---
title: "The Era of the 'Sitting Merchant' Is Over! Before Adjusting Product Structure, Distributors Must Do This..."
description: "As market competition intensifies, the era of the 'sitting merchant' is gone forever. Distributors need to adapt to the trend of consumption upgrading and reasonably adjust their product structure, with the first priority being thorough market research to fully understand the regional liquor market. The following are the key aspects of regional market conditions that need to be clarified."
author: "New Distribution"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2016-10-30"
language: "en"
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original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/js7cVcv6eWOJtSSSe8V4SA"
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---

# The Era of the 'Sitting Merchant' Is Over! Before Adjusting Product Structure, Distributors Must Do This...

> As market competition intensifies, the era of the 'sitting merchant' is gone forever. Distributors need to adapt to the trend of consumption upgrading and reasonably adjust their product structure, with the first priority being thorough market research to fully understand the regional liquor market. The following are the key aspects of regional market conditions that need to be clarified.

As market competition intensifies, the era of the 'sitting merchant' is gone forever. Distributors need to adapt to the trend of consumption upgrading and reasonably adjust their product structure, with the first priority being thorough market research to fully understand the regional liquor market.

**These Regional Market Conditions Need to Be Clarified**

Distributors must first fully understand the PEST (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological) macro environment of the local region, because the local political, social, economic, and technological conditions determine the local consumption patterns. In addition, distributors must grasp the new changes in the micro environment of the regional market, including:

**1. Product Level**
Understand the packaging materials and colors of locally popular liquor products. For example, in the Shaanxi region, consumers generally prefer red packaging; the alcohol content and specifications, such as in Guangdong, where consumers tend to choose low-alcohol baijiu.

**2. Channel Characteristics**
Understand the markup rates in local hotel channels, the markup rates in supermarket channels, the self-bringing rate of liquor in catering channels, the number of terminal outlets, and the approximate number and distribution characteristics of regional distributors and sub-distributors.

**3. Market Investment Status**
Understand the investment status in local hotel channels (corkage fees, gifts, listing policies), the investment policies and methods of distributors and sub-distributors, and consumer promotion investment status.

**4. Brand Promotion and Publicity**
Have an understanding of media investment methods, media costs, and event marketing methods.

**5. Competitor Operation Models**
Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated. Understand competitors' direct sales models, distribution models, personnel allocation, and income composition.

**There Are Tricks to Research; These Four Points Must Be Done Well!**

**1. Talk with Local Distributors**
A word from you is worth more than ten years of reading. Although liquor distributors in the same region are competitors, they also need to communicate frequently to understand the latest market dynamics and comprehensive information, and jointly make the market pie bigger. Communicating with other distributors can help you understand the overall competitive situation, overall market capacity, channel characteristics, and competitive brand operation models in the region.

**2. Visit Catering Outlets**
By visiting catering outlets, distributors can sift through the complex information of the terminal market to obtain accurate and objective information needed for market research. Through visits to catering outlets, distributors can compare the sales of different popular liquor types in the region and understand the latest consumer preferences of end consumers. Through catering visits, you can obtain market information such as profit margins in hotel channels, listing fees, market investment in catering channels, consumer promotion status, cap design, and competitive sales.

**3. Collect Effective Information from Supermarkets and Hypermarkets**
Visiting circulation channels is also a necessary task for distributors. Through research on liquor sales volume in supermarkets and hypermarkets, distributors can obtain accurate market price systems, mainstream products and specific sales volumes, and specific market investment policies.

**4. Conduct Market Research on Core Consumers**
Distributors should visit opinion leaders in regional liquor consumption in person, listen to consumers' actual feelings about a certain brand and competing brands, and understand local consumption habits and the mainstream price points and brands for political and business consumption. Through visits to core consumers, distributors can identify problems in the market operation of a certain liquor brand and gradually adjust according to the problems to achieve a reasonable state.

**The Following Methods Must Be Mastered!**

When conducting market research, distributors should first identify themselves to the research subjects, gain their trust, and then gradually ask about the research content from shallow to deep.

**1. Throw a Brick to Attract Jade (Give a Hint)**
Case: When I was researching the price system of a certain product in the Shandong market, I first stated a hypothetical price of 68 yuan per bottle. If the price was correct, the terminal store would confirm it; if it was wrong, the store owner would correct it. Once corrected, the actual price would be revealed.
This research method must be based on a rough understanding of the product price system. The hypothetical price system should not be too far from the actual price system, otherwise it will arouse the owner's suspicion. The 'throw a brick to attract jade' method is suitable for understanding confidential issues such as product price systems, sales policies, market investment, and assessment structures.

**2. Ask from a Different Angle**
Case: In Hefei, a Luzhou Laojiao distributor, Mr. Wang, wanted to understand the recent liquor markup rate in the Hefei market. He talked with the owner of a local restaurant, Mr. Liu, like this: 'Mr. Liu, we want to provide you with a product at a supply price of 50 yuan per bottle. What price do you think would be appropriate to sell in your store?' Mr. Liu thought for a moment and said, 'Around 80 yuan.' After visiting three or four stores, Mr. Wang quickly learned that the markup rate in Hefei restaurants was about 60%. If Mr. Wang had directly asked, 'Mr. Liu, what is your store's markup rate?' Mr. Liu might have avoided the question.
In addition, if you want to know the self-bringing rate of liquor in a certain region, you should ask the research subject, 'Out of 10 tables in your hotel, how many bring their own liquor?' rather than directly asking, 'What is your store's self-bringing rate?'

**3. Comparison Method**
The comparison method involves using your knowledge of a certain brand's market situation to compare with another brand you want to know about, and through comparison and feedback from the research subject, you can obtain accurate market information.
Case: Zhang Wu (pseudonym) is a distributor with many years of experience in liquor operations. When researching the Zhoukou market in Henan, he used the comparison method to quickly grasp competitors' market investment policies. Since Zhang Wu was not very familiar with the market investment situation of the popular B brand in Zhoukou, he found a second-tier distributor of B brand to collect information. After meeting with a second-tier distributor of B brand, Zhang Wu exchanged pleasantries and then mentioned the policy investment situation of B brand for other second-tier distributors: 'In the third quarter, the rebate is 12%, the annual rebate is 3%, and they provide support for two promotional staff salaries per month. As a core distributor of B products in Zhoukou, you must have more than them.' The B brand distributor said it was impossible, saying their support was greater than that; here it was a quarterly rebate of 9% and an annual rebate of 2%. Zhang Wu added with experience, 'I heard it from XX, so the information may not be reliable.'

**4. Backward Deduction Method**
The backward deduction method is used when you already have some market information and, based on the subtle feedback from the research subject, you can deduce the necessary accurate market information. For example: The retail price of product C in a certain hotel is 98 yuan per bottle. The distributor deliberately asks, 'What is the approximate gross profit for your hundred-yuan products?' If the research subject answers, 'Around 20 yuan,' then you can deduce that the supply price of the product is around 70 yuan. The distributor continues to ask about other information to divert the research subject's attention, and after asking other questions, adds, 'Other stores supply C product at 75 yuan. What about your store?' Or use the assumption method in other stores to understand the accurate supply price.

**5. Be Direct and Straightforward**
Direct observation and questioning are used to collect and organize basic market research information, such as mainstream alcohol content, mainstream packaging preferences, product specifications, and mainstream price consumption preferences. This information does not require much questioning skill and can be asked directly to the research subject.

-END-

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