In the current FMCG market, where competition is increasingly fierce and brand homogenization is severe, terminal development is like positional warfare: 'When blades are short, the brave win.' To win, companies must formulate a strong terminal strategy based on their overall strength, specific products, and actual market conditions, and build a strong terminal service team for planned, step-by-step terminal development.

The Most Common Mistakes in Terminal Development

In reality, we find that many companies make mistakes during terminal development, leading to poor results.

Mistake 1: Overly Ambitious Goals That Are Unrealistic Many companies are willing to spend a lot of manpower, materials, and money on distribution, but are reluctant to allocate some funds to understand and analyze the target market and sales terminals before distribution. This results in distribution goals lacking a decision-making basis and wasting a lot of money. Additionally, some companies blindly believe that bigger goals are better, excessively pursuing distribution coverage, even vowing to distribute products to the market in a short time, while their own strength, staffing, and resources are far from sufficient.

Mistake 2: Unclear Distribution Objectives Distribution objectives also have priorities. Should we first distribute to urban (city) markets or surrounding towns? Should we first distribute to catering terminals or circulation terminals? These decisions should be clear, but many companies often fail to achieve good results due to unclear priorities and lack of organization.

Mistake 3: Lack of a Specific and Feasible Distribution Plan Statements like 'Distribute all products to the XX market within 1-2 months' or 'Distribute products across our regional market within 3 months' are vague concepts that cannot be measured. What exactly should be done each day within a month? How many stores should be covered each day? Should the distribution targets be catering terminals or circulation terminals? What is the standard for measuring whether products have been distributed to terminal stores? What strategies and methods should be adopted?

Mistake 4: Inadequate After-Sales Service To successfully place products on terminal shelves, many salespeople verbally promise various conditions to terminal operators, such as 'if the product doesn't sell well, we'll take it back and refund you.' Regardless of whether they can fulfill these promises, they first get the products on the shelves, but ultimately lose the trust of terminal retailers because the company refuses to accept returns or exchanges.

The Correct Procedure for Terminal Development

So, what procedure should terminal development follow?

I. Conduct Research on Terminals and Channels

  1. Understand the competitive landscape in the regional market: What are the competing brands in the region? How are they performing? What marketing strategies are they adopting? What promotional tools are they using?
  2. Understand the local characteristics, customs, consumption habits, and consumption levels of the target area.
  3. Understand customer business conditions: Why do terminal customers prefer to sell competing products? What are the monthly sales volumes of competing products? What are the terminal customers' brand awareness, financial strength, main business, sales capability, management capability, and business district status?
  4. During the survey, conduct a 'sweep' of terminals to build a detailed regional terminal database, then classify precisely. Based on the distribution of terminal outlets, plan for future distribution with detailed and professional service management, specifying location, time, personnel, route, sales volume, and standards.

II. Formulate Correct and Effective Terminal Development Policies

  1. Based on the research results, discuss and negotiate the product varieties, specifications, quantities, prices, strategies, and channel choices for distribution, in line with the company's overall guidelines for the target area.
  2. According to needs and the specific situation of the target market, decide on promotional items as the bridge to enter the market. This includes determining which items will be promotional, their varieties, specifications, quantities, and the ratio of promotional items to products.

III. Train Sales Personnel Due to the communication funnel effect: 100% of what you want to say, only 80% is actually said, 60% is heard, 40% is understood, 20% remains after three days, and 5% after three months. This leads to distortion of terminal information during distribution. Therefore, before distribution, sales personnel should be trained and simulated so they can accurately and concisely convey distribution policies and information to terminal customers.

IV. Conduct a Certain Scale of Distribution Combined with Product Promotion Based on the survey results, classify customers according to their recognition and acceptance of the product, their importance, relationship strength, and development order, and then proceed with the first-tier development in line with the company's sales plan.

V. Strengthen Terminal Maintenance Through Service For the terminals that have already been stocked, achieve the following: best display position, maximum display space, highest cleanliness, optimal shelf management, and terminal promotional item placement, to showcase a good brand image, create strong sensory stimulation and a selling environment for consumers, and form a pressure atmosphere completely superior to competitors. Additionally, use diverse and highly effective point-of-sale promotions to create a lively sales atmosphere. After these terminals meet the sell-through standard, proceed with the second-tier development.

Reposted from: Food Board

-END-

The best FMCG distributor learning platform in China Focusing on providing professional, practical, and actionable tutorials for companies and distributors Committed to helping Chinese FMCG distributors grow rapidly

The most professional and practical knowledge base in the FMCG industry Reply with the red number below to get the corresponding content Reply with number 1 to view the complete knowledge base

| 001 Excellent Article Selection | 002 Distributor Market Operations | 003 Terminal Visit Management | 004 Sales Supervisor Skills | 005 Sales Improvement Techniques | 006 Channel Expansion | 007 Managing Distributors | 008 Distributor Development | 009 Distributor Internal Operations Management | 010 Team Management | 011 Efficient Distribution Techniques | 012 Sales Manager's Eighteen Skills | 013 KA Operation Methods and Strategies | 014 First Lesson for New Salespeople | 015 Internet, Brand | 016 Distributor B2B Transformation |

[Long press QR code to follow]