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.
Related research and analysis
4637 articles · Page 7 of 194
Distributors Who Only Chase Sales Volume: The Busier They Are, the More They Lose!
The first step to breaking the deadlock is not learning more methods, but making operations 'visible' first. So we condensed the most complex operational issues into two charts: the Product Quadrant Chart and the Customer Quadrant Chart. This article explains the Product Quadrant Chart in depth: why your scale is growing but you're not making money, how to use the quadrant chart, and how to use structural adjustments to recover profits.
杨博帆Where Is the Certainty of Spring Festival Sell-Through? Insights from Lay's New Products on the Evolution of 'Scenario-Based Assortments'
As the year-end market enters a critical phase, many distributors are sensing that Spring Festival consumption is returning to rationality, making stock-up decisions more cautious, with inventory pressure, turnover efficiency, sell-through certainty, and profit margins becoming core factors weighed repeatedly in December. But it is precisely at such moments that a brand's 'confidence' in Spring Festival business becomes clear. Recently, Lay's 2026 Spring Festival series new products debuted, including multiple gift packs of various sizes, 'Fortune Bucket' and 'Family Bucket', plus the endorsement of the 'Kung Fu Panda' IP...
冯瑶Alibaba P8 Enters Lightning Warehouse for Three Years: It's an Opportunity, but 90% Will Be Cut (Pitfall Checklist at the End)
In the past six months, 'lightning warehouses' have become a hot topic among distributors. Many are anxious about missing the next growth wave, but the reality is that lightning warehouses are a high-barrier opportunity, not a simple 'put goods online and sell' business. This article, based on a three-year veteran's experience, reveals the true thresholds and provides a practical checklist to avoid common pitfalls.
陈思廷How AI Can Turn Millions of Retail Outlets into Growth Nodes
A six-year project involving Swire Coca-Cola used computer vision, mobile workflows, competitive intelligence, and connected coolers to improve outlet execution across a highly complex beverage network.
New Distribution"Don't Call Me a Distributor Anymore, Call Me a 'Daoye'!"
A top regional distributor, Mr. Wang (pseudonym), has recently dropped most of his agency brands and been 'banned' by several former manufacturers, saying, 'Don't call me a distributor anymore; call me a daoye (a middleman who buys and sells goods for profit).' Just months ago, he reported a 20% sales increase and a 29% profit rise, but now he chooses to exit. This shift is becoming common among distributors who, despite making money, are quitting due to forced inventory loading, price system collapse, and shrinking profits.
张雨薇Distributors Are 'Allies', Not Appendages of FMCG Manufacturers
The current FMCG market is undergoing a profound cyclical shift. Once, rapid growth meant distributors could easily profit by representing well-known brands, even tolerating pushy manufacturer salespeople. Now, with the market moving from incremental to existing competition, growth is slowing, profits are thinning, and distributors face harder times. This article argues that manufacturers must transform their mindset from self-interest to mutual prosperity, their role from manager to enabler, and take concrete actions to build ally-like relationships with distributors.
田沂桐“Innovation Leading, Crossing Mountains and Seas”: The Strength and Vision of a Leading Dairy Enterprise with 100 Billion in Revenue!
As China's dairy consumption enters the true second half, with factors such as supply-demand imbalance, weak consumption, declining market growth, and slow sales across all categories, dairy enterprises face multiple challenges including intensified competition and pressure on revenue growth. Only by continuously breaking through original boundaries and precisely grasping demand can they stimulate the recovery of dairy consumption and restore market vitality. How to transition from simply pursuing 'volume growth' to fully entering a 'quality improvement' environment oriented by diversified and refined demands, and find breakthroughs, is an urgent issue facing the industry...
AmandaIf Distributors Can't Make Money Themselves, Why Should They Help Customers Make Money?
Some say bluntly, "If I can't make money myself, helping downstream make money is pure fantasy." Others wonder, "Without price differences, are distributors just working for applause?" Some complain, "Execution is too hard—it requires capital, teams, and terminal cooperation that small and medium distributors can't handle." Others equate it to the 'big and comprehensive' store model of a decade ago, saying, "Tried it, didn't work." Reading these comments one by one, I understand that sense of helplessness—in a reality of price wars and inventory pressure, any new approach is bound to be met with skepticism. But the more I read, the more I realize one thing: while everyone is anxious about the future, there's a deep misunderstanding of the term 'category operations.'
张雨薇Zhao Bo of New Distribution: Why You Haven't Truly Understood the User's Job-to-be-Done (JTBD)
We spend our entire lives solving our own problems—financial, health, emotional, intimate family, life relationships, self-existence, social, etc. In general, the problems people need to solve can be divided into eight dimensions: 1. Survival dimension: (body, safety, resources) 2. Relationship dimension: (intimacy, belonging, ranking) 3. Ability dimension: (skills, execution, growth) 4. Narrative dimension: (meaning, goals, values) 5. Emotional dimension: (experience, regulation, patterns)...
赵波Bidding Farewell to Youth and Involution: The Time Has Come for Traditional Distributors to Exit in an Orderly Manner
Distributors will not disappear, but their numbers will significantly decrease. This judgment is not emotional but reflects the changing landscape of China's FMCG industry. Many distributors already sense that the path of relying on hard work and diligence for growth has reached its end. The article analyzes why the number of distributors will inevitably decline, which distributors should exit or continue, and how to exit in an orderly manner to preserve the fruits of years of struggle.
陈思廷Why Local Consumer Language Matters in Chinese Oral Care
The “internal heat” concept shows how a culturally familiar problem can reveal unmet oral-care demand, but functional positioning must be supported by compliant evidence, perceptible benefit, and repeat purchase.
New DistributionThe Life-or-Death Game for Distributors: Exhausting Yourself to Leave No Room for Competitors
During a recent visit to a trading company owner, he lamented that many distributors are engaging in 'suicidal' operations, knowingly supplying loss-making outlets with high fees and long payment cycles. This reflects the brutal reality of market competition, where only those with deep reserves can survive the elimination round, akin to polar bears surviving hibernation on their fat layers. The article categorizes this competition into 'external' and 'internal' forms, emphasizing that to win externally, one must first strengthen internally.
高级研究员 海游Let's Sentence the ABCD Outlet Classification to Death
The traditional A/B/C/D outlet classification, based on the assumption that all consumers are alike and that distribution plus visits plus merchandising will grow the business, is outdated. Today's retail market is oversupplied, and outlets have become highly differentiated by time, location, and consumer behavior, so brands must shift to a multi-dimensional model that defines outlets by people, time, scenario, and behavior.
赵波Lightning Warehouses Won't Take Away Distributors' Business, But Will Eliminate Some Distributors
Since the second half of this year, the closure rate of downstream stores has been rising, and B2b businesses nationwide are struggling, mainly due to the significant impact of lightning warehouses on small stores. As internet platforms intensify instant retail, the density of lightning warehouses is increasing, causing many distributors to feel a sense of crisis. Some distributors are considering building their own warehouse stores, but most have not succeeded; instead, those supplying goods to lightning warehouses are doing well.
葛畅China Instant Noodle Industry Report: Master Kong's Gross Margin Rises for Three Consecutive Years, Uni-President Has Four Products in Top 10 by Sales
The Chinese instant noodle industry faces dual pressure from food delivery and pre-prepared dishes, leading to declining sales. However, the market is rebounding with a shift toward health and mid-to-high-end products, as evidenced by Master Kong's three consecutive years of gross margin growth and Uni-President's four products ranking in the top 10 by sales volume.
专注消费的Ignoring Category Management Means Dealers Can Only Run Inefficient Businesses!
This article is a supplement and extension of a previous one, continuing to explore how dealers can do category management well in combination with the retail industry. Without category management, dealers' survival space will be locked down. The article proposes three core viewpoints: choose the right stores and sell the right products, optimize resource allocation to reduce operational risks, and increase volume and profit to enhance competitiveness. It also provides specific methods for dealers to implement category management, including deciding whether to prioritize category or brand, adapting to the retail trend of 'wide category, narrow product', and deeply binding category management with retail outlets.
高级研究员 海游From Deep Distribution to Super Sales: A Veteran Company's Nationwide Breakthrough
Founded in 1982 and headquartered in Zhengzhou, Henan,金星啤酒 (Jinxing Beer) has evolved from a regional player into a key modern enterprise in China's beer industry, especially in the craft beer segment. In the past two years, it has successfully transitioned to the Chinese-style craft beer track, with a strategic transformation that has drawn attention. This article analyzes the challenges it faced and the four-pronged strategy (new products, new channels, new communication, new organization) that drove its success.
公方刚The Faster You Distribute, the Faster You Die: It's Time to Upgrade Your Sell-Through Strategy!
During dealer visits, we often hear complaints: "Products reach the terminal, promotions are launched, but they just don't sell." In the past, products displayed in supermarkets with large displays and eye-catching promotions attracted consumers. Now, even with aggressive promotions, sell-through is poor, even for products from major manufacturers. Often, the product isn't the issue; competitors sell well. A key reason is the wrong operational sequence: building awareness before purchase is crucial.
金名“We've Done Everything We Should—Why No Sales?”
Over 20 years ago, when I was deputy editor-in-chief at Sales & Marketing, frontline salespeople at monthly editorial meetings would often complain: “We've done everything we should, but sales aren't growing—what can we do?” This topic later disappeared as deep distribution models revived growth. Now it has resurfaced, signaling that current marketing models have become ineffective. The solution lies in finding the next standard action template, such as bC-integrated user operations, to stay ahead in competitive markets.
刘春雄Under 'Taste Marketing', Distributor Profits Have Been Halved
This year, I visited many distributors and found a general pattern: among large and medium-sized trading companies, distributors born in the 1980s and 1990s are significantly more profitable than those born in the 1960s and 1970s. The older generation's 'taste marketing' approach is a key factor. Times have changed, and if distributors don't adapt their business models, even a favorable environment won't help them. This article discusses this topic and offers suggestions for improving profits.
高级研究员 海游Don't Get Swept Away by Traffic! Instant Retail Is Just Redoing the 'New Terminal'
Over the past six months, the entire FMCG industry has been chasing instant retail. Platform subsidies refresh daily, flash sales wars rage on, and lightning warehouses have expanded from thousands to tens of thousands. Many have concluded that traditional marketing is obsolete and must be reinvented. However, I'd argue that instant retail is not the end of marketing but the return of terminal marketing. What has changed is the terminal's 'operating system'—from physical rules to algorithmic rules, from weekly/monthly rhythms to daily/hourly rhythms.
陈思廷Zong Fuli Steps Down as Wahaha Chairman! Power Transition Reaches a Critical Moment
Wahaha has once again found itself at the center of public attention. On November 27, an announcement of business registration changes seemed to put a definitive end to the months-long internal turmoil at Wahaha: Zong Fuli officially resigned as legal representative, chairman, and general manager of Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co., Ltd. Her successor is not a traditional professional manager or founding veteran, but a 31-year-old legal background executive, Xu Simin. Although Zong Fuli still holds 29.40% of Wahaha Group's shares, remaining the second-largest shareholder, her retreat from the management core marks the end of the era of full control by the Zong family.
New DistributionRen Wenqing of New Distribution: Warehouse-as-a-Store Becomes the New Terminal, Brands Must Occupy Positions Early
On November 25, 2025, the '2025 Instant Retail Supply Summit and First Instant Retail Warehouse-Store Product Matchmaking Conference' was held in Hangzhou, where Ren Wenqing, CEO of New Distribution, delivered a keynote speech titled 'Viewing Supply-Demand Matching from Instant Retail: How Brands Grow in an Era of Surplus?' Core viewpoints: 1. Warehouse-as-a-store becomes the new terminal. 2. The logic of instant retail development is supply-demand matching. 3. Matching is the first growth law in the era of surplus. This article is a core summary of the speech. Instant retail has moved from traffic wars to supply wars. Today, brands...
任文青AndyAbandoning 150 Million P&G Business, B2b Startup Hits 6 Million Monthly Sales in Six Months! What Did Leguan Yigou Do Right?
In China's FMCG industry, the past three decades were a period of 'easy wins.' A generation of distributors once dominated channels thanks to a few major brand dividends. But today, that path is clearly no longer viable. After talking with many distributors, we found that brand dividends are gone, business growth is sluggish, and transformation seems to be the only consensus—but how exactly to transform? We've seen many successful cases, and we've been thinking: is there a more down-to-earth example that ordinary distributors can see themselves in and truly learn from? Yes! The story of Leguan Yigou is such a case.
张雨薇