Cofco: Whole industry chain and whole network marketing

IT manager World September 2012

Now a lot of people are looking for Ying, there are Cofco Group's brand marketing director, has wanted to agent Cofco food channels, as well as the electric business open platform for the investment director. This situation is not difficult to understand: a good brand is the electricity business scarce resources, from the whole network of grain to take goods, business is bound to be booming.

As China Food Limited (COFCO Group in Hong Kong listed as a holding subsidiary, hereinafter referred to as China Food, the director of E-commerce, Ying indeed hands enviable good card: Cofco Group is Fortune 500 enterprises, the top of China's food industry, the product line covers from the field to the table in almost most areas, The Chinese food is responsible for the group's brand food sales, with about 400 food brands, nearly 6,000 products items. In a word, it is possible to assemble a medium-sized food supermarket by simply using Cofco's own products.

Since Cofco Group in 2009 put forward the "whole industry chain" strategy, the original scattered many brand product lines together, forming a strong brand fleet, which also let the grain in the field of electrical business quickly open the situation. At present, the power of Cofco exploration can be divided into two parts, one is a self-built business of the food dealers website I bought a net, after the evolution of food-oriented electric business platform, and the other is the Chinese food set up in the grain of electricity, it is not only for me to buy nets, Jingdong Mall, Amazon, Pat Net, Dangdang and other electrical distribution channels supply, and in the Day Cat Mall, Jingdong Mall, Pat Nets, such as the opening of the flagship store, the construction of a "direct sales + full network distribution" of the entire network of electrical business pattern.

This is an important drop of the whole net chess game is on February 18, 2011, the cereal Day Cat Mall flagship store on-line, only uses 10 months time, the single shop revenue amounted to 19.4 million yuan sales, but this year's target is 100 million yuan. As for the output of a single shop, an online shop has been able to produce the results that the store could not imagine, which surprised Chinese food executives and employees. So, to speed up the whole network layout, to seek a greater breakthrough has become the focus of this year.

Ying, however, saw an invisible ceiling sold by a whole network of electric dealers: according to his estimates, food brands in the days of the cat direct sales, Taobao distribution and Taobao outside the distribution of three will form the pattern of 1:1:1, Cofco food sales will be stuck in the number 300 million yuan.

Compared to Chinese food more than 30 billion yuan per year, 300 million yuan is only drop. Ying said: "E-commerce is a destructive creation, it will bring enterprise marketing, supply chain, channels and other aspects of the changes, so we must find out the value of the electricity outside the sales." ”

Aggregate Long Tail

Unlike everyone's imagination, the power of Chinese food to power is not so strong, this is an interesting brand paradox: the same age of the new Chinese food industry giants, has long been accustomed to the bulk of import trade, a ship of goods is tens of millions of or even hundreds of millions of yuan list, and to extend from 2B to 2C, By a ship to sell goods into a bag to sell, one of the gene collisions imaginable.

In addition, Cofco group in the history of the succession of many "Chinese character head" of foreign trade food Enterprises, the formation of a food giant, but its son brand many even their own staff can not enumerate, such as the oil, the Great Wall wine, Jindi chocolate, grain dojo, such as high visibility of the brand will become popular, But some other in the characteristics of tea, honey, coffee and other categories of small brands are more embarrassing, has been facing the "wine is also afraid of the Deep Alley" challenge.

Andalusi is a case, as COFCO Group in Spain registered olive oil brand, its high-end positioning, Spanish local suppliers, imported, plus the strong brand effect of COFCO, almost everything, but is not to make visibility. Ying chose the active door-to-door "Lanhuo", convince the market will Andalusi put in the cat flagship store to sell, the result is less than a year to do its overall sales of 1/10--Andalusi online under the 1200 supermarkets, a simple conversion, an online shop has been to its hundreds of lines under the sales total.

"Perhaps only 100 of the 10,000 people who go to the supermarket will buy olive oil, but the Internet can aggregate the same needs around the country, which is the long tail polymerization of the web," he said. "In Ying's view, the minority brand with the electricity quotient has the natural connection, the brand and the sales can achieve unprecedented breakthrough through the electric business channel."

Now, China's Food Network channels are selling more than 20 subordinate to the Cofco minority brands, items also reached thousands of scale, such as fragrant snow flour, mountain honey, sea wall tea, ke Portofino brand coffee and other niche products, demand for the whole network marketing and was detonated, the brand has also been rebuilt.

This is not overnight can be done, with Ying own words, the CLP to learn the internet tactics, such as "first shot after the shooting", "small Steps to run" and "little wins into a big victory" and so on. These are offline sales are difficult to implement, and the Internet has a very low cost of trial and error, you can constantly look for business opportunities, and constantly snowball to form a breakthrough potential energy.

In the actual propulsion process, the problem that the grain electricity trader encounters is the gene collision behind. Many business units have doubts, both the sales do not have a big deal, but also fear in the event of a big impact on the offline channel. Ying on the one hand in the group organized a number of electrical business communication will, preach the value of the electric quotient, and on the other hand, he needs to make some successful cases, good cases will spread rapidly within the group, and more people will come to discuss whether to try Hydro-electric business.

For example, Cofco's Chinese tea companies are aggressively laying out their own stores under the line in recent years, has built 400 stores, each shop SKU number in 300400, when Ying last year to find them, as long as to the 10 range of low-end products, a year down, only the purchase amount is more than a line store sales.

China tea also has a coffee division, it is the largest coffee importers, such a professional supplier in the introduction of their own coffee brand Portofino, but encountered the challenge of selling products. If the line under the brand-building model, store entry, marketing, and so will spend a lot of money, more than to do the smooth bulk trade. Ying is also active contact, will Portofino put on the Internet, the results of last year's electricity sales accounted for Ke Portofino overall sales of 70%.

At the beginning of this year, the marketing vice president of tea in the initiative to find Ying, both sides together to study what kind of products on the internet to sell better, and even buy a competitor's best-selling products for comparative study. In the Chinese tea also for the grain Electric dealer specially custom 5 products, originally hides when the precious India need Darjeeling tea, as well as in Fujian small has the famous seawall tea, also all handed over the Ying.

"The important value of the long tail strategy of COFCO is to realize the electronic business of many sub brands and realize the complementarity of the offline channels." "Ying said.

Outside Sales

Anshui has a deep impression on Ying, as the co-founder of the Ruijin Network Technology Co., Ltd. He for the Dove, Lee Kam Kee, Ashley and many other enterprises have done a whole network distribution, experience is quite rich, but when the grain came to seek the cooperation of the Electronic business outsourcing, Ying said to him such a word: "Cofco not only value The electric dealer sales, We are more concerned about how Chinese consumers shop online after 10. ”

In saying this, ying on the value of the COFCO test utilities have been thinking for a long time, in addition to the need to occupy online retail channels, Cofco must be on-line to interact with consumers, and use e-commerce to promote innovation in enterprises.

What lurks behind this idea is a worry: under the line, Cofco can indeed through the traditional marketing methods, smashing heavily to shape the brand, but more and more of the beginning of the year, the group has begun to move away from the traditional media, and the way in which COFCO interacts with consumers needs to change, such as organizing a simple community event, including booths, people, color pages , equipment, such as the minimum cost of 1200 yuan, the impact of small, on-site income can not cover costs.

COFCO has organized a number of online marketing activities, the cost of the low, the effect of good, is a lot of old employees can not imagine. In this year's Tanabata festival, they planned a "Tanabata Festival show Love" activities, participants as long as the upload of a sweet couple photo, there will be a chance to get Golden Emperor Chocolate gift package. At the beginning of the event, Cofco first in Taobao "Gold coin" page issued "task box", one day to get 250,000 UV. Since then, Cofco began in the Taobao category Pinterest pictures of the community of the stubborn rabbit platform on the home page, carried out a series of four days of large screen activities, and the Jindi cat flagship store also synchronized follow-up.

Finally, the activity attracted about 1.5 million UV visits, 44361 people participate in activities, upload photos more than 5000, bringing the associated sales of nearly 80,000 yuan, while the food preparation value of nearly 242 box Jindi Chocolate gift Package, the cost of about 20,000 yuan, is the fame and wealth.

In addition to marketing changes, Ying that the internet will bring the traditional enterprise products, channels, supply chain and other aspects of the new value, which has been far detached from the impact of the online sales of simple demand. For example, the Grain Tun River (600737, stock) industrial companies have to enter the international popular food market, the convenience of plastic packaging can only be heated in the microwave oven for three minutes to eat, but Tun River Company in the early to accurately touch the taste preferences of consumption. As a result, Cofco to participate in the planning of a cost-effective group buying, launched four dishes, to a very low price sold more than 6,000 sets.

Two weeks later, a detailed consumer feedback analysis was submitted to the Tun River company, such as plum pork too sweet, soy ribs soup is not strong enough, boiled beef does not need to add calf meat, etc., which is difficult to do in the past in the short term online. and similar to this consumer participation in the product reengineering, now in Jindi, Yuet live and other brands to try. Distribution Youdao

In the face of intensified platform promotion war, or not with? Ying's answer is sure to follow! In his view, similar to the "double 11" big promotion of activities, for strong brand business, not on the issue, but with the brand online exposure related to the problem of life and death.

Sometimes the requirements of Taiwanese businessmen will be more stringent, such as Taobao will require you to 50 percent discount, for many do not have the channel under the Tao brand, it is not difficult, but in the grain is difficult. COFCO has developed a set of product combinations, such as a teddy bear in the Jindi chocolate gift box, avoiding strict price controls and maximizing exposure online.

Another problem with a full network operation is how to carry out the differential operation under multiple platforms. "To achieve full network distribution coverage is no doubt, but we will push different points, such as you sell on Taobao on the instant noodles, on the east of Beijing can, this is the platform characteristics of the difference." "Ying, for example, Taobao has a majority of female users, Jingdong vice versa, at the same time, Taobao is good at using a sporty way to build explosive products, but like the Amazon platform is not to do promotions, it is more willing to encourage brand manufacturers to do day-to-day product operations, you do better, Amazon's back-end system will give more resources to tilt.

Ying has also carefully studied the largest retail store in Taobao, Sugar House, it only sell the most popular food products, items in the 1000 or so, annual sales can do 300 million yuan, and the Chinese food Cat flagship store is still pushing their own long tail product, direct sales can do 100 million yuan is the limit. Now the electric business platform will also follow the definable internet field of "721" principle, Taobao platform will still be a single, jingdong and other platforms closely followed, to this prediction, ying that the grain of the electricity dealers will encounter sales bottlenecks.

In fact, for the 2B strong brand of Cofco, the consumer distribution is more like the touch of consumers, the necessary tentacles of the market, but the real distribution of the whole network is business-to-business distribution.

Now, Ying is planning the next breakthrough path for Cofco, through the development of a large number of online business-to-business distribution dealers, the Cofco food to the three or four-line city and other mature channels did not touch the region, thus forming a "direct sales flagship store +B2C distribution +B2B Distribution" of the new pattern, which will be the future of COFCO electric business.