Click to read the original text for details. Marketing has three transformations: Terminal as media, sales as communication, and PR as implementation. These are the three fundamental principles for FMCG marketing personnel operating terminal retail stores and building point-of-sale visual merchandising. With increasingly fierce market competition, achieving these three transformations requires good customer relations and sufficient market expenses, but almost all sales personnel feel that money is never enough, no matter how they save. Mr. Fan Xianguo, Chairman of Jinmailang, once joked: "If I buy a pack of braised beef noodles and get 2 jin of beef, what do I need marketing personnel for?" Indeed, the value of a marketing person is to maximize sales with minimal market resources—this is the mission and meaning of a marketer. Common characteristics of manufacturers and distributors in using market expenses: 1. Those with spending authority do not directly spend. Market expenses are controlled by senior management (marketing department). They allocate based on historical data analysis, this year's marketing strategy, product structure, market regions, key projects, etc., and then design detailed rules and regulations for expense usage. Subordinates apply, use, and verify step by step, with a top-down approach. 2. Supervisors of spending are inflexible. After market expenses are used, leaders at all levels check compliance, and headquarters deploys market inspection departments to verify according to regulations (more like check formulas), ensuring proper use. 3. Those who actually need to spend have no authority and are exhausted by applications. Under this mechanism, frontline sales staff become execution tools with no flexibility, losing a sense of ownership, leading to serious waste (key terminals lack funds for display, so they give up; non-key terminals overspend, with disproportionate input-output). Summary: In a war: the commander (resource holder) thinks about establishing a base, the colonel (strategy executor) thinks about capturing cities step by step to achieve the commander's goal, and the soldier (ultimate resource user) focuses on eliminating enemy forces to achieve the colonel's objective. In business warfare, market expenses are like bullets. Imagine a soldier needing to shoot—does he need to ask his superior? The reason to use bullets is not regulations but whether there is an enemy ahead. So the problem arises: in market operations, the commander thinks about the colonel's job, the colonel thinks about the soldier's job, leaving the soldier with nothing to think about. Most market expenses are spent on in-store visual merchandising displays. This article focuses on how to use market display expenses to enhance terminal point-of-sale visual merchandising. Most companies follow the "market formula" set by the marketing department for terminal displays, but common problems during execution include: 1. For small store owners, display fees are the same regardless of sales volume. 2. Once display standards are met, additional display doesn't matter. 3. Display fees are the same for prime traffic locations and remote locations. 4. Display fees are the same for spots near the cash register and in obscure corners. 5. Display maintenance is the salesperson's job; if competitors move displays, they ignore it. 6. Monthly display fees are fixed, lacking motivation. 7. Inability to develop fortress customers or obtain competitor display information. 8. Salespeople prioritize quantity over quality. 9. Terminal stores prioritize form over sales. How to effectively solve the above problems? The core is only 3 points: 1. Fully empower frontline salespeople. 2. Stimulate store owners' enthusiasm—more display, more rewards. 3. Third-party verification—verification over trust. The ultimate purpose of our display is to make it serve multiple missions: media, communication, and implementation while boosting sales. Below is a display method (Heaven-sent Wealth) used by a leading brand to communicate with store owners, for reference: Specific display steps: 1. Select target stores for display: fully delegate to sales reps.

  1. Authorize sales reps to execute, giving them a budget or reward quota.
  2. Based on the 80/20 principle, select the top 20% of stores by sales from last year or historical data as candidates.
  3. Alternatively, choose stores where competitors are strong and our products have been at a disadvantage but sales are high, to completely defeat competitors. 2. Inform terminal owners: turn passive into active, more work more reward. Before the activity, proactively inform selected store owners. Script: The company has a display activity: stack X boxes to win 1 box, X boxes or more to win X bottles per box, redeemed every X months. The more you stack, the more rewards. Participation is voluntary; we only select the best stores, no coercion. 3. Calculate the details: visible benefits. Sales reps calculate visible positions in the store, especially at the entrance, cash register, high-traffic areas, and stackable heights, and tell the owner. Script: Your store can stack about 20 boxes. According to company policy, you can win X boxes in X months, totaling over X boxes a month—very cost-effective and generous! 4. Display and stock: combine display with sales, ensure sufficient stock.
  4. Encourage the owner to sign and order immediately.
  5. Clear space for stacking, leaving positions ready! 5. Immediate delivery: seize prime positions. Require the distributor to deliver immediately, within 24 hours, and place products in the cleared positions; do not deliver to the warehouse, leaving no space for competitors. 6. Immediate inspection and rewards: demonstrate company integrity.
  6. The supervisor counts in-store inventory (warehouse stock not counted). If less than a full box, count as a full box for reward. If the supervisor arrives in the afternoon, add bottles sold in the morning to the count. Remind the owner to replenish promptly to avoid insufficient stack quantity. This makes the owner grateful to the company and sales rep, deepening customer relations!
  7. Issue a reward redemption form to the owner. The supervisor must inspect on time and issue reward receipts. 7. Timely reward redemption: say what you do, do what you say.
  8. The sooner rewards are redeemed after inspection, the better. Owners are happy to receive rewards, and immediate redemption makes them even happier.
  9. Also suggest ordering some of the company's best-selling beverages. No quantity requirement; just have stock to sell, never overstock. Owners will gladly accept. Precautions:
  10. Design activity plans based on prefecture-level city market competition. Such plans are not one-size-fits-all because each city has different conditions and competitors. In principle, use the same reward intensity within a city.
  11. Plan long-term, considering input-output efficiency.
  12. Keep the activity confidential before launch; surprise attack. Announce activities phase by phase, but keep absolute secrecy before start. Prevent competitors from preempting.
  13. Keep the activity plan fixed, not changeable. Design precisely before launch, e.g., activity cycle, reward intensity, inspection cycle, redemption process. Once set and started, do not change easily to ensure policy continuity. Build company credibility—promises must be kept. During design, conduct pilot store surveys.
  14. Expand activity scale gradually; do not rush. Start with a small scope, increasing store numbers gradually.
  15. Redemption must be timely and proactive. During proactive redemption, encourage owners to try new, fast-selling SKUs they haven't stocked. Expand results to other products, increasing company product presence and strength.
  16. Allocate activity funds to sales reps for management. Trust sales reps fully. Allocate planned funds per person; supervisors check and redeem.
  17. Sales unit heads should control input-output ratio. Control expense rate: Expense rate = Reward amount ÷ Total sales amount. In summary: Market expenses have always been a challenge for all marketers. Under dual demands of profit and sales, using resources reasonably is indeed a test of a marketer's basic skills. Regardless of the method, as long as it stimulates terminal owners' display desire and increases sales reps' sense of ownership, terminal display will be at least 80% successful. Finally, focus on process management and details to gather strength at terminals, strengthen brand visibility, improve resource efficiency, and achieve sales overachievement.