AUTHOR ARCHIVE
Articles by 任文青Andy
Browse 107 New Distribution articles by 任文青Andy.
Published articles
107 articles · Page 4 of 5
Dealers Trapped in Place!
The more outstanding peers you see, the easier it is to locate your coordinates, judge your current position, and know where you might go in the future. Over the past year, we visited many dealers, some extremely successful, but most are struggling, trapped in place—unsure of their position and next steps. The key to change is learning from peers, which provides a reference system to understand where you are and where to go.
任文青AndyDealers Trapped in Place!
The more outstanding peers you see, the easier it is to locate your coordinates, judge your current position, and know where you might go next. Over the past year, many dealers have been visited, and while some are excellent, most are struggling—squeezed by upstream pressure, delayed payments downstream, and thin profits. The key to change is learning from peers, which provides a reference system to understand your position and direction.
任文青AndyHow Leading FMCG Companies Like Uni-President and Feihe Are Seizing the Opportunities of Digital Intelligence in the Next Decade
In recent years, digital intelligence has been a hot topic in the industry, with almost all manufacturers considering how to embrace it. As an industry observer, I have been tracking and reporting on cases of digital intelligence. When discussing digital intelligence, one cannot avoid mentioning digital intelligence service providers. According to statistics, there are currently about a hundred professional digital intelligence software service providers in China, most of which focus on a specific vertical industry or field, but there are also those dedicated to providing one-stop solutions for enterprise digital intelligence, such as Yonyou. When mentioning Yonyou, the first thing that comes to mind might be their financial software.
任文青AndySecond-Generation Functional Beverage Benchmark: How 'Gan Qing' Ignited Yunnan in One Year and Expanded Nationwide
In China, tens of thousands of beverages are launched each year, but few succeed. The reasons include a highly homogeneous market with low consumer loyalty, an information-overloaded and multi-scenario communication environment, and the non-planned, immediate nature of beverage consumption, making channel and distribution crucial. Yunnan Gan Qing, launched in December 2021, expanded from its home base to nationwide within a year, covering nearly 100,000 outlets and exceeding 300 million RMB in retail sales. This article explores how they achieved this through effective channel strategy, unique product positioning, and targeted marketing.
任文青AndyWhich Type of Distributor Will Win the Competition in the Next 10 Years?
Due to the nature of my work, I often communicate with various people in the industry. People frequently ask: 'What's new? Share something!' or 'What do you think of that model?' The industry is changing, the world is changing, and new things are emerging one after another. It's normal to feel anxious, and it's important to understand new things, but over a longer time scale, the ones who truly win the competition in the next 5 to 10 years are not those who chase new things. So, who will win in the next 10 years? How should we respond to this ever-changing world? The following three aspects are crucial.
任文青AndyDeepening Channel Roots: Genki Forest's Humble Transformation
In early 2023, media reports highlighted Genki Forest's distributor channel issues, prompting New Distribution to conduct market research. A Genki Forest distributor told New Distribution, "Old Tang is changing, very sincerely." Since its explosive debut, the young brand and its founder Tang Binsen have been media focal points, with discussions centered on marketing tactics and hit products. However, the past two years have seen a shift: the 2021 freezer war and joint crackdown by giants, and in 2022, channel crossing and price chaos, lowered targets, and team restructuring. Now, Genki Forest is actively adjusting its approach, focusing on traditional channel depth distribution to compete with beverage giants.
任文青AndyFirst-tier brands are not profitable, what should distributors do next?
2022 was the most severe year of the pandemic, with travel and offline activities greatly restricted. Despite this, I visited dozens of distributors of various sizes and had in-depth exchanges with them. One insight I gained is that the ancient industry of commercial distribution is accelerating its transformation. But as the saying goes, 'the fish doesn't know it's in water,' most distributors are unaware of this change. This article shares my observations on how distributors can navigate the shift from serving brands to serving customers, and the importance of becoming scarce resources themselves.
任文青AndyDigital "Transformation": A False Proposition!
Digitalization must be concrete. The author argues that while digitalization is important and a trend, calling it "transformation" is unnecessary and even a false proposition, because digitalization is scenario-specific and problem-oriented, not an abstract, holistic shift. Successful digitalization starts with specific problems, uses tools to solve them, and is driven by incremental gains.
任文青AndyIn 2023, Dealers Should Make Improving the Speed of Making Money Their Top Priority
Dealers need to improve their capabilities, but more importantly, they need to improve their speed. In 2023, dealers should make improving the speed of making money their top priority. This article explains how to do this through three concepts: return on investment, turnover rate, and operating cycle.
任文青AndyWhich Types of Distributors Will Win in the Next 5 Years?
The future performance of distributors depends on the boss's depth, height, and strength. This article explores these three dimensions, emphasizing deep thinking, strategic vision, and leveraging teams to seize opportunities.
任文青AndyThe Historical Mission of Distributors Has Changed!
Serve your customers well and secure channel resources; if you have sales volume, brands will naturally cooperate with you. Over the past few years, New Distribution has repeatedly said that 90% of distributors will be eliminated in the future, and that distributors need to transform and change. But how exactly? Recently, we visited a group of distributors. Their market environments, product categories, and operational models differ, but after talking with them, I clearly felt they share a huge commonality. This commonality is unrelated to personal traits or management styles; it is only related to one question: the future of the distribution business.
任文青AndyDistributors, Where Is the Way Out?
A distributor boss expressed anxiety about industry changes and shrinking profits. The article suggests that the underlying trend is a change in channel transaction structure towards lower costs and higher efficiency, and advises distributors to integrate local supply chains, scale up, and improve management fundamentals.
任文青AndyAfter the Turmoil, How Can FMCG Brands Tap into Community Group Buying?
For brands, community group buying has been a mixed bag. From initial confusion and resistance, to fear of missing out, to the headaches of price chaos after being dragged in, no other channel has caused FMCG brands such anguish in the past two years. Now, with giants battling, layoffs, unpaid wages, closures, and shutdowns, the remaining platforms are only retrenching and focusing on survival. Some believe community group buying is no longer a topic for brands, or even dispensable. But is that really the case? New Distribution has learned that some brands are accelerating their efforts in community group buying, not by competing on low prices, but by effectively solving the problem of offline low-price channel diversion, achieving sales growth of 5-6 times or even 20 times in just a few months.
任文青AndyIf You Can't Pass This Test, You'll Never Grow Your Distribution Business!
A distributor who built a 300 million yuan business from scratch reveals that the biggest challenges were funding and dealing with family relationships in the company. This article argues that failing to manage relatives in the business is a major obstacle to growth, and that solving it requires both technical solutions and a shift in the owner's mindset and cognition.
任文青Andy90% of Distributors Will Be Eliminated, the Remaining 10% Will Embrace a Major Industry Opportunity!
In the past period, I visited some distributors. With declining demand and recurring pandemic outbreaks, everyone genuinely feels that business is tough. However, these distributors' businesses not only remained unaffected but also continued to grow, with some even achieving annual growth of tens of millions in an ordinary prefecture-level city. Growing against the trend is no easy feat! Although they all grew, the reasons differ. After in-depth understanding, we found there is much to uncover. We say that results are important, but the process of achieving results is more important; growth is important, but knowing the type of growth you have is even more important!
任文青AndyIn-store redemption multiplies by 6, WeChat Pay 'steps in' to help FMCG brands build digital operation positions!
Offline business is tough, and online customer acquisition costs are high—a reality all brands face. Since the pandemic, brands have been building private domains, hoping to create a repeatable, convertible user traffic pool they control. But for FMCG brands, private domains are not simple. On one hand, due to long-term offline focus and lack of digital experience, they may invest heavily but find limited value, unable even to calculate ROI. On the other hand, according to industry research, over 80% of merchants report that private domain costs have risen by an average of 40% since initial setup!
任文青AndyAfter Three Years of Losses, Why Do Traditional Distributors Still Abandon Supermarket Business and Fully Shift to Local B2b?
Starting as an agent for Yili in 2011, Yu Xiuwei has been in the FMCG distribution industry for over a decade, during which he tried cross-regional operations, O2O, and multi-category, multi-brand management. At the end of 2019, he launched his own B2b platform. Initially, he only wanted to use system tools to help his team manage multiple brands, but as more small stores chose to place orders independently on the platform, he decided to give up the supermarket business and focus on building a supply chain platform that serves local small stores. After nearly three years of operation, he has developed deeper thoughts on B2b.
任文青AndyHow a Traditional Distributor Achieved Break-Even in Six Months with B2B?
A distributor who grew annual sales from over 100 million RMB in 2013 to 300 million last year shares her experience building a B2B platform. By preparing thoroughly, launching in four months, and operating for about six months, she achieved break-even with online sales accounting for 10% of total revenue.
任文青AndyROI Over 4.0! How Did This Marketing Strategy, Validated by Yili, Achieve Great Success?
In the past, brands could succeed simply by advertising and distributing products, even if they were far from consumers, achieving sales of hundreds of millions or even tens of billions. However, advertising marketing has entered a period of stock, and the era of buying traffic with money is over. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the growth rate of total retail sales of consumer goods from 2019 to 2021 was only 3.9%, significantly lower than the 6.8% annual growth rate of the previous three years (2016-2018); offline retail growth almost stagnated, with a growth rate of only 1% from 2019 to 2021. This also means...
任文青AndyMost Companies' Digitalization Efforts Are Just to Alleviate Anxiety!
A leading FMCG company with hundreds of thousands of retail outlets cannot even pull a list of terminals with monthly sell-through of 5 cases, highlighting a common reality: despite much talk about digitalization, most companies struggle to obtain basic data. This article argues that the real obstacles are status quo bias and collective inertia, and that many digitalization initiatives are merely superficial actions to ease anxiety rather than address the hard strategic and organizational challenges.
任文青AndyFrom 3 Cases, See the Strategies and Paths of Digital 'Transformation' in FMCG Enterprises
This article discusses the strategies and paths for digital transformation in FMCG enterprises through three real cases: Dongpeng, Snow Beer, and Shahe Tequ. It emphasizes that digitalization should be viewed as a business model change rather than just a tool, and that successful transformation requires organizational capability and a gradual, incremental approach.
任文青AndyPros and Cons: Should Distributors Do Private Domain?
This article discusses whether distributors should engage in private domain operations. It presents two approaches: direct team operations and collaboration with small B partners, highlighting the value beyond sales, such as consumer education, precise marketing, and optimizing product mix.
任文青AndyDigital Transformation: It Looks Like Technology and Tools, but It's Really About People
A digital project leader at a company planned to drive channel digitalization through bC integration but found it challenging due to cross-departmental collaboration. The author argues that difficulties in digital transformation ultimately stem from organizational issues, and introduces the "Five Forces" of digital transformation: organizational force, scenario force, system force, fault tolerance, and operational force.
任文青AndyDealer Boss, Why Can't Your Team Win Battles?
The pandemic persists, and businesses are struggling with high inventory and cash flow issues. Yet some companies adapt quickly and grow despite the crisis. The key difference lies in organizational capability—the ability to turn ideas into action and results. This article explores what organizational capability is, how it grows, and how to improve your team's signal-to-noise ratio to win battles.
任文青Andy