---
title: "The Growth Path of a Post-80s Distributor's Second Generation: 'Playing' with Business"
description: "Since the rise of the first generation of distributors in the early 1990s, many are now facing succession issues, with the second generation taking over. Zheng Jinbin, a post-80s distributor in Jiangsu, has leveraged new methods and internet thinking to grow his traditional FMCG distribution business from 60 million to 80 million yuan in one year, and over 100 million including online sales."
author: "周群"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2021-01-16"
language: "en"
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# The Growth Path of a Post-80s Distributor's Second Generation: 'Playing' with Business

> Since the rise of the first generation of distributors in the early 1990s, many are now facing succession issues, with the second generation taking over. Zheng Jinbin, a post-80s distributor in Jiangsu, has leveraged new methods and internet thinking to grow his traditional FMCG distribution business from 60 million to 80 million yuan in one year, and over 100 million including online sales.

Since the rise of the first generation of distributors in the early 1990s, it has been two to three decades. "Time waits for no one," and many older distributors are facing the issue of business succession, making the second generation's takeover an urgent matter. Recently, I visited some distributors in the Jiangsu region and noticed a clear trend: more and more post-80s and post-90s distributors are gradually taking over the older generation's businesses. These second-generation distributors have unique understandings and more forward-thinking approaches to this trade. Zheng Jinbin, General Manager of Rugao Xintian Food Trading Company in Nantong, Jiangsu, is one such second-generation distributor who excels at finding business growth through new methods and ideas. He started with Ge Pai, then Qi Pai, then Ling Shou Tong cloud warehouse, and finally returned to traditional distribution. Zheng brought Alibaba's market thinking and methods to traditional distribution, creating a spark that grew his traditional business from 60 million to 80 million yuan in one year, representing over 30 snack food brands including Qiaqia, Panpan, Glico, and Crayon Shin-chan, with total sales exceeding 100 million yuan including online. Recently, New Distribution interviewed this post-80s second-generation distributor. In such a short time, how did he achieve rapid growth while "playing"? We hope his insights into the distribution business can inspire other distributors.
# **-01-**
**The "Alibaba Dream" of a Second-Generation Distributor**
Compared to traditional second-generation successors, Zheng Jinbin has a richer life experience. After graduating from university in 2012, Zheng had worked as an external promoter for a marketing company during college, organizing classmates for promotions—a small contractor. After graduation, he signed with Joyoung to handle all external promotions. As a railway major graduate, his studies had little to do with the trading business. The real entry point came in 2013 when his salary in Nanjing was 3,000 yuan/month, while his family offered 3,500 yuan/month, so he returned home to work. Although he had helped with loading and delivering goods during summer and winter breaks, this was his first formal exposure to the business. His first role was as a financial officer, managing the company's accounts. There was a small episode: Zheng attended a second-generation successor meeting organized by Oishi. The manufacturer asked the attending distributors about their annual brand sales; some said 100 million, others tens of millions, but Xintian Food had no data, so he followed suit and claimed 10 million. When the manufacturer's data came out, it was only 4 million. After that, Zheng decisively installed a data system. It was from this point that Zheng realized the distribution business was not simple and began to actively learn and study. At that time, New Distribution had just been established and organized study tours for distributors; Zheng participated decisively to learn advanced concepts and methods. During this process, Zheng connected with Beiquan, spent 250,000 yuan to sign as a city agent, and opened his first Beiquan convenience store in April 2016. Around that time, Alibaba's Ling Shou Tong entered the Nantong market, and Alibaba's Ge Pai developed Zheng's convenience store as a Ling Shou Tong customer. Zheng thus learned about Ge Pai's operating model; at that time, selling goods to a store could earn 70 yuan. After consideration, he thought the model was good, and Ling Shou Tong's subsidies were substantial—for example, a case of Red Bull at 116 yuan, plus a 30-yuan discount for orders over 300 yuan, which any terminal would want. So, at the end of 2016, Zheng joined Alibaba's Ge Pai and became the top newcomer in the Alibaba Newcomer Club in 11 days. After more than half a year, Alibaba adjusted its strategy and added Qi Pai, so Zheng transitioned to Qi Pai. After becoming Qi Pai, on one hand, he was unfamiliar with the model; on the other, he had new ideas for the traditional business. So, for the next year, Zheng put Qi Pai aside, only completing basic tasks, and focused on the traditional business, doing unified warehousing and distribution. But good times didn't last; at the end of 2018, he faced a choice: either Ling Shou Tong or traditional business. Zheng chose to lead a team of 5 people to focus on Ling Shou Tong, and within a few months, he was selling nearly 3 million yuan of goods per month for Ling Shou Tong.
Ling Shou Tong Double 11 30-minute battle report. During this period, Zheng had an internal transfer opportunity at Alibaba to become a city manager, but he didn't choose to develop at Alibaba headquarters. Instead, in April 2019, he led the Ling Shou Tong team back to take over the traditional business. He brought Alibaba's thinking into the traditional business, using more refined management and data-driven analysis. In just one year, the offline business scale grew from 60 million to 80 million yuan.
Xintian Food's latest single-day sales report
# **-02-**
**New Methods, Fine-Tuned Market Operations**
Zheng told New Distribution that he doesn't like being called a rich second generation; he prefers the label of "creator second generation." As a second-generation successor, he doesn't want to just sit back and enjoy the fruits but hopes to redefine the trading business with new methods. Therefore, after fully taking over the business, Zheng made more refined adjustments to the company's overall operations, such as fine-tuned product selection. For the snack food category, **product selection is the most important step; if products aren't chosen well, they won't move at the terminal, and no matter how good the market strategy is, it's zero.** Compared to the conservative product selection of the older generation, Xintian Food's approach is more imaginative. **First, products should have internet celebrity attributes.** Products with such attributes often come with their own IP, requiring less promotion from the distributor to spread at the terminal and generate purchases. **Second, products should be positioned as high-end.** Consumption upgrade is a future trend, with high-end and customized products increasingly sought after. So distributors should follow consumption trends and choose categories with higher growth potential. **Third, product structure should be balanced.** Divide products into circulation, traffic, and profit types: circulation products are mainly first-tier brands to ensure shelf presence in small stores; traffic products are IP-based to attract new traffic; profit products bring high margins. When selecting, ensure a balanced mix for healthy development. Terminal image display
Through this selection method, Xintian Food introduced more innovative brands on top of traditional ones, such as Three Squirrels, Crayon Shin-chan, and Li Ziqi. After selection, how to push to market? Zheng introduced the digital operation methods learned at Alibaba. **First, analyze the market for similar products: the overall share distribution of the sub-category, which stores to sell into, and the required coverage rate—not all products need 100% coverage.** For example, Three Squirrels is priced higher and targets younger consumers, so the focus is on convenience stores and chain supermarkets; most community mom-and-pop stores don't need distribution. **When products enter stores, the early stage focuses on penetration, not profit; for instance, if the product is sourced at 6 yuan, the store gets it at nearly cost.** After confirming the product can move, differentiate by changing specifications to add profit, creating price ranges to improve margins. Moreover, **after products enter stores, analyze monthly sales data, expense ratios, distribution rates, manufacturer tasks, etc., break down problems, and solve them one by one.** For example, if the expense ratio is high, re-evaluate store cost-effectiveness; if low, reduce or stop investment. **Also, set up category partners: once the company decides to enter a sub-category, recruit someone with deep experience in that category to be a category partner.** The partner gets a base salary of 6,500 yuan/month, and profits are split 50/50: 50% to the company, 50% to the partner, with the partner having full control over that category. Through these operations, Xintian Food established a complete market playbook. For Three Squirrels, from 1 million yuan in the first year, it grew to 1 million yuan in just two months after two years.
# **-03-**
**New Organizational Structure, Unleashing Small Team Energy**
In terms of organizational structure, Zheng made major adjustments, dividing sales channels into three parts: Ling Shou Tong, new channels, and traditional offline, each with its own finance and independent accounting. **Ling Shou Tong is fully managed by a dedicated team, with profits split 70/30 (team/company), and specific salaries and dividends are calculated internally by the team.** Ling Shou Tong team
**New channels mainly include newly entered channels like group buying, fruit stores, and B2C e-commerce, with profits split 50/50 between the channel team and the company, also internally calculated.** Traditional offline business is more complex, so it's divided into three departments: sales, logistics, and internal affairs. **The offline business adopts a contract-like system, with sales commissions distributed to each department head as operating funds, with specific ratios set by the company; for example, 3% of annual sales to the sales department as operating funds.**
Rugao Xintian Traditional Business Department
**The operating fund covers all department expenses for the year, including salaries for the head and staff. For example, how many people to hire and how to set salaries are decided by the head. At year-end, the remaining operating fund is partly used for the department's annual meeting, partly for employee year-end bonuses based on contribution, and the rest as the head's year-end bonus. This way, each department controls costs to ensure company profit. For offline business, the company's gross margin is around 10-20%, and after deducting all department operating funds and related losses, the net profit remains stable.** In addition to departmental mini-organization, Zheng learned from Alibaba's mid-office model and introduced an operations department.
The operations department's main job is brand management. Each operations staff member is responsible for 1-2 brands, analyzing distribution rates, promotional intensity, expense investment, and other brand-related matters, as well as liaising with manufacturers to create marketing plans. They must produce weekly brand analysis reports to guide frontline sales staff based on data. With independent accounting as the foundation and data management as the core, Xintian Food has basically achieved flat management. The boss only needs to grasp the big strategic direction; each department fully leverages its initiative to move forward proactively. **Final Thoughts:** Zheng told New Distribution that in the past, older distributors relied on capital, people, and vehicles, pushing forward with hard work. Their understanding of market changes and quick reactions were mostly based on past experience, but whether that experience is outdated is hard to judge. Overall, **the older generation's thinking is more rigid, leaning towards "protecting" the business.** In contrast, second-generation distributors **are more about "playing" with business, using internet thinking, boldly trying new things, and based on clear data analysis and refined management systems, doing business in new ways.** As Zheng said when communicating with his father: "The company used to earn 3 million yuan a year; now I guarantee at least 3 million, but for the extra money I make, you don't need to worry about how I spend it."
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