---
title: "Tang Guangliang, Founder of Kaola Select: The Impact of Community New Retail on Distributors"
description: "The following is the speech delivered by Mr. Tang Guangliang, founder of Kaola Select, at the 5th FMCG + Internet Conference hosted by New Distribution, organized and released for readers. Today, my topic is 'The Impact of Community New Retail on Distributors.' Regarding distributors entering the community group buying track, I still suggest thinking twice. Many people have different interpretations of the community new retail market, such as community e-commerce, community group buying, community new retail, community group buying, community fresh food, and a bunch of other concepts. Kaola Select is positioned as an online community fresh food supermarket. In the initial stage, online grocery shopping is more precise. Fresh food is a super high-frequency category that has not yet been fully digitalized, and community-based customer acquisition and fulfillment is currently the most efficient way to reach users with fresh food. Whether it's community groups, social commerce, or community e-commerce, if the platform does not have a fresh food category, I personally think it has little value."
author: "唐光亮"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2019-04-04"
language: "en"
canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/tang-guangliang-founder-of-kaola-select-the-impact-of-community-new-reta-3f4bf144/"
markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/tang-guangliang-founder-of-kaola-select-the-impact-of-community-new-reta-3f4bf144.md"
original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/r863aOygi5f21_Zg3TgCSQ"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E8%80%83%E6%8B%89%E7%B2%BE%E9%80%89%E5%88%9B%E5%A7%8B%E4%BA%BA%E5%94%90%E5%85%89%E4%BA%AE-%E7%A4%BE%E5%8C%BA%E6%96%B0%E9%9B%B6%E5%94%AE%E5%AF%B9%E4%BA%8E%E7%BB%8F%E9%94%80%E5%95%86%E5%BD%B1%E5%93%8D-3f4bf144.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/tang-guangliang-founder-of-kaola-select-the-impact-of-community-new-reta-3f4bf144/"
usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt"
---

# Tang Guangliang, Founder of Kaola Select: The Impact of Community New Retail on Distributors

> The following is the speech delivered by Mr. Tang Guangliang, founder of Kaola Select, at the 5th FMCG + Internet Conference hosted by New Distribution, organized and released for readers. Today, my topic is 'The Impact of Community New Retail on Distributors.' Regarding distributors entering the community group buying track, I still suggest thinking twice. Many people have different interpretations of the community new retail market, such as community e-commerce, community group buying, community new retail, community group buying, community fresh food, and a bunch of other concepts. Kaola Select is positioned as an online community fresh food supermarket. In the initial stage, online grocery shopping is more precise. Fresh food is a super high-frequency category that has not yet been fully digitalized, and community-based customer acquisition and fulfillment is currently the most efficient way to reach users with fresh food. Whether it's community groups, social commerce, or community e-commerce, if the platform does not have a fresh food category, I personally think it has little value.

The following is the speech delivered by Mr. Tang Guangliang, founder of Kaola Select, at the 5th FMCG + Internet Conference hosted by New Distribution, organized and released for readers.
Today, my topic is 'The Impact of Community New Retail on Distributors.' Regarding distributors entering the community group buying track, I still suggest thinking twice.
Many people have different interpretations of the community new retail market, such as community e-commerce, community group buying, community new retail, community group buying, community fresh food, and a bunch of other concepts. Kaola Select is positioned as an online community fresh food supermarket. In the initial stage, online grocery shopping is more precise. Fresh food is a super high-frequency category that has not yet been fully digitalized, and community-based customer acquisition and fulfillment is currently the most efficient way to reach users with fresh food. Whether it's community groups, social commerce, or community e-commerce, if the platform does not have a fresh food category, I personally think it has little value.
We have been in FMCG B2B for ten years, but community group buying for only 8 months. In these eight months, I have summarized the two biggest market values of community e-commerce: **one is more convenient than supermarkets, and the other is cheaper than wet markets.**
Everyone can think about a question: What is the biggest value of traditional supermarkets currently? Is it home delivery? Rich categories? Or affordable prices? Personally, I think the biggest value is fresh food.
Currently, consumers mainly buy groceries in large supermarkets and wet markets, so community new retail must enter with fresh food categories. Our benchmark is traditional supermarkets and wet markets near communities. Being more convenient than traditional supermarkets is market value; delivering goods to the last 1000 meters below your building is more convenient than supermarkets. The demand for home delivery versus in-store pickup differs between first-tier and second/third-tier cities. The logic of benchmarking against wet markets is simpler: if the scale is large enough, it will definitely be cheaper than wet market vendors. Being more convenient than supermarkets and cheaper than wet markets is what Kaola Select is currently doing. This is our understanding, for reference only.
**What impact does community new retail have on distributors?**
Distributors are in pain and anxious. If they don't transform, they wait to die; if they transform, they might die from the transformation. Many distributors want to do OEM, open convenience stores, and a few years ago wanted to transform into FMCG B2B. Now they hear community e-commerce is also good. For the past decade, distributors have been thinking about how to transform.
We can feel the difficulties of distributors. Is community new retail an opportunity for distributors? Friends who know about it all want to do it. So let's discuss the specific impact of community new retail on distributors:
**First, changes in settlement methods:** Many brand owners and channel distributors do not support KA (Key Accounts). Traditional supermarkets basically have payment terms of over 30 days, while community group buying has already achieved T+7 or even T+1.
**Second, online pre-sale with zero inventory:** Directly reaching consumers through products changes the number of times traditional distributors repeatedly handle goods. The online pre-sale model changes the inventory pressure on both sides, reduces the return process and distribution costs for distributors, lowers losses on both sides, and greatly improves capital investment, capital turnover, and operating costs for distributors. It is especially helpful for clearing end-of-season inventory.
**Third, pressure from source supply chains:** Some brand owners have started to cooperate directly with community e-commerce platforms. When community e-commerce reaches a certain scale, they may also choose direct sourcing from large single-product bases. These two methods continuously divert sales away from distributors, and at the same time, it becomes more difficult to supervise cross-regional selling and dumping...
**Fourth, the impact of internet-famous products/novel products on distributors' existing business:** Most internet-famous and novel products do not have channel distributors or agents. They directly reach consumers through community group buying models, causing a serious impact on the existing business of offline retailers. Since traditional distributors are basically suppliers to offline physical stores, they naturally suffer the same impact.
**Fifth, doing it yourself:** Most distributors want to do it themselves. They have vehicles, warehouses, teams, brands, and community outlets. With so many advantages, why not do it themselves? Traditional distributors have obvious infrastructure advantages, but their biggest disadvantage is the brands they represent. Various assessments and new product launches by brand owners prevent the existing infrastructure from being converted to new business, and their energy is completely insufficient. My personal suggestion: first, set up an independent team; second, cooperate with Kaola Select.
We only have 8 months of experience, so there is not much to share. Everyone can ask questions and interact:
> **Question:** Let me introduce myself first. I am from Chongqing. I want to ask: We are a traditional distributor. So far, we represent more than 80 brands, with over 30,000 SKUs. I have more than 10,000 supermarkets and 40,000 small shops in my hands. I want to ask Mr. Tang: In your view, are we a potential competitor, a partner, or a bystander?
**Tang Guangliang:** We are friendly competitors, because our key strategy is in the Central China region, centered on Hunan Province and radiating to surrounding cities. Currently, our 2019 strategy is to deeply cultivate Hunan and Jiangxi. At present, there is no possibility of competition between us, but it is uncertain in the future.
> Question: I am the e-commerce director of Jiangxi Huang Shang Huang. Huang Shang Huang is a listed company with more than 3,000 stores nationwide. But we have troubles with e-commerce. In places where we have stores, consumers basically do not buy online. In places without stores, our brand awareness is not high. I would like to ask: Is there a way out for us in community group buying?
**Tang Guangliang:** I have paid attention to Jiangxi Huang Shang Huang. The best way for you to enter e-commerce or community group buying is to invest. In addition to high-speed rail and airports, your offline stores are basically near wet markets and communities. The main consumers overlap very well with the consumers of community group buying who cook at home. I once went to talk to the team of Juewei Duck Neck. The cooperation between community group buying and Zhou Hei Ya and Juewei Duck Neck is a very good combination. So investing is a good choice for you.
> **Question:** I am from the Southern Youpin platform of Guangdong Newspaper Group. Our newspaper group is also transforming, so we took advantage of this trend to do community e-commerce. It is said that we have rich resources, but on this exploration path, we still have great confusion. First, in terms of supply chain, we are deeply rooted in 21 prefecture-level cities in Guangdong Province. Because we are a newspaper group with certain resources, many people proactively approach us with products, and many poverty alleviation products are also grafted to us. In terms of logistics, we have the largest ground distribution team in Guangdong Province, with more than 9,000 people, nearly 400 self-operated vehicles, and 300 stations.
> Last June, we entered community e-commerce. Within two months, we had already opened 1,000 groups. But now we are confused. We have groups, people, and products, but the turnover has not been high. If our company invites Mr. Tang to give us guidance, or we hand it over to you for operation, how would you operate such a naturally advantageous project?
**Tang Guangliang:** I am particularly envious of enterprises with so many resources. Let me give a simple example: A salt company was listed last year. They once transformed into FMCG B2B, also tried opening convenience stores, and now they are doing trading companies. They also have many resources, but it seems they have not achieved much. Someone once asked me: What if Meituan comes? I said Meituan's traffic and our traffic are different, the consumer groups are different, and the consumer groups of cooking at home and ordering takeout do not overlap.
The confusion that arises is not something that can be solved by guidance. I think it is a gene problem. What is the gene of the Salt Bureau? In the morning, they take a newspaper and a cup of tea and wait for get off work. What is the difference between this kind of resource and our previous supply and marketing cooperatives? Many assets are just not being utilized. Why? Because from top to bottom, everyone takes a newspaper and a cup of tea. There is no way.
**Our thinking is simple: some genes can do it, some genes cannot...**
**-END-**


---

## 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