NEW DISTRIBUTION RESEARCH TOPIC
How can distributors keep growing across fragmented channels?
Front-line analysis of product selection, organization, channel strategy, profit models, and business transformation for FMCG distributors.
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4620 articles · Page 29 of 193
Bulk Snack Supermarkets Down 30%, Standard Products Down 15%: Can Snack Distributors Survive This Winter?
Hello friends. I'm Yuan Lai from New Distribution. Recently, while preparing for the first China FMCG Hard Discount Conference in Zhengzhou, I spoke with over a dozen major food and beverage distributors. They unanimously reported significant declines: standard snack products in supermarkets down 10%-20%, and bulk snack products down around 30%. One distributor noted that no store is immune, with return rates rising and promotional costs increasing. This article explores whether distributors can open stores, how to maintain local supermarket business, and what else they can do to offset declines.
袁来Is the Condiment Industry Really Stagnating?
Recent Q3 financial reports from major listed companies show that half of the top ten condiment companies experienced declines in both revenue and net profit. However, industry experts argue that high inventory levels and performance declines do not necessarily indicate a stagnant market, as the overall condiment market remains stable and is evolving towards healthier, zero-additive trends.
何雯Distributor Annual Meeting Training: Brand Owners Should Stop Being Vague and Talk About Something Practical!
Recently, I've been asked: 'How should we define the direction of distributor annual meeting training?' My answer is often: increasing distributor cohesion and brand owner centripetal force through slogans, mobilization, and vague propaganda has little value. What distributors care most about in the current sluggish market are: how to make profits, how to improve cost-effectiveness, and how to enhance management team capabilities to retain talent. The best training for distributors is to combine the company's next-year business strategy, doubts, and difficulties to provide operational guidance, improve distributors' money-making ability, enhance their spending efficiency, and strengthen team management. It's more important for them to learn something practical that can be applied in the market than anything else.
高级研究员 海游How to Design Distributor Compensation and Performance Systems That Fit the Business
The key to ultimately achieving profit growth lies in people; the core action for bosses is to activate personnel, and only by distributing money well can they use people well. Distribution is essentially a selling business, and the most important people in selling are sales representatives. Whether salespeople can create profits for distributors depends on whether the compensation system can motivate them. Traditional assessment methods influenced by conventional thinking not only fail to generate profits but also lead to a rapid decline in distributor profits, making it crucial to pursue new, effective, and efficient compensation systems.
李锋Distributors Can't Be Eliminated, But They Are Always on the Path of Differentiation
Every few years, claims emerge that distributors will be eliminated or replaced, but over the years, in FMCG, distributors have persisted, and some are thriving. As FMCG enters the consumer era, with severe product oversupply and a focus on brand service, a wave of distributor 'optimization' has occurred, yet many distributors have evolved with top brands, transforming their organizations, mechanisms, and models to fulfill their historical mission. The supply chain revolution is now underway, and while some say there is no place for distributors, each channel change presents opportunities for new types of distributors to emerge, making differentiation inevitable.
高级研究员 海游Industry Turning Point: The Dealer Supply Chain Revolution Officially Begins!
This year, dealers are struggling. Small brands are risky, big brands are hard to get; new channels are inaccessible, old channels are being cut; offline business is shrinking, online business is tough; transformation seems daunting. In this new environment, what role should dealers play, and how can they change to survive? The focus of the industry is on 'cost-effectiveness' and 'disintermediation.'
New DistributionHard Discounts Arrive, Accelerating the Reshuffling of Local Distributors
The rise of hard discount retail formats such as snack discount stores and warehouse discount supermarkets is accelerating the reshuffling of local distributors. Large distributors will grow larger, while small distributors will gradually be eliminated. Distributors must adapt by adjusting their business strategies, such as expanding into other channels and becoming super suppliers in core categories.
袁来Surviving and Thriving with Distributors: How Nongfu Spring, Genki Forest, and Master Kong Do It
“I've lived a full life!” “I'm betting my life on this bed!” On October 21, Kuaishou influencer Xinba shouted excitedly in his livestream, after selling 1 billion yuan worth of domestic mattress brand DeRUCCI in a single session, breaking the Guinness World Record for single-product sales. While online sales boom, offline channels suffer, and distributors are increasingly marginalized as manufacturers directly partner with top livestreamers, a common trend in many consumer industries. “The distributor business is getting tougher; we now just handle delivery and payment,” lamented Lao Wu, a decade-long beverage industry veteran.
新商业价值媒体Leveraging Sports Marketing: How ChouBao Luosifen Boosts Product Sell-Through
What makes a good product? This is a question many distributors ponder. New Distribution observes that while hundreds of thousands of FMCG products launch annually, few survive market tests. Today's market demands more than shelf presence; it requires strong sell-through power. ChouBao Luosifen, through sports marketing collaborations like with People's Sports, enhances product appeal via distinctive packaging, gold medal prizes, and emotional connections, activating broader consumer groups and establishing a 'scenario' sell-through model.
田静How to Set Support Strategies When Distributors Develop Management Partners?
As a distributor's business matures, its rights and responsibilities can be divided into three layers: the owner focusing on product rights, the general manager focusing on operational management rights, and market operators focusing on sales and maintenance rights. The general manager is the key contact for brand owners, and converting this role from employment to partnership is a common and effective way to maximize its function. This article shares practical support strategies from brand owners for these 'management partners', including daily work guidance, expense support, and management mechanisms.
高级研究员 海游Frontline Salespeople: Easy to Enter, Hard to Excel
In recent years, business has been tough, a common consensus. Many articles discuss corporate strategic dilemmas and distributor development challenges, guiding companies and distributors on how to thrive against the trend, improve store coverage, manage sales, and ensure rapid growth. But have you noticed? We focus on industry changes, corporate development, and distributor difficulties, yet rarely pay attention to frontline salespeople who face the same intense market competition and sales issues.
张雨薇Distributors: In the Era of Thin Margins, Profit is Designed
Baihui Trading's mission is to become China's most professional category supply chain, with a vision of providing Chinese families with better, healthier, and more environmentally friendly products. Despite challenges in the micro-profit era, the company maintains double-digit growth through strategic planning, focusing on category management, and designing profit structures.
聂必权China's 100-Billion-Bottle Water Industry: A Hidden War
Chen Xiaojing, have you noticed that there are more and more bottled water products on store shelves, with traditional brands holding steady and new brands emerging constantly. Especially as the summer drinking water peak season approaches, the battle for shelf space in major supermarkets is about to erupt. The bottled water business is characterized by high gross margins and high-frequency demand, attracting terminal merchants, distributors, and bottled water companies to come and go with satisfaction each year. The success of bottled water sales is closely related to a company's control over water sources. Major brands are locked in intense competition upstream for water sources, with frequent reports of land grabs. China's four major high-quality water source regions—the southwest, Changbai Mountain, the Pearl River Delta, and the Yangtze River Delta—are already crowded with mainstream bottled water companies. In some scarce and high-quality water source locations, a situation of multiple brands and companies coexisting has formed.
陈晓京“Meaningful, a Bit Regrettable, Worth Persisting”: A Decade of Practical Reflections on a Retail Terminal Platform
Over the past decade and the next, both distributors and the market they face have undergone tremendous changes. Mr. Xu Hongyao, Vice President of Dongguan Sugar & Wine Group and General Manager of Caihua Trading (Yueheji), shared his practical experience over the past decade and his thoughts for the next decade, using Caihua Trading (Yueheji) as a case study. From a retailer's perspective, he illustrated the opportunities and challenges in the evolution of distributor business.
姚旭鸿The Only Way for Distributors to Achieve 'Leapfrog Growth': Platform Distributors
Liu Chunxiong points out that the internet revolution is nearing its end, while the supply chain revolution is just beginning. The question is whether the internet, which claims to 'eliminate' distributors, or the supply chain revolution, which 'bypasses' them, has a greater impact. This article is based on Liu Chunxiong's sharing at the closed-door meeting of 'Anneng Zhilian Supply Chain' at the 5th China FMCG Conference in Shenzhen.
刘春雄Zou Wenbiao: Re-recognizing the Value of Distributors in the Digital Intelligence Era
This article is based on the keynote speech by Mr. Zou Wenbiao, co-founder and president of Zhoupu Data, at the 5th China FMCG Conference. Zhoupu Data currently serves nearly 40,000 active distributors across the country with an annual GMV exceeding 400 billion yuan. As a leading distributor business system service provider, Mr. Zou offers insights from a service provider's perspective, urging distributors to reshape their thinking, focus on efficiency, scale, and digital collaboration to seize opportunities in the era of industry consolidation.
邹文标Laojin Mofang's Zhu Yingying: Unlocking the Creative Power of New Chinese-style Health Consumption
At the 5th China FMCG Conference and the 1st China FMCG Distributor Conference held in Shenzhen from October 9-11, Zhu Yingying, CEO and Partner of Laojin Mofang, shared insights on how the century-old brand leverages the 'medicine and food homology' concept to innovate in the health consumption sector, addressing evolving consumer needs and market opportunities.
朱盈盈New Distribution Exclusive Release | 2022-2023 China FMCG Distributor Business Survey Report
Over the past two years, China's commercial distribution business has continued to evolve. Traditional business models are changing, with digitalization and local supply chain integration becoming the direction for more distributors. New retail formats such as hard discount snack stores and front warehouses are rising, forcing distributors to expand into more channels. Distributors' capabilities are strengthening, and more brand owners are co-managing markets with local distributors. However, there is a gap between distributors' business goals and brand owners' expectations. Based on this, New Distribution, together with Zhoupu Data, conducted a survey of 279 medium and large FMCG distributors across China to release this report, providing insights into distributor operations, management, efficiency, and trends.
New DistributionLiu Chunxiong: Six Steps in the Digital Evolution of Traditional Enterprises
On October 10, at the 'bC Integration' parallel forum of the 2023 Fifth China FMCG Conference and the First China FMCG Distributor Conference, Liu Chunxiong, a channel digitalization expert, advocate of new marketing, and dean of the Marketing Digitalization Research Institute, attended as a guest. At the conference, Mr. Liu delivered a speech titled 'Six Steps in the Digital Evolution of Traditional Enterprises.' To this end, New Distribution has compiled the essence of Mr. Liu's speech (with deletions and modifications) for readers. How should we understand the current macro environment facing China's FMCG marketing? I...
刘春雄Bulk Snack Chains and Traditional Distributors: A Zero-Sum Game?
As China's economy grows and consumer preferences evolve, the leisure snack market has expanded, with bulk snack stores offering exceptional value rapidly emerging. From the 2010 introduction of the 'bulk snack' concept by Laoban Daren to current mergers among leading brands, these stores have disrupted the market like a catfish among sardines, bringing vitality and challenges, and will eventually achieve a new equilibrium. Public opinion is divided: some believe bulk snack stores will replace distributors, while others argue that 'you get what you pay for' and that distributors will prevail. However, it is worth reconsidering whether the two are necessarily in a replacement relationship.
全食在线Multiple Hit Products Ignite Autumn Sugar Fair, Xiangpiaopiao Becomes Distributors' 'Best Partner'
On October 14, the 109th National Sugar and Wine Fair concluded, showcasing new products, trends, and injecting vitality into the consumer market. Xiangpiaopiao's participation was a resounding success, with its high-quality products earning unanimous praise from visitors and distributors, shining as the 'popularity king' throughout the event.
月河Jiangxiaobai's Tao Shiquan: What Should Brands and Distributors Do Amid Unprecedented Market Adjustments?
At the 5th China FMCG Conference and 1st China FMCG Distributor Conference held in Shenzhen on October 9, Jiangxiaobai founder Tao Shiquan addressed the unprecedented market adjustments, urging operators to abandon habitual illusions and recognize that current difficulties are part of a long cycle. He outlined Jiangxiaobai's strategy of high-quality operational improvement and its pursuit to become a 'rising star' in the new alcoholic beverage market.
东南Major Release | 2022-2023 China FMCG Distributor Business Condition Survey Report
At the 5th China FMCG Conference and the 1st China FMCG Distributor Conference held in Shenzhen from October 9-11, 2023, New Distribution's Chief Content Officer Yuan Lai and Research & Consulting Partner Wendy Li released the "2022-2023 China FMCG Distributor Business Condition Survey Report" (hereinafter referred to as the Report), jointly produced by New Distribution and Zhoupu Data. Based on a survey of 279 FMCG distributors across China, the report provides insights into distributor operations, management, efficiency, and development trends, revealing challenges and opportunities in market operations and upstream/downstream cooperation.
New DistributionZhao Bo: Viewing China's FMCG Retail Channels from an Abstract Perspective
Zhao Bo, founder of New Distribution, discusses the theme 'Rebuilding: A New Era' for the 5th China FMCG Conference, emphasizing the need for businesses to think across cycles and use abstract thinking to navigate channel fragmentation and changing consumer demands, rather than relying on simplified models.
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