---
title: "Why Have Some Distributors Become 'Hopeless Cases'?"
description: "As the FMCG market enters a new era of competition, the traditional 4Ps of marketing have undergone profound changes. As key players in the channel, distributors' roles and positions are also fundamentally shifting. In recent years, Nongfu Spring has proposed 'strategic distributors,' and Snow Beer has also advocated building a 'customer system with Snow characteristics.' In fact, more and more manufacturers are clearly stating their intention to 'grow and strengthen distributors.' Reversing the fate of being flattened by manufacturers and 'revolutionized' by e-commerce in recent years, FMCG distributors are now facing new development opportunities. However, beneath these opportunities, we must also confront a stark and cruel reality: even with strong support from excellent brands, many distributors still seem to be 'hopeless cases,' neither growing nor strengthening. Why is this?"
author: "陈思廷"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2022-10-09"
language: "en"
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original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/yLoqqjiJJUTA0p4yYiKTvA"
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# Why Have Some Distributors Become 'Hopeless Cases'?

> As the FMCG market enters a new era of competition, the traditional 4Ps of marketing have undergone profound changes. As key players in the channel, distributors' roles and positions are also fundamentally shifting. In recent years, Nongfu Spring has proposed 'strategic distributors,' and Snow Beer has also advocated building a 'customer system with Snow characteristics.' In fact, more and more manufacturers are clearly stating their intention to 'grow and strengthen distributors.' Reversing the fate of being flattened by manufacturers and 'revolutionized' by e-commerce in recent years, FMCG distributors are now facing new development opportunities. However, beneath these opportunities, we must also confront a stark and cruel reality: even with strong support from excellent brands, many distributors still seem to be 'hopeless cases,' neither growing nor strengthening. Why is this?

As the FMCG market enters a new era of competition, the traditional 4Ps of marketing have undergone profound changes. As key players in the channel, distributors' roles and positions are also fundamentally shifting. In recent years, Nongfu Spring has proposed 'strategic distributors,' and Snow Beer has also advocated building a 'customer system with Snow characteristics.' In fact, **more and more manufacturers are clearly stating their intention to 'grow and strengthen distributors.'** Reversing the fate of being flattened by manufacturers and 'revolutionized' by e-commerce in recent years, FMCG distributors are now facing new development opportunities. But beneath these opportunities, we must also see a profound and cruel reality: even with strong support from excellent brands, there are still many distributors who seem to have become 'hopeless cases,' neither growing nor strengthening. Why is this?

**01**
**Why has 'strengthening' distributors**
**become an inevitable choice for manufacturers?** The general trend under heaven is long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. This phrase aptly describes the evolution of China's FMCG channel models. Over the past three decades, the primary contradiction in marketing for Chinese FMCG enterprises has been 'terminal coverage.' As long as terminal coverage was deep and wide, sales could continue to grow. Therefore, for the sake of 'coverage for coverage's sake,' China's FMCG channels have undergone two decades of continuous flattening and downward expansion. But today's market environment has changed dramatically; the primary contradiction in marketing is no longer 'terminal coverage' but how to do 'consumer promotion' and how to respond to challenges from new channels and models. On one hand, against the backdrop of consumption upgrading, FMCG products are moving towards scenario-based, branded, and high-end development, with consumer experience becoming increasingly important. The traditional forms of delivery and service by distributors can no longer meet new market requirements and terminal relationships. On the other hand, with the advent of the digital era, business reshaping is accelerating, and various new channels and models are emerging one after another. Times are changing, the industry is changing, and manufacturers are also changing. Faced with these changes, the traditional channel systems of FMCG enterprises are completely unable to meet the challenges. All phenomena indicate that **the future relationship between FMCG manufacturers and distributors must inevitably evolve from simple transactional relationships and one-way management to a closer integrated relationship.** Therefore, **discovering, selecting, and cultivating a group of excellent distributors, unswervingly strengthening and growing them, and building mutual trust, interdependence, and shared destiny with excellent distributors have become inevitable choices for FMCG enterprises.**

**02**
**Why do 'Ah Dou-type' distributors appear?** Manufacturers give a lot of market space, opportunities, resources, and policies, but distributors fail to grow and strengthen, and even lose their original advantages. We call such distributors 'Ah Dou-type' distributors. 'Ah Dou-type' distributors specifically exhibit the following behaviors: 1) Manufacturer incentives are completely ineffective. You say what you say, I do what I do. No matter how eloquently the manufacturer speaks, I remain unmoved. They don't trust the manufacturer at heart, and whatever the manufacturer says, they treat as a trick. Therefore, they only calculate their own short-term small accounts, neither caring about nor understanding the manufacturer's policies and positions. In the end, this leads to the manufacturer being unable to achieve established market goals in that region. 2) Passive obedience, completely losing initiative. A brand's sales director reported to New Distribution that manufacturers hope distributors can proactively propose construction or market plans based on actual market conditions, and manufacturers can invest resources to implement them. However, after issuing this notice, not a single distributor proactively submitted constructive opinions or plans to the manufacturer. 3) Lack of skills and experience, not knowing how to grow and strengthen. Many distributors have always been small merchants, never having grown large, nor knowing what a large distributor looks like, nor how to grow and strengthen. If the manufacturer is also unable to guide them at this time, the growth process is likely to be very painful and tortuous. In summary, for growing and strengthening, the 'three no's' distributors—'unwilling, daring not, and unable'—are the main characteristics of 'Ah Dou-type' distributors. The widespread emergence of 'Ah Dou-type' distributors has deep historical reasons. For a long time, channel management in Chinese FMCG enterprises has been 'command-style.' All market strategies and management are decided by the manufacturer, and distributors have long been purely 'executors.' 'Obey and follow orders' has been the past criterion for evaluating excellent distributors. Over time, distributors have gradually become those without dreams, without thinking, and without ideas. After getting used to obeying and following orders, many distributors have already disabled most of their abilities. Once the manufacturer suddenly grants them greater market operation and management authority, they find they completely don't know how to do it. As market changes accelerate and marketing team costs rise, manufacturers inevitably rely more on excellent distributors to operate the market. If we find that our channel system also has a large number of 'Ah Dou-type' distributors, what should we do?

**03**
**Manufacturers must have the ability**
**to lead distributors to 'grow strong together'** Faced with 'Ah Dou-type' distributors, what should be done? Manufacturers must organize them to learn together, progress together, and grow strong together. **First, manufacturers must identify those distributors who are willing to 'strengthen' themselves. A distributor being small is not scary; what's scary is not growing. A large scale is not truly big; strong capability is truly strong.** We must admit that among the thousands or even tens of thousands of distributors under each leading FMCG brand, there will inevitably be 'zombie' distributors with rigid thinking and no ambition; 'lazy' distributors who don't do market work and wait for opportunities; and 'black sheep' distributors who speculate and sell goods at low prices across regions. For these distributors who do not meet the potential for 'growing and strengthening,' marketing managers should understand but resolutely abandon and replace them. **Second, it is essential to build a learning platform for distributors to help those who want to 'strengthen' learn and progress.** Young distributors are in their prime; manufacturers must value them, organize them to learn and exchange, help them grow, and build them into the main force of the channel team. For older distributors, self-learning and progress are more difficult. Manufacturers should encourage them to trust young people, help them cultivate young successors, and prepare for gradual handover. In terms of creating a learning platform for distributors, many excellent manufacturers have established various forms of 'distributor empowerment organizations.' The sole purpose is to help distributors willing to grow gain more learning and progress opportunities. When distributors grow and strengthen, the manufacturer's growth naturally becomes less of a problem. Some manufacturers have also created a very good learning atmosphere, with dedicated distributor empowerment budgets each year, organizing internal training for distributors or encouraging them to go out for learning and exchange, with significant results. In the future FMCG market, only by finding distributors willing to grow with your brand, building them into a channel team that can fight and win battles, and working together with joint efforts, can we grow together.

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