As living standards rise and the consumer market grows rapidly, competition in the FMCG industry has become intense, and market operations have entered an era of precision. Marketing concepts such as accurate positioning, market segmentation, channel cultivation, and winning at the terminal have long been deeply rooted. The standard for market excellence has shifted from sales volume alone to terminal performance, including distribution rate, image promotion, pricing system, and terminal display. Especially terminal display, as almost all FMCG manufacturers now deeply recognize that supermarket and terminal store shelves are where products intimately interact with consumers, leading to a vigorous 'enclosure movement.' Manufacturers are spending heavily to purchase floor displays, pillar wraps, and prime shelf positions, and it's not uncommon to see fierce battles over a floor display. Many savvy manufacturers no longer rely solely on supermarket merchandisers to maintain their product facings; instead, they add a new function to their salespeople's duties: merchandising. Well-funded manufacturers hire dedicated merchandisers to maintain key accounts.
As a frontline marketing professional, I have worked in Northeast, North, West, and East China, conducting in-depth research on grassroots salespeople's supermarket merchandising. Here, I categorize 'salesperson merchandising behavior' into six types for study.
- Irresponsible Type: This type of salesperson visits supermarket customers for only two things: checking inventory and taking orders, then leaving. If asked, 'Why don't you merchandise?' they retort, 'Merchandising is the supermarket staff's job. Why should I do it for them? With that time, I could order dozens more cases! Orders mean money! If any store doesn't display my products well, I'll complain about their merchandiser.'
But what do supermarket staff say? 'Your products used to sell about the same as XXX, but now XXX sells at least five times more than you.' I asked, 'Why?' The merchandiser said, 'Isn't it obvious? XXX has better facings. Their products are on the prime shelves on levels 2, 3, and 4, while yours are on the bottom level 5. Their facing is more than four times larger, neatly arranged, clean, and positioned advantageously—they have the high ground, superior quality, and quantity. They dominate in location and support, so they naturally sell better! You're supposed to be in marketing!' I grimaced and said, 'You're too biased! You give XXX such good facings and put us at the bottom, not even rotating old stock. Are we stepchildren?' The merchandiser said, 'It's not entirely my fault. XXX has great service; their salesperson comes every time to tidy the facing. Initially, your facing was the same as XXX, but your salespeople never tidy up, so naturally XXX squeezed you out. I manage a large area and have too much to stock to take care of every brand. Besides, the total sales for this category are fixed; it doesn't matter to me who sells more or less—my shelf contribution is the same. And since XXX sells much more than you now, of course I give the best spots to the best sellers! Your products' vicious cycle only shows that your market service is inferior to your competitors!'
The result of such merchandising is simple: product display deteriorates, and products gradually become slow-moving.
Going Through the Motions Type: This type of salesperson, under company pressure, will usually restock the shelves, but their method is very 'efficient': they bring goods from the warehouse to the shelf, ignoring item, flavor, horizontal or vertical display, or FIFO (first-in, first-out), and just stuff the shelves haphazardly. Once full, they clap their hands—done. Such 'efficient' restocking is worse than none! Why? Because after a while, the back of the shelf is full of expired products.
Aggressive Expansion Type: These salespeople know well that the larger the display facing, the greater the sales opportunity. So they often 'conquer' the product display area with their own products, even squeezing out popular competitors until they have 'no place to stand.' At the same time, they are 'methodical'—like the Japanese invading a village, they come quietly! The result is that when discovered, they often provoke public outrage, causing the supermarket department head and competitor staff to 'attack' them, sending their products to the 'cold palace.' Some powerful stores even send a fine to the salesperson's boss.
Meticulous and Serious Type: These salespeople are usually trained by the company and follow standardized procedures. In addition to making the product display attractive as required, they also clean the products and shelves, put up POP, replace damaged price tags, and handle exchanges. The terminal performance in their area is generally well maintained.
Leveraging Type: These salespeople are generally quick-witted, articulate, and good at communication. With a honeyed tongue, they often flatter supermarket merchandisers, and occasionally give out samples or promotional items to win favor. In general, supermarket staff are accommodating to them, and the product shelves are basically taken care of without much effort from the salesperson; the supermarket merchandiser will keep them in good order.
Comprehensive and Capable Type: These salespeople have a serious work attitude, rich merchandising experience, and display skills. Most importantly, they have a competitive awareness and the goal of comprehensively surpassing competitors in terminal display, always mindful of attacking competitors. During merchandising, they quietly squeeze competitors' display space, coordinate with merchandisers to optimize product placement, reasonably use manufacturer funds to create key image stores, and apply for free floor displays during promotions.
From the above, it's clear that different merchandising methods yield completely different results. Why do salespeople differ so much in terminal merchandising? What's the gap? The differences are only three: attitude, method, and mindset.
Every manufacturer hopes to have salespeople who are meticulous, serious, flexible, and capable. But what is the root cause of these differences in work styles?
Distributor's Mindset: Many distributors come from wholesale backgrounds, have limited education, are accustomed to traditional distribution models, have weak terminal control, and lack service awareness. One of my county-level distributors had annual sales exceeding 10 million yuan, which is quite good, but the terminal performance of the products they distributed was generally poor; every new product they took on died. One sentence from them made me understand: 'I never let my salespeople merchandise because that's the supermarket staff's job; it has nothing to do with us.' Salespeople from such distributors generally fall into two types: irresponsible or leveraging.
Management and Operation Level: Many distributors have small companies, often with one person holding multiple roles (salesperson, driver, delivery person), no sound management systems, and loose personnel management. They don't emphasize salesperson training, lack standardized work procedures, and many newly hired inexperienced salespeople are sent directly to the market—experience is gained from practice. Salespeople from such distributors are generally the first three types.
Neglecting Employee Compensation: This type of distributor is typical of wanting the horse to run but not letting it graze! They offer low pay but high demands, leading to 'policies from above, countermeasures from below'—the going-through-the-motions type.
Family-Style Management: Traditional distributors mostly use family management or have strong family-style characteristics, often appointing people by favoritism. Non-family employees are often ostracized by family members, leading to internal discord and low morale among outside employees.
New Era Distributors: For them, business is not just a business but a career; they don't focus on short-term gains but on long-term development. They don't treat employees as money-making tools but as the cornerstone of the company's long-term growth. They offer incentive-based compensation to stimulate salespeople's enthusiasm and creativity; they care about employee growth, focus on improving business skills, often invite excellent sales managers from manufacturers to provide sales training, absorb advanced experience, and refine work standards and management systems. Only such distributors can cultivate meticulous, serious, flexible, and capable sales teams, and only they can win at the terminal in market competition.
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