A distributor is a unit or individual who only owns sales or services in a certain area and field. This is the dealer. Distributors have independent operating institutions, own the ownership of goods (buy out the products/services of manufacturers), obtain operating profits, operate in various ways, and their business activities are not limited or rarely restricted by suppliers, and their responsibilities and rights are equal to those of suppliers.

Dealer: As the name implies, it refers to a businessman who buys goods from an enterprise. They don't buy goods for their own use, but sell them by hand. They only sell by hand, paying attention to the price difference, not the actual price. Enterprises do not sell to dealers on credit, but collect money. This business refers to businessmen, that is, institutions. Therefore, "dealers" are generally enterprises, or commercial units that take money from enterprises to purchase goods.

businessperson

Although the investigation of dealers is divided into a separate part in the investigation content, dealers, as an important link in the sales channel chain from enterprises to terminal retailers, play a huge role in the market. And dealers can get the most market information. Therefore, the investigation of dealers can involve almost all the investigation contents, and it is precisely in this way that the investigation of dealers is extremely important.

As the traditional backbone channel force in China market, distributors are being tested by the wave of channel flattening and new channel forces. Under great pressure, distributors passively or actively adjusted their business development strategies:

First, some dealers began to OEM manufacturers and even invest in factories to produce their own brand products in order to maximize the benefits of channel resources;

Second, some dealers began to enter the retail field and extend to the downstream of the channel to stabilize and consolidate the market position;

The third is to maximize the acquisition of superior product resources, share operating costs and risks with products, and pursue the category scale of enterprise management. Unfortunately, more dealers are becoming vassals of manufacturers and are completely trapped by manufacturers. What's more, under the double "squeeze" of terminal retailers and manufacturers, there are many difficulties. What is even more frightening is that the disadvantaged groups among dealers are constantly being eliminated.

1, the agent can be a single brand or multiple brands, usually a single brand; Dealers must represent many brands, such as Shiping and Longlin. Distributor is a general term, including agents, distributors and simple traders (who can get goods from manufacturers or other places).

2. Agents are distributors and dealers, but distributors and dealers are not necessarily agents. Dealers are no different from dealers.

3. Distribution is a concept of sales model. Dealers are transit stations, and production enterprises entrust products to transit stations for sales. The agent is authorized by the production enterprise to sell at the terminal in a certain area. Distributors are similar to traders and trade freely.

4. Dealers broadly include agents and dealers; Whether the existence of agents and distributors is authorized. Of course, there are many kinds of agents.

5. Mainly from product ownership: the distributor owns the ownership of the product; Generally speaking, agents have no ownership and only charge commission for brand sales. Dealers generally only do channels, not terminals.

6. Distributor: authorized by the original factory to sell all products and handle business on behalf of the manufacturer. Dealer: A trader who can get the goods in the original factory can't get the rebate without the authorization of the original factory. Agent: the original factory is authorized to sell some products, and the original factory will give rebates and so on. Some foreign agents are also called dealers. The supporter of the agent is the original factory (unique to a single brand). We generally understand that dealers and distributors are integrating market resources, serving customers and supporting from multiple points!

7. Dealers are divided into ordinary dealers and special dealers. The former has no restrictions, just like ordinary daily necessities outside, while the latter has some special agreements with big agents or manufacturers in sales and product prices. Dealers are between agents and dealers. An agent refers to a merchant who is authorized by the manufacturer to sell products in a certain area during the sales process. It is divided into four levels: regional, national, provincial, city and county, and it is also divided into exclusive agent, general agent and graded agent. All agents have corresponding permissions. In principle, low-level agents are managed by high-level agents.

Many companies write about the responsibilities of factory representatives: effective management of dealers. With this sentence, many salespeople seem to have picked up the sword on the side and managed it in a decent way. In fact, the use of the word "management" for dealers cannot effectively express our responsibilities. It should be said that the work done by factory representatives for dealers should be carried out around four aspects: guidance, assistance, communication and control. Taiwan Province people's understanding of this can be summarized by the word "business flow". You know, most of our sales people only do one thing about "logistics", that is, urge the dealers to send the money and coordinate the company to deliver the goods to the dealers on time ... that's all. The concept of "business flow" is to consider how to pull up from the terminal, guide dealers how to operate products, assist dealers to establish distribution channels, act as a bridge for manufacturers, facilitate smooth communication between them, and control dealers' operation behavior.

Enterprise values

Speculation, profiteering and hypocrisy that are not on the table still exist in the development process of domestic IT distributors.

In order to adapt to such an environment, some dealers will do some deceptive things when coordinating and communicating with customers. In fact, it is these self-righteous "smart people" who suffer in the end. I cheated the customer once, but what about the second time? How much will it cost to make it up? This is the reason why many good brands are getting worse and worse in the hands of a dealer.

For dealers, there should be cultural connotation of advocating righteousness, respecting human feelings, embodying credibility and spreading correct values in enterprise management. Gone are the days when a company declared bankruptcy because it got a loan or defrauded a sum of money. Dealers must cultivate the consumer market with care, so that the development can be smooth, worry-free and labor-saving.

human resources

Paying attention to talents and respecting employees are the slogans that dealers shout loudly nowadays, but how much have they really achieved? In Jiangxi, it is a common phenomenon that salesmen of home appliance agents such as Siping and Nanfang earn 50,000 to 60,000 yuan a year, as high as 100,000 or even 200,000 yuan, but brain drain often happens.

For dealers, products, talents and network are the foundation of their survival. The instability of talents often leads to the temporary or partial paralysis of the sales network, which is very common in the marketing field. Hegemonism of individual bosses, individual heroism within enterprises and unbalanced management are all reasons for brain drain.

systems management

The development of domestic distributors can be summarized in three sentences: in the 1980s, it relied on courage; Relying on capital in the 1990 s; In the 20th century, it depended on management. Dealers must have their own advanced marketing management system, and strictly control the consistency, rationality, systematicness and systematization of execution and execution process.

For example, the financial department should not only be responsible for the operation of funds, but also manage the account period and assist in sales; The Ministry of Commerce should not only do a good job in customer management, but also do a good job in order management and item management. The warehousing department should not only do a good job in inventory management of best-selling products, slow-moving products and damaged products, but also collect feedback in time; The logistics department should not only be responsible for distribution, but also know how to plan orders.

Although on the surface, all departments are independent of each other. However, in practical work, timely communication and mutual assistance are needed to transform from the original transit operator to a marketing operator, provide a professional service system for manufacturers and downstream outlets, and become market managers and leaders.

development planning

Many dealers are eager to represent more good brand products or have greater regional agency rights, but why never consider their own financial security?

businessperson

Can the ranking and personnel placement be in place to meet the requirements of manufacturers?

Some agents, perhaps considering the problems of operating costs and profit margins, have tried their best to increase the agency rights of several brands. In their view, this can save more storage, travel, wages and other expenses. More brands and more profits can make the East shine. Who knows, several warehouses and businesses have been added, but the benefits have not increased much. On the other hand, funds can't turn around quickly, the inventory backlog is unbalanced, and the best-selling brands have no money to purchase goods. As a result, they almost lost their agency qualification and had to use mortgages such as real estate and cars to maintain their capital turnover.

It is not that the bigger the stall, the higher the profit. The decline of many well-known enterprises is precisely because of unrealistic crazy expansion, which leads to the weakness of their original flagship products and the decline of their influence in market competition. Dealers should first make their main products refined, refined, stronger and bigger, and then plan for greater development.

product mix

Making good use of marketing means for products can not only prevent price wars and commodity smuggling, but also condense the centripetal force of sales network and strengthen the influence of terminals. Therefore, the most important thing is to consider the product combination of various products distributed by merchants. In this way, when selling, it can not only promote each other's sales, but also use the complementarity between products to adjust the turnover rate of goods and accelerate the withdrawal of funds. The more detailed the distributor's product mix is, the more it can strengthen the channel operation ability, generate economies of scale, save costs and create profits.

financial management

There are still many dealers whose financial management only stays in simple bookkeeping, and their operating expenses are paid at will, and the procedures are incomplete, so the actual sales of their products cannot be reflected in the financial books.

In the minds of many dealers, the money they earn can be controlled at will, and the only approving personnel may be their wives, mothers and other relatives. Most of the time, these approvers just act as the chief financial officer. As for the salary standards, reimbursement standards, shopping standards and hospitality standards of company employees, they are often not considered, and there are no sound procedures and systems to regulate them. Therefore, many dealers sometimes think: "I usually earn a lot of money, except for those miscellaneous expenses, how to calculate at the end of the year?" Therefore, dealers must establish and improve their own financial management system, and monthly sales, profit and loss, assets and liabilities should be reflected in detailed data. Only in this way can we know how much we have earned, how much we have lost and what we need to do to reduce operating costs and turn losses into profits.

Responsibility, right and benefit

In the management mode of dealers, it is not difficult to find that the phenomenon of one person with multiple functions and one person with multiple functions is the most common. Unclear powers and responsibilities often lead to poor performance and mutual shirking.

In today's increasingly fierce market competition, dealers should establish a marketing team with excellent quality and fully clarify everyone's responsibilities, rights and interests-whoever sells and delivers goods should be implemented to specific individuals; How to assess people who cross posts and have multiple jobs should be fully institutionalized.

In order to effectively mobilize the enthusiasm of sales staff, we can try to decentralize the market policy, give employees more room for market operation, and implement the linkage of regional market responsibilities and rights, so that they can really get rid of the mentality of migrant workers and manage the market from the perspective of operators, thus improving the cohesion and combat effectiveness of enterprises.

cooperate

Manufacturers value sales most, and dealers value profits most, which is the focus of contradictions between the two sides. Some dealers often disregard scale profits for petty profits, preferring to earn a few more dollars rather than small profits but quick turnover.

Manufacturers and merchants complement each other, and will not strip too much profit from dealers in order to expand sales, and will not kill the goose that lays the golden egg for sales. Why do manufacturers launch sales strategies such as monthly return and annual return? This is not only an incentive, but also to protect the profits of dealers and make the cooperative relationship between the two sides more harmonious.

When developing new markets, especially in some markets without sales offices, when it is necessary to develop suitable distributors, how to evaluate the operating ability of these potential distributors is a test, because manufacturers know them very shallowly and have little information. At this time, you can learn more about potential dealers by the following methods:

1. Visit its peers or competitors;

businessperson

2. Visit its downstream or direct terminal customers;

3. Visit the boss of the potential dealer personally and get to know his ideas directly;

4. Visit the branch/store of the dealer, understand and observe its operation, and try to talk with its employee sales manager;

5. Acting as a third-party customer, directly testing the dealer's sales and service capabilities.

For the evaluation of dealer's ability, we can also use the system and tools of dealer's ability evaluation. The evaluation system mainly includes the following items:

1. According to the scores given to dealers in terms of loyalty and business operation ability, determine the value range of dealers and realize objective and unified evaluation criteria.

2. Subdivide the conditions such as loyalty and business operation ability to ensure a comprehensive evaluation of dealers and accurately determine the commercial value of existing dealers.

3. Analyze the background of the dealer company.

4. Understand the dealer's business development curve.

5. Understand the characteristics and development potential of dealers.

6. Evaluate the maturity of the dealer's business operation according to the clear process definition; Provide dealers with steps and guidance to improve the maturity of business operations.

7. Make clear the classification of cities, regions and end consumers.

Views and attitudes

Dealers judge things mainly by experience, that is, when accepting new things, they analyze them on the basis of their own experience accumulation, or make judgments within the scope of their own eyes. If they are widely exposed to new things they know and are familiar with, OK, that's fine, and they agree with each other and accept them casually. If the new affairs accepted are beyond their own knowledge, such as using a brand-new analysis system or a higher and wider observation height to analyze and judge problems, then many dealers subconsciously reflect resistance and doubt. Is it? Really? Is it possible? Fool!

For example, when launching a new product, few dealers conduct rational market research and analysis, but analyze and judge the market prospect of this new product according to their previous sales experience and the sales situation of similar products they can see. Of course, this method of analysis and judgment is very bad, which is why today we see a large number of dealers constantly looking for new products, constantly turning new products into dead products, and then looking for new products again and again. The reason for consuming a lot of money and energy.

On this issue, what dealers need to change is their mentality. Since they come to study and receive training, they are trying to make up for their shortcomings in many aspects and learn new things, instead of seeking personal acceptance and recognition, and relaxing their mentality to learn.

Treat trainers.

Many domestic trainers have a characteristic that they can't solve specific problems, but they are good at instilling a set of things that trainers insist on. To put it mildly, they give students a new way of thinking and experience for reference, and then ask them to think and analyze their own problems with the new way of thinking, experience and experience they have learned. In fact, this is very difficult, especially for dealers. In layman's terms, it tells you how to make a gun, not how to kill animals. Go home and figure it out yourself.

Moreover, many new ideas, new aspects and new ideas put forward by trainers have great requirements for the environment in the actual operation process, and the change of this environment is a process of drastic changes. From the perspective of safety and acceptance, most dealers can only accept gradual changes, because the risk of drastic changes is too great, and dealers are unwilling to use their hard-earned career as a training ground.

Let's give another example. Many training courses have mentioned the problems of channel construction and channel reorganization, and think that the comprehensive reorganization and integration of channels can better improve the utilization rate of resources and connect with the market. Yes, it will be like this in the future, but the current situation of dealers' existing channels has been accumulated for a long time and there are many mixed internal environmental factors. If they reorganize directly, the impact on the business will be very great; Secondly, once the old and new systems are not connected, it will undoubtedly bring opportunities to competitors; Thirdly, the workload of these changes is so great that we can't stop all business work to reorganize channels. What dealers want is actually to implement a step-by-step security gradual change method under the premise of determining the general direction of channel restructuring. It is not a big change in one breath, but a reorganization of all channels.

On this issue, dealers should think clearly before receiving training, what do I want, and I should solve those problems, prepare questions before learning, take the initiative to find opportunities to ask questions during training, especially after agreeing with some new direction concepts, and quickly ask some step-by-step questions to the trainer, otherwise the trainer will gradually lead everyone to a direction he has set, which is often a direction that can only be solved through drastic changes.

Business philosophy and ideas determine the way out; A dealer's thinking plays a decisive role in the development of a dealer, even greater than his financial strength.

For example, a dealer responded that your factory should advertise in our local area in order to sell well. Look at a certain brand, their local influence is stronger than ours. Without the advertising support of manufacturers, it is difficult for us to do it!

What are the business ideas?

1, the company's operating conditions

Judging the operating conditions of dealers from two aspects,

1) Ask him, how is the product selling? What is the monthly profit? See how he answers, and you will know how his marketing situation is.

2) Whether employees can be treated equally in terms of their mental state, whether they hire relatives and friends, their attitude towards relatives and friends, and their management status. You can see his management.

2. Willingness to cooperate

This is also a very critical quality. The will and attitude of dealers towards manufacturers is also the ideological basis for our long-term cooperation in the later period. Nothing can be done without will.

Willing to cooperate in three aspects,

1) Do you agree with the corporate culture of the company, including its cultural connotation, some systems, work style and future development strategy?

2) The enthusiasm of dealers. Some dealers have a good attitude and are very hospitable. Others are different. They are indifferent to everything, indifferent, indifferent and contradictory.

3) the confidence and ambition of the dealers and their prospects for the future,

3. Business reputation

1. What's your reputation in the same industry?

What is the reputation in the eyes of customers?

By talking to his employees and talking to his downstream customers, you will know how credible this is!

If they complain constantly, then choose carefully and cooperate carefully.

For example, there is an electrical appliance dealer, and his customers give him the evaluation that he sells more parallel imports, that is, there are many cottage products, so our products are given to him, and customers also think that our products are cottage versions, which is unclear.

A dealer should have three brands, 1, personal brand and personal reputation; 2. Company brand and company name; 3. Brand of distribution agent products;

4. Operating intensity

The operational strength of a good dealer is reflected in two aspects.

First, his financial strength; The financial strength relates to his later development scale and purchase degree; Lack of funds will affect his future development.

Second, his distribution ability, vehicles and personnel with distribution ability. When the new product starts to be promoted, can you increase the distribution of goods and can the personnel keep up?

Case, a clothing brand, develops the market nationwide through the way of exclusive stores; After winning the local distribution right, the dealers in the destination area have opened two specialty stores in the past two years, and the sales volume is very limited. They never have the financial and human resources to open new stores. This will affect the local sales of manufacturers, and we are going to change dealers again.

5. Distribution product line

See if there is any conflict between the products handled by this dealer and ours. If we are dealing with the products of our strong competitor and the sales volume is not bad, we will seriously consider whether he will promote our products.

6. Career inheritance

Some dealers are old and ready to pass them on to his next generation; You have to see if he can pass it on; Some dealers are difficult to inherit and can only make other plans;

The dealer we choose should be in full swing, not in love yesterday or even at sunset. Choice is greater than effort, regional manager and marketing director. We choose the most suitable distributor to develop our business according to the actual situation of the enterprise.

Retail is the symmetry of "wholesale".

Trading activities in which commodity operators or producers sell commodities to individual consumers or social group consumers. The characteristics are: the number of each commodity transaction is relatively small, and the number of transactions is frequent; The goods sold are consumer goods, which are used for daily consumption after being purchased by individuals or social groups; After the transaction, the goods leave the circulation field and enter the consumption field.

The word "retail" comes from the French verb "retailler", which means "chop up". It is a basic retail activity, that is, buying in large quantities and selling in small quantities. For example, convenience stores can buy canned beans in units of 24 boxes and then sell them in units of individual canned beans. But retail enterprises are not the only "bulk" commercial entities. Wholesalers can also buy in large quantities and sell in small quantities to consumers. But it is the consumer type that distinguishes retail enterprises from other distribution traders; Retail enterprises are characterized by selling to final consumers, while wholesalers sell to retail enterprises or other commercial institutions. Baker (1998) defines a retail enterprise as "any organization that sells goods to individuals or families and provides after-sales service".

retail

There is a tendency that retail mainly refers to the sale of tangible (material) products. However, it is necessary to admit that retail is a kind of sales that includes services. Service may be the main purchase of customers (such as haircut or air travel), or it may be part of the purchase of customers (such as delivery or training). Retail does not necessarily involve tangible goods. Mail order and telephone order, selling the Internet directly to consumers' homes or offices, and vending machines all belong to the retail category. Finally, there is not necessarily only one "retailer" in retail. Manufacturers, importers, non-profit companies and wholesalers play the role of retailers when selling goods or services to final consumers. On the other hand, the purchases made by manufacturers, wholesalers and other organizations for organizing use or resale do not belong to retail business.

Retail: all activities of selling consumer goods and related services to final consumers or social groups for their final consumption. This definition includes the following points:

1. Retail is an activity that provides goods and related services to consumers for final consumption. If a retailer sells car tires to customers and customers install tires on their cars, this transaction is retail. If the buyer is a car dealer, the car dealer assembles it in the car and then sells the car to consumers, it is not retail.

2. Retail activities not only sell goods to final consumers, but also provide related services. Retail activities usually provide various services related to commodity sales, such as delivery, maintenance and installation. In most cases, customers will also buy certain services when purchasing goods.

3. Retail activities don't have to be carried out in retail stores, but some facilities and methods that are convenient for customers can also be adopted, such as door-to-door sales, mail order, vending machines, online sales, etc. No matter how and where the goods are sold, the essence of retail will not change.

4. Retail customers are not only individual consumers, but also social groups that buy unproductive products. If the company buys office supplies for employees' office use; A school ordered flowers for a meeting room or a banquet. Therefore, when seeking customers, retail activity providers should not ignore group objects. In China, the average retail volume purchased by social groups is about 10%.

trait

Retail trade refers to the trade activities of selling goods or services directly to the final consumers. In trade operation, retail directly faces the final consumer. Through retail operation, goods leave the trade field and enter the consumption field, and truly become the object of consumption, thus completing the process of social reproduction. In this sense, retail is the end of the trade process and the terminal in the middle of production and consumption.

From the history of trade development, retail is the oldest trade mode, and the initial trade can be regarded as the embryonic form of retail trade. In the primary stage of market development, the small scale of commodity production determines the limited supply of commodities, and the self-sufficiency of consumers determines the limited demand for commodities. Therefore, trade activities are basically sporadic, scattered and small batches, and concentrated in a certain area, mainly carried out by retailers. Occasionally, large-scale or large-scale trade and transportation activities are also undertaken by retailers. Retail is the main form of trade activities. With the development of socialization and specialization of commodity production, the variety of commodities has increased, the demand has expanded, the transaction volume has increased, and the contradiction between production and sales has become increasingly acute. Between producers and consumers, only retail trade can no longer meet the requirements of social production and trade, and new trade transaction methods must appear. So retail and wholesale are separated. When wholesale becomes a line or a department in the trade field, retail is also unemployed because of selling goods to the final consumers. Compared with wholesale trade, the main features of retail trade are:

1. The transaction object is the final consumption of goods purchased for direct consumption, including individual consumers and group consumers. Consumers buy goods from retailers not for resale or production, but for their own consumption. Trading activities are carried out separately and dispersedly between business personnel and consumers.

2. The subject matter of retail trade includes not only commodities, but also services, that is, providing various services to customers, such as delivery, installation and maintenance. With the fierce market competition, the pre-sale, in-sale and after-sale services provided by retail have become an important means or field of competition.

3. The retail trade has scattered transaction volume, frequent transactions, small turnover each time, and a large proportion of unfinished transactions. This is the definition that retailers should have. Retail is defined as small sales in China. Because retail trade itself is an accidental business, the transaction object is a large number of scattered consumers, which determines that each transaction volume of retail trade will not be too large, and a small transaction volume cannot maintain lasting consumption. Accordingly, the frequency of retail trade is particularly high. It is precisely because the average transaction volume of retail trade is small and the transaction amount is frequent that retailers must strictly control their inventory.

Retail trade is greatly influenced by consumers' buying behavior. The object of retail trade is the final consumer, and there are many types of consumer buying behavior. Most consumers show unplanned impulse or emotional type when buying goods. Faced with this kind of consumption with obvious random purchase behavior, retailers should pay special attention to stimulating consumers' desire to buy and interest in demand if they want to expand sales. To this end, retailers can make efforts in stocking, commodity display, advertising, promotion and other aspects to make their business alive and develop.

5. Retail trade is mostly carried out in stores, with outlets of different sizes and wide distribution. Because of the universality, dispersion, diversity and complexity of consumers, it is far from enough to rely on a few retail outlets in a region to meet the needs of consumers. No matter the scale or layout, retail outlets must meet the needs of consumers as a starting point, and adapt to various needs of consumers such as shopping, sightseeing, browsing and leisure.

6. The retail industry is rich in varieties and distinctive in characteristics, because consumers often have to make choices and "shop around" when buying goods, in order to buy goods that they are satisfied with. Therefore, retail trade must have its own operating characteristics to attract customers, with sufficient inventory, rich varieties, complete colors and specifications.

function

Retail is at the end of trade management, which embodies the goal of trade management. The characteristics of retail industry determine that it has the following functions:

1. Realize the final sale of goods and meet the needs of consumers. Products in the hands of producers or wholesalers are only a conceptual use value, rather than a practical use value that may be consumed. Only when products enter the field of consumption can they become practical use value. In most cases, this needs to be achieved through retail trade. Retail trade directly faces consumers, delivers goods to consumers through the sale of goods, and finally realizes the value and use value of goods, which not only meets various specific needs of social production and life, but also provides conditions for value compensation and physical renewal for the restart of production process, and turns the surplus value created by producers into reality.

2. Service consumption, promoting sales function. Consumers' demand for goods and services is extensive, diverse and complex. In order to meet these demands, retail trade should not only provide rich commodities to choose from, but also provide various services around commodity sales, such as information service, credit service, sales service and after-sales service, so as to expand commodity sales. Under the condition of developed market economy, the service function of retail is more important.

3. Feedback information to promote production function. Retail trade is directly oriented to consumers, which can timely and truly reflect consumers' opinions and changes in supply and demand prices of commodities in the market, provide market information for producers and wholesalers, assist wholesalers in adjusting their business structure, and promote producers to produce more and better marketable commodities to meet consumers' needs.

4. Stimulate consumption and guide consumption function. Commodity display, advertising, on-site operation and promotion activities in retail trade can stimulate potential consumption demand, cultivate people's new hobbies and needs, guide consumers' consumption tendency, consumption mode and consumption fashion, open up a broader market for expanding reproduction and create new material conditions for the continuous improvement of consumption level.

trait

(1) The trading scale is small and the trading frequency is high.

(2) There are many impromptu purchases, which are greatly influenced by emotions.

(3) In-store shopping is still the main shopping method for customers.