2023 is a year of ups and downs, with price fluctuations, channel changes, changes in consumption habits and changes in shopping scenes. Dealers in the confusing external environment, constantly adjust the structure, accelerate integration, looking for new business opportunities.

In a twinkling of an eye, the rabbit is coming, and the 2024 is about to get off to a good start. The definite and uncertain opportunities of this year tell us the importance of preparing for a rainy day and sowing channel business in advance. At the beginning of the Year of the Dragon, what channels are worth the advance layout of dealers?

On the whole, the offline channel reshuffle is still continuing. After more than ten years of development of hypermarkets, small and medium-sized supermarkets are forced to transform under the plight of increasingly segmented consumer demand and double-digit decline. Some channels are broken down, some channels from the bud to the rapid breakthrough, only a few months. As the travel heats up, consumers are subdivided, positioned and cultivated in the wave of consumption that is gradually warming up.

Opportunity 1: Snack discount stores and new snack formats

Talking about channel transformation, snack hard discount stores are still a hot topic that cannot be bypassed. Since the beginning of September, Wanchen Group has opened a merger conference in Beijing, and the head snack war has entered the second half ahead of schedule. First of all, "I want to come", "Adi Adi", "Laiyoupin" and "Lu Xiaochan" with Wanchen Group as the background have jumped to the top of the store through capital integration. Two months later, "Snacks are Busy" and "Zhao Yiming" came from behind to become the country's largest snack retailer. The two super snack systems occupy half of the national chain stores. Since then, it has been difficult for small and medium-sized chains to break through.

For a small number of dealers who can cooperate stably with the head platform, we should solve the capital problem and follow the platform to continue to be bigger and more stable. More importantly, actively seek the support of manufacturers, minimize the impact of prices on traditional channels, and continue to promote the development of snack channels in order to be more stable. Specification customization, new taste customization, gift boxes, etc. can effectively reduce the negative impact on the market both inside and outside the system.

For most dealers who cannot cooperate, we must first eliminate panic and actively respond. The channel value chain has completed the first round of reshuffle. Under such a general trend, blindly complaining cannot solve the problem. Big brands do traffic and small brands do profit, which is the survival logic of snack channels. Under such logic, it is doomed that it is difficult for first-line brands to return to the era of high gross profit, which also indicates that the traditional high additional price system of dealers is broken. Only by actively adjusting the gross profit structure of the business brand portfolio and adapting to the new environment with the terminal can it be possible to break through.

At this time, it is necessary to reduce the gross profit expectations of the head brand, while enriching the product portfolio, and gradually achieve multi-category compound profitability.

Opportunity 2: Explosive growth of travel channels

Travel channels are mainly divided by geographical location. In the past year, with the unbundling of housing market and education, going out for a walk has become the same demand of all ages. "May Day" and National Day travel demand has soared, and popular city attractions are always crowded. Coupled with camping, city walks and other activities in various places, travel can also be in front of and around. The park in front of the house also needs to rob tents early in the morning. The streets and shops of net red are full of people on weekdays. These are the rare consumption scenes of leisure food.

The airport network of high-speed railway station: the current recovery of tourism, "rush to travel" has become a high-frequency hot word. In the past, such a situation only appeared in important festivals, but this year, the "ticket rush fever" in some popular cities has spread from spring to summer. After the National Day peak, the Spring Festival homecoming wave came in the twinkling of an eye. Bus stations, high-speed rail stations and airport stores have seen explosive growth in passenger traffic. In the past, these stores had high gross profit requirements, high barriers to entry, and dealers did less. Today, with the rapid growth of demand, dealers must find ways to overcome it!

➤ High-speed toll station outlets: Similarly, it is not difficult for friends who often drive to find that in the past two years, high-speed toll stations, as one of the city's business cards, have also been upgraded to varying degrees, becoming more and more humane and personalized. With the increase of self-driving travel, high-speed toll stations have also become one of the traffic hotspots of travel channels. Among them, many toll station supermarkets have obvious district chain, headquarters negotiated, branch supply, circulation efficiency is much better than some off-line supermarkets.

Major scenic spots: this year, the main scenic spots crowded people has become the norm, and nut potato chips category completely fit such a consumption scene, even if the entrance fee is slightly higher, dealers also need to take the initiative to try. At present, the flow of scenic spots is stable and continuous, and the internal and surrounding outlets have become rare high-quality channel assets for dealers.

Park, night market, pedestrian street outlets: today's weekend tour is no longer limited to cross-city travel. Park camping, night market barbecue, walking around the street, have become the city people go out to relieve the pressure of the daily choice.

There is a clear difference between these outlets. On weekends, the flow of people is soaring, effective tasting, brand promotion and promotion team are all effective means to strengthen sales on key sales days. Dealers can combine various scenarios to learn more, try more and sell more effectively.

Opportunity 3: The best layout period for campus stores

Campus network this year also ushered in a high multiple growth. Looking back at last year: student groups are either locked up in dormitories or locked up at home for online classes. Mobility is suppressed and it is more difficult for dealers to get in and out under the closed management of universities! However, it is very difficult for the campus store not to grow today! Dealers can complete indirect coverage through some stable upstream wholesalers. If conditions permit, they can directly enter the campus store to reach stable cooperation and recover the lost campus sales for several years!

These campus outlets are roughly divided into the following types of channels:

The national chain into the campus: such as retail family, Rosen, 7-11. At present, there are a large number of convenience stores in colleges and universities, such as the morning light, which makes stationery. Even if they are in the same system, these stores sell much better than the same type of stores outside the school because of the closed blessing inside the school. Dealers need to look at the national chains in these campuses together with the brand team, and what new actions can be taken to obtain more increments. The sales feedback brought by these new actions will definitely be greater than expected.

Local on-campus chain stores: In addition to the national chain, more stores are monopolized by the local education supermarket chain, and have a strong regional nature, which is very suitable for dealers to cooperate in depth. They are generally based on provinces or core urban agglomerations, covering dozens of stores, with high gross profit, stable supply and strong store control. In addition to distribution and display, large-scale activities such as "opening season" can also be done in combination with the store situation, with many opportunities for in-depth cooperation.

Campus stores/dormitory stores: Compared with local chains, campus stores are easier to conquer. Dealers should not only pay attention to distribution promotion, but also pay attention to high-quality display positions to obtain more product exposure and transformation. In addition, in recent years, students' self-employed "dormitory shops" have sprung up. These students' start-up units are mainly active after 10 pm. Food and drinks are the main consumers. If one or two student shops can break through and then cover the surface, it is also a very considerable low-cost traffic business for dealers.

On-campus food delivery platforms: As many take-out platforms cannot enter colleges and universities, some on-campus food delivery platforms have emerged. In addition to being responsible for ordering and delivering meals to dormitories in the school canteen, they also built their own O2O platform and set up transit warehouses in major universities. The stock is mainly snacks, and orders are placed on the platform and delivered to the dormitory together with take-out, which is also very popular with student groups.

Some of the above opportunity channels have already formed a scale from point to point, while others are still in their infancy. It is difficult for us to fully outline the overall picture of the current channel evolution in a short time.

The 2024 challenge is still severe, and the speed of channel evolution will not slow down. Only by keeping up with the market, stabilizing the traditional channel market and actively laying out the trend channels can dealers not fall behind. If you want to find a definite breakthrough in this changeable and complex external environment, it is to stick close to consumers and be a dealer who understands consumers in order to seize the channel. This is the obligation of manufacturers and the bounden responsibility of dealers.