---
title: "Visiting a Hundred Stores: The 'Cold' and 'Change' in the Milk Market"
description: "“Even in the past, the milk market was never this slow!” In the second half of 2024, the author visited over a hundred stores with milk salespeople from various regions. Combined with feedback from distributors, the most profound impression was that over the past year, from front-line sales to back-end operations, the winter of the dairy industry has enveloped every practitioner. From the salesperson's perspective: downstream distribution is becoming increasingly difficult."
author: "葛畅"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2025-02-06"
language: "en"
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# Visiting a Hundred Stores: The 'Cold' and 'Change' in the Milk Market

> “Even in the past, the milk market was never this slow!” In the second half of 2024, the author visited over a hundred stores with milk salespeople from various regions. Combined with feedback from distributors, the most profound impression was that over the past year, from front-line sales to back-end operations, the winter of the dairy industry has enveloped every practitioner. From the salesperson's perspective: downstream distribution is becoming increasingly difficult.

**“Even in the past, the milk market was never this slow!”**
In the second half of 2024, the author followed milk salespeople from various regions to visit over a hundred stores. Combined with feedback from distributors, the most profound impression was: **over the past year, from front-line sales to back-end operations, the winter of the dairy industry has enveloped every practitioner.**
**Salesperson's Perspective:**
**Downstream distribution is becoming increasingly difficult**
“This year's off-season for the milk market seems exceptionally long.” Walking out of a store, Xiao Feng looked at the sparsely populated street in the cold wind and couldn't help but sigh.
Xiao Feng, a salesperson with three years of experience in milk sales, knew from past experience that the two months after the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day are the normal off-season for milk. But even as the new year began, milk still didn't show the usual brisk sales.
“In the past, we could push twice the usual stock on stores, **but this year it's strange—many store owners only make regular purchases, refuse any extra, and some even reduced the number of milk categories.** ”
But Xiao Feng was mentally prepared for this situation. As early as last year's Mid-Autumn sales season, the milk shipment speed in the region had already shown signs of fatigue, and his company's milk sales had dropped nearly 20% compared to the previous year.
“I think it's because we're no longer in an era of material scarcity where people habitually drink milk to supplement nutrition.”
**The number of people drinking milk is decreasing—this is one reason for the sales decline in Xiao Feng's view.**
Indeed, walking into today's market, shelves are stocked with a rich variety of plant-based beverages and other health-oriented products. Consumers have more choices, and their purchasing needs have diversified: nourishing blood, supplementing vitamins, replenishing electrolytes... Consumers' purchasing directions also determine, to some extent, the share of milk products on store shelves.
On the surface, it's a decline in per capita milk consumption, but in reality, today's consumers, influenced by health consumption trends, have further segmented their product needs.
Therefore, **to seize store resources and boost milk sales, many milk suppliers have launched frequent promotions, leaving many store owners numb and wait-and-see. In Xiao Feng's view, this is another important reason for the decline in milk sales.**
“These days, our company is also running a promotion: spend 600 yuan and get 10 yuan off, plus two 5-yuan coupons and a free apron.” Xiao Feng introduced that since the company transformed to B2b in June last year, this is their first promotion with such big discounts. They also run small promotions weekly, but with smaller discounts, averaging only about 3 yuan off.
“That's actually quite a lot, because previously promotions weren't so frequent. Now store owners basically get discounted prices when restocking. But over time, with intense price competition from peers, some store owners feel our discounts aren't substantial, and our downstream distribution is becoming increasingly difficult.”
With the help of this promotion, Xiao Feng did complete many deals, but some store owners, after listening to his introduction, hesitated, did some calculations on their calculators, and still refused.
The reason was simple: even with all the discounts, Xiao Feng's price was still slightly higher than other salespeople's promotional prices. Even if the difference was only a few dimes, customers who had cooperated for a long time might simply stop ordering.
What made Xiao Feng even more helpless was that, against the backdrop of severe price inversion in online dairy sales, **some store owners, to reduce restocking costs, often kept an eye out for “bargains” on various online platforms.**
“In the past, we could rely on relationships and service to counter price competition, but this year I've clearly felt that the influence of relationships on store cooperation is weakening. Store owners just want to save wherever they can, even if this 'online bargain hunting' method is limited in time and quantity, has no after-sales, and isn't sustainable.”
What Xiao Feng said is not an isolated case. Through visits, the author learned that **store owners have indeed become more cautious than before in their attitude toward restocking.**
**Store Owner's Perspective:**
**Finding ways to save wherever possible**
“In the past two years, our small store's market situation has worsened, so not just for milk, but for all restocking costs, we try every possible way to save.”
Many store owners said that since the Mid-Autumn Festival, traditional gift boxes have been selling poorly at the store level. To avoid inventory backlog after the holiday, compared to milk that would need price cuts within a month, they prefer to stock more long-shelf-life products, such as specialty gift boxes, liquor gift boxes, and nut gift boxes.
**Clearly, milk, as a traditional festive consumer product, is already facing challenges before it even reaches the shelves.**
However, many store owners not only deliberately reduced the quantity of milk restocked but also adjusted their restocking methods and channels. **Besides occasional “online bargain hunting,” offline, some store owners, along with other long-shelf-life products, go to wholesale markets themselves to find low-priced sources.**
“Getting goods from distributors is indeed worry-free—drivers deliver, salespeople handle exchanges—but the price per carton might be 3 to 5 yuan higher.” In a third-tier city, Lao Zhang, who runs a community convenience store, explained: “The profit margin on a carton of milk is already thin. If I get some from other channels, as long as I have enough to sell and don't let customers leave empty-handed, I can earn a bit more.”
“What if it's busy during the holidays and you run out of milk?” the author asked.
“Then I'll call the salesperson, and they'll deliver, or I can order directly on their mini-program.” Lao Zhang paused for a moment and added:
“But even if I call them, I still need to order frequently but in small quantities, only when I'm out. Nowadays, whether it's online e-commerce or offline discount stores, they all have more attractive advantages than our traditional retail. Look, even at the market, how many people are there now?”
Lao Zhang isn't the only one ordering frequently but in small quantities; this is now a helpless choice for many traditional small store owners—**if products moved quickly, who wouldn't be willing to stock up generously and choose a more worry-free restocking method?**
**Why is milk “not selling well”?**
The cold market for milk in 2024 has its deep industry reasons, such as brand development and upstream supply. But through the perspectives of salespeople and store owners, we can also see: **under the influence of changing market competition patterns, for downstream stores and consumers, the choices of products and channels are becoming increasingly diversified.**
**From a product perspective.**
**On one hand, with the rise of health awareness and changes in consumption concepts, customers pay more attention to health attributes and personalized needs when choosing products. Many functional and plant-based beverages have emerged, further squeezing the market share of traditional milk. On the other hand, to meet market demand and alleviate the pressure of inventory dates, store owners also prefer to stock various long-shelf-life gift box products.**
**From a channel perspective.**
Since last year, sales at discount stores, warehouse membership stores, and online e-commerce platforms have continued to grow. Consumers' purchasing channels for milk are no longer single, causing some diversion from traditional offline stores. For store owners, against the backdrop of intense price competition in milk, they now have multiple channels to compare prices and can combine different channels based on actual conditions.
Essentially, **it's not that milk is hard to sell, but that today's market offers more choices.**
In this context, the author also learned from distributors that starting in 2024, some dairy companies have lowered their annual sales expectations and implemented task-relief policies at the distributor level—**that is, no stock pressure.** Distributors' sales targets have generally been reduced by 20% to 30%.
These measures by some dairy companies are undoubtedly a call and drive for the dairy industry to gradually return to healthy development. **While brands focus on supply chain management and product technology innovation, they also give distributors more room to manage their business and store ends, preparing a good opening answer for the 2025 market.**
**Final Thoughts**
Although the milk market experienced a cold winter in 2024, in the long run, the rigid demand for milk will continue to exist in the future, especially in consumption scenarios like households and schools, which remain positive. Moreover, its application scenarios are expanding from traditional meal beverages to coffee, baking, ready-to-drink dairy products, and more. **Diversified consumer demand continues to inject new vitality into the milk market.** For distributors, while paying attention to incremental opportunities in new channels and scenarios and adapting to market trends, they should also persist in deeply cultivating existing channels and enhance their channel control. For example, what aspects of downstream stores can be further improved and optimized? Can the management and coordination of company personnel effectively support different goals during peak and off-peak seasons? **After all, in today's market, providing efficient, personalized, and guiding deep services to terminal stores, continuously empowering them, and helping store owners achieve product sell-through faster and better is a more effective and long-term core strategy than price competition.** How were your sales during this Spring Festival? Feel free to share your experiences and insights in the comments.
**【New Order · Symbiosis】**
**The 10th China FMCG Innovation Conference**
**Time: March 17-19, 2025**
**Location: Chengdu, China**


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