****What Value Do Core Terminals Hold?

1. I'll start with a viewpoint: Startup brands, constrained by limited resources, should shift their competitiveness-building from "outlet development" to "enhancing outlet competitiveness," and from "winning at the terminal" to "winning among core terminals." Simply put, with low sales, low profits, and limited budgets, survival requires focusing resources on select outlets, building core terminals, and collaborating symbiotically to gradually influence a wider area. 2. Startup brands need to leverage the brand power of retailers. For example, the luosifen brand "Choubao" I previously worked with used the endorsement of Sam's Club (the only luosifen brand sold in that system) as a core terminal to enhance its brand value and intimacy with target consumers. 3. Avoid falling into the price war trap. For example, consumer behavior has subtly shifted: "where to eat" is increasingly more important than "what to eat," and "where to buy" is increasingly more important than "what to buy." In other words, the same bottle of Coca-Cola selling for 5 yuan at a high-end restaurant, 3 yuan at a regular restaurant, 4 yuan at a chain convenience store, and 3 yuan at a grocery store is all acceptable to consumers. 4. Building brand power is too expensive for startups. Due to the explosive growth of "information noise," the cost of brand building is multiplying, with the "cost per thousand reach" increasing by over 20% annually. Money spent may not yield results, and most companies dare not take the risk. What to do? The answer seems to be only one: ally with terminals, build core terminals, and collaborate symbiotically!

02

****Core Terminals

**Step One in Building: Terminal Layout

Not every terminal can be developed into a core terminal; otherwise, it's just a pepper-dash tactic. Focus limited resources on outlets that are valuable to the brand.

1. Five Elements for Confirming Core Terminals: a. Consumer Profile Match: The match between the terminal's customer flow and the product's target consumers; b. Experience Pursuit Match: The experience the terminal offers (friendly? fast? affordable? upscale?) aligns with the brand's pursuit; c. Service Capability Match: The terminal's service capability effectively conveys the brand's product values (price system, shelf-life feedback, display support, etc.); d. Extension Space Match: Strong acceptance of new products, high brand recognition, high sales proportion, high cooperation, etc.; e. Other Elements: High foot traffic, high industry status, concentrated target audience, conditions for in-depth communication, etc.

2. Tiering Core Terminals: How to define core stores? Key stores? General stores? Building core stores isn't about equal distribution. Which are brand windows? Which ensure sales? Which serve as experience venues? All need clear tiering, with measurement dimensions based on the brand's needs.

3. Essential SKUs in Core Terminals: Different core terminals should be matched with different product SKUs. Analyze based on product grade, price positioning, terminal scale influence and sales potential, terminal location, cross-channel interaction influence, product marketing influence, etc., to determine which products suit which terminals. This requires setting different product combination promotion policies, quarterly sales rebate policies, and monthly display policies. The core is to stimulate the sales desire of terminal outlets.

4. Building a Core Terminal Team: A commando team before market rollout ensures smooth establishment of core terminals; a maintenance team after rollout ensures smooth operation. Avoid the situation of "picking corn in front and dropping it behind."

03 **Core Terminals **Step Two in Building: Brand Building The core of brand building is leveraging the core terminal's own brand power to empower the product—a two-way process.

1. Product Visualization and Sales Scene Standards: Startups must invest heavily here. First, visualization and sales scenes should not only reflect the brand's perspective but also incorporate core terminal elements. Second, build both inside and outside the store, like Yanghe Blue Classic: storefront signage outside, and shelf display in the prime position inside. Finally, note that visualization aims to attract consumers, while sales scenes aim to drive purchases—their underlying logic and functions differ.

2. Brand Theme Promotion Planning: Marketing hype and creating festivals are common. Startups should do this well by combining with events for brand-themed promotions, such as leveraging core terminal activities: What to sell during hotpot festival? What to sell during Qixi? Promotions need a basis to better connect with consumers.

3. Consumer Experience Activity Planning: Promoters stationed for tasting experiences plus promotions, with proper time planning, to drive sales, educate consumers, and enhance core terminal relationships.

4. Consumer Promotion Planning: Driving product sell-through is the top priority for core terminals. If these stores don't sell well, how will consumers perceive the product? Therefore, activities like bundle gifts, buy-3-get-1, which boost new customer acquisition, repurchase, and average order value, should be held regularly.

04 ****Core Terminals Step Three in Building: Market Management Nothing can be accomplished without rules; core terminals require strong market management.

1. Price System Management: Price is the lifeline of a product. Always monitor two prices: terminal purchase price and terminal retail price. Terminal purchase price prevents sales staff from pursuing personal gain through malicious dumping; terminal retail price unifies market price order and ensures healthy product development.

2. Product Flow Management: Core terminals have relatively ample budgets, but there's a risk they might dump new or high-priced products using their strong policies if they worry about slow sell-through, which would be counterproductive.

3. Activity Execution Supervision: Establish an internal audit team to verify expense outlets. Startups must especially emphasize this: the more investment, the more supervision needed. Once authenticity is lost, it's disastrous for both the team and the market.

4. Sales Team Execution Management: Process execution often matters more than results. Core terminal building is a systematic project; every step must be solid. For example, hold morning meetings to report daily progress, monthly meetings to review recent results and issues, and conduct on-site tests and drills on company policies. Especially avoid collusion between the sales team and terminals to defraud expenses.

05 ****Core Terminals **Step Four in Building: Relationship Maintenance Relationship maintenance for core terminals is far more valuable than for ordinary terminals. It's a deep bond between brand and retailer. The brand relies not only on product sales but also on influence radiating to the surrounding area, and the terminal owner is the best word-of-mouth "medium."

1. Daily Communication: Plan regular visits, shelf-life management, visualization maintenance, etc. Daily maintenance is the simplest and most effective way to build relationships. Also, train staff on communication content with store owners to ensure a good image.

2. Humanistic Care: Develop gift plans for key personnel at high-sales and brand-window stores. For example, when purchasing managers at RT-Mart, Yonghui, or Wumart have birthdays, send gifts to express the brand's appreciation.

3. Advisory Consulting Services: Periodically share business insights and industry information from other owners with core terminal owners to help their businesses thrive.

4. Emergency Resolution Mechanism: For example, mechanisms to handle product quality defects, promotional item quality issues, or delayed display award payments.

06 ****Core Terminals **Step Five in Building: Value Assessment Whether something is done right, well, or worth it requires an evaluation method. The evaluation logic for core terminal building should extend from single-store value to regional impact. The ultimate goal for startup brands is to penetrate a county, occupy a region, and continuously build a base market to expand nationwide. So it's not point-to-point evaluation, but point-to-area evaluation.

For a single core store, we should assess: continuous monthly sales of our product vs. main competitors, proportion of main products, expense input, cost-effectiveness analysis, etc. If our sales don't grow after investment while competitors' sales rise continuously, we need to check operational standardization or initiate a elimination mechanism for some core terminals.

For the region, we should assess: the relationship between the number of core terminals and regional sales, and whether competition with main competitors is matched. Avoid the scenario where core terminals are booming but the regional market is bleak. If so, we need to adjust the layout of core terminals, their influence on the population, and if necessary, revise processes and shift positions.

******Further Reading: