting sales.

**Strengthen Category Management to Boost Sales**

In Watsons, which has nearly 400 stores nationwide, the beverage area is often placed in a less conspicuous position at the back. Why? Because this category's gross margin and expense contribution lag behind in the entire Watsons system. In hypermarkets like Walmart and Carrefour, judging a brand's sales performance by the quality of its display position and the size of its facings is not only common sense, but also, any company that has dealt with them knows that if sales rank in the bottom positions for three consecutive months, they face "last-place elimination" and are cleared out.

These are basic common sense in category management implemented by retailers to manage various categories, companies, and brands, and to use limited resources like shelves rationally, reduce waste, and maximize output. But what about us?

Unfortunately, most companies and people among us are indifferent to category management. Take one of our partner companies as an example: during a meeting, we asked the 20-30 salespeople present: "Which single product sells best? Which is second? Which is third?" They answered correctly, but when asked about the sales proportion of each product, only one or two could answer with numbers. If asked how to handle best-sellers, second-best-sellers, etc., in sales behavior, everyone was at a loss.

So, when we inspect the market, we naturally find: regardless of the sales performance of individual products, the display space for each product is the same size; best-sellers are hidden behind non-best-sellers and no one cares; best-sellers are placed at the lowest display positions while non-best-sellers are in prime positions, and no one cares; when opening new stores, we still distribute products evenly among A, B, C, D products; when customers reorder, we don't provide more reasonable purchase mix suggestions based on each product's sales.

How do these problems affect sales? Let's set up a few scenarios to see the consequences.

Suppose we have three products: A is the best-seller, accounting for 50% of sales; B is second, 30%; C is the worst, 20%. But in a vertically displayed store, A is placed at a height of 30-50 cm or 170-190 cm from the ground. According to experience, these positions typically account for only about 25% of the total shelf output, while the 50-170 cm zone can contribute about 60% of sales. Comparing these two numbers, theoretically, there is a 35% sales gap. Even considering that best-sellers have strong market acceptance and non-best-sellers might improve slightly due to better display positions, at least 20% of sales could be lost because category management is not applied to displays. But if we improve the display of best-sellers, wouldn't sales go up?

Maximizing the sales of individual products and best-sellers is an effective rule for achieving overall sales. We also need to remind ourselves: we should learn category management from advanced retailers. This not only maximizes best-seller sales but also helps improve the efficiency of capital and inventory turnover for ourselves and our channel partners, and enhances the scientific use of resources. So what should we do?

Although actual category management is much more complex than described above, even if we just do the following, we can significantly boost sales.

1. Compare and analyze sales data of each product, and be clear about their respective sales proportions.
2. The dominant product with the highest sales should occupy the best display position and the largest display space, with more resources and attention.
3. Based on the speed and volume of product sales, proactively provide channel partners with purchase mix suggestions and display experience, and better arrange our own production and inventory replenishment plans.
4. According to the above rules, take the initiative to improve and maintain displays.
5. For new categories, products, promotional items, and other products that play different roles in the overall product structure or are at different life cycle stages, formulate corresponding measures in terms of resources, attention, and sales policies.

**Solve Out-of-Stock Issues to Boost Sales**

Marketing is a field where problems are more easily discovered and truths are more clearly seen only in the market. Therefore, for years, I have had the habit of regularly and irregularly visiting the market and retail outlets—whether for our own products or those of our consulting clients. In fact, every market inspection yields some findings, such as out-of-stock situations at some points of sale.

During a recent market inspection, I found problems related to out-of-stock. First, a dairy client of ours had an out-of-stock at a large hypermarket—to be precise, the 1L family pack was out of stock, and the display space was empty. I immediately found the salesperson in charge of that category, and she said, "It's been empty for about three days. I don't know if your promotion staff or sales reps have applied for an order?" The 1L family pack had monthly sales of nearly 40,000 yuan at that store. On a daily average, this out-of-stock lost 1/10 of the monthly sales. If this happens once a month, that's nearly 50,000 yuan a year—enough to cover the store's slotting fees, promotion fees, anniversary fees, and the brand service fee of over 20,000 yuan. But if it happens two or three times a month, wouldn't 20-30% more sales and profits simply evaporate?

Second, at multiple stores of a chain pharmacy, a functional food client of ours also had out-of-stocks—according to the store staff, the best-selling product had been out of stock for about five days. Upon further investigation, it turned out that the chain pharmacy's management method for stores is: each store submits a plan for how much of each variety, brand, and product they need each month. If they order too little and fail to meet the monthly task, the store is responsible; if they order too much and can't sell, the store is also held accountable. So, out of caution, stores generally submit conservative plans. Is there no solution to this out-of-stock problem? Afterward, I gave the sales supervisor three suggestions: First, offer promotional commitments to stores with good sales and frequent out-of-stocks to encourage them to increase order quantities; second, coordinate with the pharmacy headquarters' relevant departments to increase delivery if there is inventory, or place orders if there is no inventory; third, the company lends products to out-of-stock stores, and the stores order more next month to return the borrowed products. These suggestions proved feasible and effectively solved the client's out-of-stock problem.

If not solved, how much sales would the company lose? The chain pharmacy delivers to stores twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays. Even under normal circumstances, if a store runs out on Monday, delivery starts Tuesday, with a 50% delivery rate, so the other 50% of stores with out-of-stocks would have to wait until Friday, resulting in more than three days of out-of-stock. If delivery isn't completed by Friday, some places might not resolve the out-of-stock until a week later. Estimating roughly, about 20% of sales could be lost.

In fact, according to our experience, solving out-of-stock issues typically prevents a company from losing 20% of sales. If you completed 80 million yuan in sales last year, you can remind yourself: "I could have completed 96 million yuan, but 20% of 80 million, i.e., 16 million, was 'cut off' by out-of-stocks."

From the above, we can also see that the causes of out-of-stocks are diverse. How can we solve out-of-stock issues?

1. Do a good job of sales forecasting, especially for key sales periods like holidays when sales are brisk. Treat it as a homework assignment to keep channel partners' inventory at a more scientific level.
2. Classify and grade various types of terminals more carefully. Among traditional A, B, C, D stores, identify key terminals based on their sales and gross margin contributions, and provide key tracking and service to these key terminals. Reducing out-of-stocks at terminals with high sales and profit contributions means less sales loss and effective sales increase.
3. Establish and improve terminal maintenance and supporting assessment policies to ensure salespeople can detect out-of-stocks in the first place, so they can be resolved promptly.
4. Understand the delivery processes of various types of hypermarkets and chain stores, and develop targeted measures to prevent out-of-stocks and address them when they occur.
5. When production is limited or logistics is blocked by objective conditions (e.g., traffic problems due to snow, floods, etc.), promptly allocate goods from the company or neighboring regions to ensure that key sales areas, major customers, and various types of key accounts do not experience out-of-stocks.

**Transform Cooperation Models to Boost Sales**

We have a client that makes condoms. Initially, when cooperating with a chain pharmacy with over 200 stores, they negotiated a common cooperation model with 20% discount supply and entry fees. After nearly five months, sales were only a little over 50,000 yuan. Not to mention profitability, even just the sales side—the wages of sales reps and promoters and activity costs—was a huge loss. However, in the next one or two months, the company's sales changed dramatically and quickly reversed the decline—monthly sales at this chain pharmacy alone exceeded 70,000 yuan. What did they do?

It was related to changing the business cooperation model: they applied to change from the common cooperation model to a high-margin cooperation model, negotiating a more ideal 40% discount supply with the pharmacy, which gave them good display positions and larger display space, and promoted the product internally.

Many friends who have dealt with the OTC channel know that high-margin products and products under the common cooperation model have different markings and treatments in pharmacies. Because the former contributes higher profit levels, they receive stronger resource support. Pharmacies require store staff to actively recommend these products to customers and have certain sales assessment indicators. This obviously greatly boosts sales.

However, reaching a high-margin cooperation model with a pharmacy does not mean you can rest easy from then on. Because any chain pharmacy has its own high-margin product community, with numerous high-margin brands and products. How can you encourage salespeople not only to actively recommend your product among multiple condom brands but also to favor you over competitors that also have high-margin cooperation models? The company and the chain pharmacy jointly launched "Outstanding Team Award," "Outstanding Store Manager Award," and "Outstanding Salesperson Award" across more than 200 stores. By sponsoring items that people need and are interested in (such as microwaves, shopping vouchers, laundry detergent, etc., and sometimes cash bonuses), supplemented by training, social activities, etc., they increased everyone's recognition and attention to their product, allowing it to enter the minds of store staff before entering consumers' minds.

These measures significantly boosted sales in this pharmacy system. Previously, when this client wanted to conduct in-store promotions, they faced two other options: First, hire full-time or temporary promoters to enter the store. However, the wages of promoters and promotion management fees are obviously a significant expense, and because the number of promoters and their coverage is limited, the effect on overall sales across more than 200 stores is very limited. Second, "cash-for-sales," privately giving store staff commissions and reward promises, i.e., giving them a certain percentage of benefits based on sales volume. But this model has long been widely resisted by channel partners. If discovered, the supplier would face the dilemma of "losing the bait to catch a fish."

In fact, the above are not uncommon models. For example, we can get support like end-cap displays at Walmart by promising sales volume; we can obtain good displays through powerful distributors of agency brands that contract a category's shelves in some supermarkets; we can exclude competitors in the foodservice channel by buying out or exclusive contracts. These changes in cooperation models usually help us shift from a difficult situation to a favorable one, and sales will naturally improve.

However, success comes at a price. Take the high-margin cooperation model mentioned earlier: it is not suitable for every company or something everyone can do. For example, if your profit margin is too small to meet the terminal's gross margin requirements, or if your product differentiation is not obvious and lacks competitiveness in price, packaging, concept, etc., it will be hard to catch the purchasing manager's eye, and you won't be able to do high-margin. If your brand has a high reputation and is an advertised product with some promotional support, you are not suitable for high-margin—why easily give away the high sales and high profits you could achieve under the common cooperation model to channel partners?

Speaking of this, it naturally leads to another topic: when transforming cooperation models, we need to assess the benefits and risks of the new and old models. If the new cooperation model passes this test, then it's not too late to transform.

**Adjust Displays Without a Budget to Boost Sales**

Channels are the foundation, displays are fertilizing, weeding, pest control, and care, and sales are the fruit—I believe everyone understands this sentence easily. But it's easier said than done. For example, displays are very realistic.

"The company has no display budget; how can we do displays?" This question is frequently raised, whether for our own company, for clients, or during training. What is the actual situation? Many executives, especially those who prefer to stay in air-conditioned offices and talk big, hardly know the truth about displays.

Good displays require a price, and it has become an indisputable fact that this extends from large hypermarkets and chain supermarkets to C and D class supermarkets, convenience stores, grocery stores, newsstands, etc. So, when we go to a grocery store, the owner tells us: "The display position we want is bought by a certain brand for 300 yuan in display fees." At a newsstand, the owner similarly says: "A certain display position was sold for 200 yuan." If we're lucky enough to catch a brand's display fee expiring, we're told: "Bring money, and your product can be placed in that display position."

Similar problems plague almost all brands and companies, even if you're as glorious as Jianlibao—companies of that caliber face the same problems when doing hard distribution at terminals. But without a display budget or with a small budget, can we really not improve our display quality? Can we really not boost sales by improving display positions?

The answer is definitely no. Now, let's explore ways to improve.

1. Ensure your salespeople have the necessary display knowledge.

We have already mentioned the importance of displays to sales. But do our salespeople understand this importance? If they do, do they have the necessary display knowledge? In reality, salespeople know that the cashier counter, middle aisles, shelf ends, corners, and eye-level positions are all good sales positions. However, point-of-sale space is limited, and display resources are limited. What we often face is that the positions mentioned above are occupied by big brands or brands with high sales and ample budgets. We need salespeople to know other good positions. Knowing these is not enough; we also need to know how to obtain these positions, especially when our brand is weak, our budget is small, or even nonexistent. How can we fight for these positions?

Obviously, to enable our salespeople to master this knowledge and these skills, training, exams, display competitions, and experience sharing are often indispensable.

2. Make salespeople sensitive to display issues and strengthen their initiative.

Once we have accompanied two or more salespeople on customer visits or inspected two different regional markets, it's not hard to find: even among salespeople, A will immediately notice if his product is blocked behind a competitor's or pressed underneath—even a slight unfavorable move in display position—and will seek to fix it; while B will turn a blind eye because the clock in his head about displays has never been wound. If this clock has stopped or is slow, how can we talk about sensitivity to display issues?

How can we improve this? Market supervisors' spot checks, sales managers' accompanied visits and hands-on teaching, including display quality in assessment items, and rewards and penalties related to displays are all daily tasks we need to do. At the front end, we might even need to design specific test items in recruitment to assess execution ability and sensitivity to such issues.

3. Improve salespeople's level of skill in doing displays, and their awareness and ability to improve displays.

To do displays well and win better sales opportunities, enhance the brand, build good relationships, use products or promotional items to compensate for the lack of a display budget, and grasp the timing of purchasing the display positions you have your eye on—these are all ways that can be used and produce some results. But knowing the ropes in the market is one thing; how to walk these paths to achieve the goal is another. For example, just talking about how to improve displays through good customer relationships is a whole basket of topics.

These all require us to continuously help salespeople improve their skill levels through goal and process management, tracking and control of key links, assessment, rewards and penalties, etc., so they can respond flexibly and effectively. Moreover, it's hard to do without the collaborative support of sales managers for their subordinates. Take Mengniu, a leading brand in the Chinese dairy market, as an example: they have a system where regional supervisors must spend a certain number of days each month visiting the market together with frontline salespeople to enhance salespeople's problem-finding and management abilities, as well as practical skills in customer relationships and displays.

Speaking of this, I recall an experience accompanying a beverage client's salesperson on a customer visit: we visited six points of sale, and each one had display improvements that could be made without any cost. At one place, our product was not in the refrigerator display, but the customer's refrigerator had some unsaturation gaps. After joking with the shopkeeper, we discussed whether we could put a few bottles in the refrigerator, and while talking, we carried a few bottles toward the refrigerator. "No space, can't fit," the shopkeeper said with a troubled expression but a slight smile and not much objection. We brazenly opened the refrigerator door, and our product gained more display and sales space. At another place, the product was on the shelf and in the refrigerator, but the display in the refrigerator was sparse and visually unappealing. When we proactively helped the customer organize the refrigerator, the fullness of our product's display emerged... This is displays. Don't be fooled by salespeople who mention display fees and other conditions whenever displays are discussed.

4. Use favorable opportunities to emphasize the task of improving displays.

Everyone knows that there is considerable waste in advertising and promotional expenses, but few realize that waste is not only in the effectiveness of advertising and promotion itself; failing to use and seize advertising and promotional opportunities to do things beyond advertising and promotion is also waste. Assigning tasks to salespeople to use these opportunities to fight for good displays from merchants is such a thing.

Consider this: Why doesn't our product get good displays? Because merchants don't value it; our brand is weak; sales are not guaranteed, and the input-output ratio of shelf resources is relatively low; inventory accumulates, capital turnover is slow; we're reluctant to spend on display fees; customer relationships are not in place... We can find many reasons to explain why merchants would rather promote a product with a one-cent gross margin than our product with a one-yuan gross margin.

But no merchant doesn't want the products on their shelves to sell well, so almost every merchant, when we ask them to promote more and fight for displays, will hope or directly ask us to provide promoters or advertising. Obviously, advertising and promotional opportunities can play a role in improving unfavorable displays. How big is this role? According to our experience, as long as we instill the above concepts into every salesperson's mind and ensure they have some execution ability, the probability of improving display quality at points of sale is no less than 15%. That is, out of 100 points of sale, at least 15 can have improved display quality. But during advertising and promotion, do we ask our salespeople to do this? Do our salespeople have such awareness?

5. Improve cooperation models to enhance displays, with certain company support.

In fact, we have already discussed a lot of this content earlier, such as doing high-margin products, buying out venues, entering through large commercial companies, and replacing direct display fees with purchase incentives like "buy three get one free," so I won't go into detail here.

However, Li Zhengquan's "Foresight" believes we still need to remind ourselves: although many salespeople's words are mixed with truth and falsehood, and we need to discern and verify, it is unrealistic to expect salespeople to solve all market problems; it is also unrealistic to treat our sales managers and salespeople as invincible "clever women who can cook without rice." Otherwise, why set cooperation models, need advertising and promotion, and why would salespeople follow you?

**Improve Promotional Atmosphere to Boost Sales**

In daily marketing activities, buy-one-get-one-free, special prices, lotteries, points rebates, promoters, etc., are commonly used promotional methods. However, many companies often affect promotional effectiveness and sales growth due to two problems: First, when there is promotion, advertising is lost; an originally attractive activity becomes a small-scale quiet affair, with unsystematic marketing methods and limited awareness, greatly reducing effectiveness. Second, at promotional points, the creation of a promotional atmosphere is neglected, greatly reducing sales results—similar to a promotional point that could sell 10,000 yuan a day but only sells 1,000 yuan.

Speaking of this, I recall two little stories related to myself.

Several years ago, when I was still studying and knew little about marketing, during a winter vacation, I helped an aunt who ran a shoe store for half a day. Before going out, she told me to do a storewide 30% discount special and hoped I could help put up promotional posters. I thought, "This is a small matter," and readily agreed. After she left, I found a large red paper and wrote "30% off storewide" with a brush, then pasted it at the entrance and was done.

What was the effect? There was! Throughout the morning, a steady stream of customers came in for the special price and bought shoes. But when my aunt returned at noon, she was very dissatisfied and told me: "If you're going to do a storewide promotion, you need to make it lively and create momentum and atmosphere, so more people will buy." She asked me to write seven or eight more promotional posters and paste them on all four walls. After this adjustment, the promotional atmosphere in the store immediately changed, becoming extremely lively, with frequent "full house" scenes, and sales were two to three times better than in the morning. Since then, from the beginning of my sales career to now, I have developed the habit of paying attention to creating a promotional atmosphere at promotional points.

But many companies today have not yet formed such awareness. Not long ago, I accompanied the general manager of Company A on a terminal visit and found such a situation. Company A, which makes functional foods, was doing a "buy three get one free" promotion at a chain system, but the promotional effect was very unsatisfactory—after three days of promotion, daily sales were almost the same as usual. Where was the problem?

That day, at the entrance of a point of sale, we saw that the promotional table of Company A was empty, and the promoter was playing with her phone out of boredom. There was no notice poster with promotional information, no X-stand, no stacking of outer packaging boxes. There were only: three products, each with one box on the promotional table, unpackaged tasting samples, and the promoter's shout of "Free tasting, buy three get one free" when she saw us. Outside the store was like this; what about inside? On the shelf where Company A's products were displayed, there were also no eye-catching promotional notices or activity labels, only four small new characters "buy three get one free" on the price tag.

Let's imagine: when passing by such a promotional point or visiting such a store, if there is no infectious atmosphere on site, how enthusiastic would you be to join in? Or even, how likely would you be to notice what kind of company or brand is promoting there? If you hadn't happened to hear the promoter's shout, would you know it was a "buy three get one free" promotion?

As such, it's no wonder that Company A's promotional effect was poor—the three-day promotional increment was only a dozen boxes, equivalent to less than 60 yuan, about the same as a promoter's daily wage. Later, of course, Company A improved its promotional atmosphere, and what was the change in promotional effect at that point? The one-day promotional increment was three to four times more than the previous three days.

Marketing is no small matter! Even a partial change in a certain link is enough to benefit us. Promotion is clearly such a link, and creating a promotional atmosphere is clearly an overlooked part. To achieve good results in promotion, we need to pay attention to these issues. Another issue is how we should pay attention to and solve these problems.

1. Once you have product packaging in various sizes, promotional materials, POP materials, promotional gifts, and promoter uniforms, make full use of them and let them play their role.
2. Not only should displays be standardized and vivid, but also on-site promotions at points of sale, communities, office buildings, etc. To achieve this, standardizing and normalizing the creation of promotional atmosphere, and promoting and implementing it in the sales and promotion teams, is clearly indispensable.
3. Establish a responsibility mechanism among sales and promotion supervisors.
4. Follow up with corresponding inspections and assessments.

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

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