"Selling a bottle of drink earned me 1 yuan over a decade ago, and it still earns 1 yuan now, but costs have multiplied and it's harder to sell!" This was the exact words of an Anhui distributor I visited recently. Over the past two years, when visiting the market and discussing business, "business is tough" is the most common phrase heard. But within Tameng, Fang Fan, general manager of Guizhou Fangwangyuan Trading, has a completely different feeling: "Having been in business for 13 years, the distributor business gets more and more enjoyable!" How enjoyable exactly? In Bijie, Guizhou, a fifth-tier city in the southwest hinterland with a permanent population of less than one million, he started from scratch and built a trading company specializing in condiments to annual sales exceeding 100 million yuan. In the past three years, it has maintained nearly 30% growth annually, with comprehensive loss rate (including physical and price losses) below 1.2% and inventory turnover within 30 days. How does he operate? What management methods and experiences does he have? And what are his thoughts on the distributor business? No resources, no connections, no experience 13 years to build 100 million Fang Fan's business did not grow smoothly; it was forged through one hurdle after another. In 2013, Fang Fan graduated from university with a degree in civil engineering and started a business right after graduation. With no family wealth, no connections, and no industry experience, he scraped together 200,000 yuan borrowed from various sources and rented a wholesale storefront in Bijie to start a condiment business. In the first three years, Fangwangyuan Trading operated as a typical small wholesale model. Without a core business team or a stable customer base, they struggled for three years with sales hovering around a few million yuan, unable to grow. Fang Fan realized: if he didn't step out of the wholesale market and build his own business network and terminal customer relationships, being eliminated by the market was only a matter of time. After thinking it through, Fang Fan launched a terminal offensive starting in 2016. But the first challenge was that stores in the urban area were already occupied by other distributors, and products couldn't be pushed in. Without sufficient resources, he couldn't compete head-on. So he chose to bypass competitors' strong areas and target weak spots—township fresh food stores and BC small shops—taking the "rural surrounding the city" approach. "There's no shortcut to attacking; it's just '200% diligence'." Fang Fan recalled. Township fresh food stores typically open at 6 a.m., while other distributors usually deliver at 8 or 9 a.m. Fang Fan's team set off at 5 a.m. every day to ensure products arrived the moment stores opened. Day after day, no special tricks, just early, diligent, and steady. They tackled one store at a time, expanding from townships to urban areas, building their own base from zero. With more outlets and a larger team, new problems emerged. High staff turnover, chaotic accounts management, and occasional misappropriation of funds by salespeople—the hidden dangers of early rapid expansion began to surface. Fang Fan realized that when there are few people, you can rely on relationships, but with many, you need systems. Starting in 2019, he spent several years building the business framework piece by piece. The first thing was establishing a store classification management system. Customer stores were divided into ABC categories: A-class quality stores were granted 10-20 days credit; B-class stores 7 days; and C-class stores with poor credit had to pay on delivery, with no credit allowed. At the same time, a salesperson account management mechanism was implemented: for overdue payments, fines ranged from 10 to 100 yuan per day. The second thing was redesigning the compensation and performance system. Fangwangyuan's sales staff salaries consist of four parts: sales amount salary + profit salary + KPI assessment salary + 10% net profit share. The core logic of KPI settings is: assess sales results in peak season, and process actions in off-season, balancing income gaps between peak and off-season, giving salespeople stable expectations throughout the year. The 10% net profit share is distributed based on multiple dimensions such as individual sales contribution, profit contribution, and return rate—as long as the company performs well, salespeople can genuinely benefit from growth. This mechanism turned employees from "workers" into true "partners." The third thing was establishing an internal training mechanism. Fangwangyuan does not recruit salespeople externally; all sales staff are promoted and transferred from internal drivers, warehouse keepers, and clerks. The reason is simple: these people are familiar with company processes and customers, get up to speed quickly, and are less likely to leave. Today, Fangwangyuan's team is mainly composed of post-95s and post-00s, and staff stability is rare among peers. With this framework in place, Fangwangyuan's business truly entered the fast lane, scaling rapidly from under 20 million to over 100 million by 2023. But at this point, Fang Fan made a decision that puzzled many: gradually cutting off all brand agency agreements. Voluntarily cutting off all brand agencies Brands like Totole, Chubang, and Laoganma are seen by many distributors as "endorsements" for their business and a sense of security. Giving up agency means giving up resources, policies, and rebates tied to brands. Many distributors wouldn't even dare to think about it. But Fang Fan did the math and found the crux of the problem: "No brand accounts for more than 20% of our company, but the task pressure is 100%." Once you take on a brand agency, you must complete the sales tasks assigned by the brand. If you fail, you lose policies and rebates; to complete tasks, you have to push inventory to stores. Once pushed, if sales slow, goods pile up, after-sales issues arise, and gross margins get squeezed thinner. After all this, the initiative is never in your hands—seemingly representing over 20 brands, but in reality, it's over 20 ropes, each pulling in a different direction. After recognizing this, Fang Fan thought, rather than working for brands, why not take back the initiative? With the right to choose products back, the business logic truly changed. The product selection logic shifted from "I push whatever the manufacturer has" to "I supply whatever the customer needs." Salespeople going to the market no longer coax store owners to stock up but collect real terminal demand. Then they assemble products accordingly, achieving precise supply-demand matching, and inventory problems are solved. In the past, with brand agencies, pushing inventory was the norm to meet targets. Regardless of whether stores needed it, they'd push it in first. Slow sales led to accumulation, and long accumulation led to losses. Now, every batch sold is genuinely needed by stores, supported by demand. At the same time, supply is based on the store's actual sales rhythm, supplying only 10-15 days' worth at a time, not a single extra item. As a result, inventory turnover days were compressed to 30 days, and comprehensive loss rate (including physical and price losses) dropped from 8% to 1.2%. Capital no longer sits idle in warehouses, and the business's blood truly begins to flow. Growth comes from places others haven't cultivated With the product issue solved, to grow, it's not enough to just "hold your own turf"; you must actively go out and compete. Fangwangyuan's growth in recent years comes from two directions: one is encroaching on competitors' market share, and the other is opening up new channels that peers haven't systematically entered. Service density is the hardest competitive barrier. After cutting off brand agencies, Fangwangyuan gained an advantage—it can sell products of any brand. When doing brand agency, distributors have "boundaries": if you represent Haitian, you push Haitian; if you represent Totole, you push Totole. If stores want other brands, you may not be able to supply. But Fangwangyuan has no such restrictions, with over 2,000 SKUs covering all condiment categories. Whatever stores need, they can supply. "If he does Haitian, I sell it to him. If he does Qianhe, I sell it. If he does Totole, I sell it." Full-category supply is just the foundation; what truly drives competitors out is service density. Fangwangyuan's salespeople's visit frequency, delivery rhythm, and follow-up timing for each store are uniformly planned through the system to ensure uninterrupted coverage. When stores have needs, they respond immediately; when stores are out of stock, they replenish right away. Over time, store owners' purchasing habits naturally lean toward Fangwangyuan, and competitors find no space on the shelves when they try to enter. This is not achieved through price wars or relationships. Full-category response plus high-frequency visits, combined, form a truly hard-to-replicate competitive barrier. Special channels are areas many peers haven't cultivated. Besides grabbing share in the existing market, Fangwangyuan also found incremental growth—school canteens, government agencies, and even reserve grain supply. Most distributors either haven't thought of these channels or find them high-barrier and difficult to enter, so they haven't systematically developed them. But Fang Fan discovered that the demand logic of such customers is completely different from ordinary circulation stores. Ordinary stores buy based on brand, price, and promotional policies; but canteens, government agencies, and reserve grain customers look at whether supply capability is stable, categories are complete, and delivery is reliable. What they want is not the agency qualification of a particular brand, but a partner that can supply long-term, stably, and across all categories. This is precisely Fangwangyuan's advantage. With over 2,000 SKUs, 8,000 square meters of warehousing, a mature delivery system, and category operation capabilities centered on customer needs, it can better meet the needs of such large customers than distributors that only represent single brands. Final Thoughts What many distributors lack most today is not products, but a method to truly streamline their business. While most distributors are still revolving around brands, thinking about tasks and rebates, Fang Fan chose a different path—he doesn't ask "which brands can I represent," but rather "how well can I operate this category?" This one-word difference represents two completely different business logics. The former is a brand executor; the latter is a category operator. How did he figure out this category operation approach step by step? How to select and assemble grain, oil, and condiment products? How to control inventory of long-tail products within 30 days? How does the team support this system? Due to space limitations, we cannot elaborate here. On April 10, at Tameng's "National Benchmark Distributor Deep Study Tour · Station 12," we will visit Guizhou Fangwangyuan Trading. You will see firsthand:

  • 8,000m2 intelligent cloud warehouse, full warehouse-picking-delivery operation process
  • Fang Fan personally explains: In low-tier cities, how to build a 100-million-yuan business from zero?
  • How to manage grain, oil, and condiment categories? How to select and arrange over 2,000 SKUs?
  • The art of profit sharing: How to turn employees from "workers" into "partners" and retain young core staff At the same time, at the study tour, Zhao Bo, founder of New Distribution, will share how distributors can use AI to improve operational efficiency, with live demonstrations and teaching.