文丨酒业家团队(ID:jiuyejia360)
Planning丨Guanlan Editor丨Yifan Editor丨Yunding
In the first quarter of 2024, although the wine industry has experienced a peak sales season for the Spring Festival that exceeded expectations, and listed wine companies have also reported good news of growth, the channel destocking and damming lake since 2022 still need to be solved.
Recently, the wine industry has investigated the channels in Shandong, Henan, Sichuan, Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi and found that in the first quarter, major wine companies have made efforts to sell during the Spring Festival, so that the pressure on channel inventory has been alleviated to a certain extent. However, from a dynamic point of view, under the pressure of a new round of payment and pressure launched by wine companies in 2024, channel distributors are generally facing a new round of inventory pressure.
According to the sample data of nearly 30 dealers surveyed, the current channel inventory level is generally about 40%, and the inventory pressure of a large number of dealers is increasing instead of decreasing, facing the dilemma of reducing costs and destocking. All indications show that destocking is still the main theme of the wine industry channel in 2024.
01
In the first quarter, dealer inventory increased instead of falling
"Spring Festival assist" is short-lived?
During the Spring Festival in 2024, a large number of wine companies will closely deploy Spring Festival marketing to help channels destock. Previously, a survey by the wine industry found that the sales of liquor during the Spring Festival in 2024 exceeded industry expectations, and the rise in volume and price made the industry get off to a "good start". During this period, channel inventory has also been alleviated to a certain extent.
"The Spring Festival sales still play a very intuitive role in the inventory pressure, the order volume during the Spring Festival is 2-3 times that of last year, and the inventory has also decreased by about 30%. Shandong distributor Li Song (pseudonym) told the wine industry.
In fact, thanks to the peak season dynamic sales, the easing of inventory pressure on dealer channels is a common phenomenon in the first quarter of 2024. Su Chen (pseudonym), a distributor in Guangdong, said: "This year's Spring Festival, the leading wine companies have invested a lot in marketing, and brands such as Luzhou Laojiao, Xijiu and Langjiu have performed well, with double-digit growth compared with last year. In the short term, it still plays a relatively good role in inventory health and channel confidence. ”
However, after the Spring Festival ended, the channel inventory situation showed a different picture. Most of the distributors surveyed by the wine industry said that the Spring Festival is a watershed, and the weak consumption and slowdown in sales after the holiday have caused the inventory of the wine industry to rise again.
Wine industry experts found that the current channel inventory accounted for 30%-60%, and dealers in different regions, different volumes, and agents of different brands are actually facing the same problem.
He Jun (pseudonym), a distributor in Chengdu, told the wine industry that due to the new round of payment and sales tasks from wine companies, the inventory pressure on channel dealers can be described as a wave of unsettled. "The previous inventory problem has not been solved, and the task of manufacturers in the new year is coming again. Distilleries are growing, and the number of tasks is generally increasing, which creates new inventory pressures. ”
Jiangxi dealer Chen Yu (pseudonym) is facing a similar situation. He believes that the famous wine warehouse is a high-risk area for channel problems. "I think the first quarter is divided into the year before and the year after the year, and the year before it is said that the past is over, but the year after the year is not optimistic. The percentage of stocks has not decreased, but has increased, because the wineries are still giving us more volumes. ”
Chen Yu revealed that due to the continuous growth of demand, many wine companies have begun to seek new channel distributors to transfer some channel pressure. "As far as I know, many wine companies are changing distributors and pressuring new distributors, and the old ones can't hold it anymore. ”
02
Stocked "dammed lakes" will remain for a long time
Reducing the brand of famous wines, low prices with high prices or new solutions
"In fact, every year the industry is facing huge inventory pressure, especially for famous wines. Inventory is dynamic, not to say that the Spring Festival consumes a large part of the inventory problem, can solve the inventory problem, every year the task of the manufacturer is constantly superimposed, continuous growth, dealers' inventory accumulation to the off-season digestion slow, it will form a new inventory pressure. Jia Fuchun, a liquor marketing expert, believes that under the superposition of the dual factors of the economic environment and consumption trends, the inventory pressure of the liquor channel has been normalized in recent years, and it will still be difficult to recover to a benign channel inventory level in 2024.
Under such circumstances, many distributors have revealed to the wine industry that they will become more conservative about the brand and business strategy in 2024. Some dealers plan to absorb inventory pressure by reducing the number of brands they represent. "In 2024, we plan to abandon 2-3 brands to ensure our turnover and survival first. In fact, from the outbreak of the inventory problem in 2023, there are many dealers making trade-offs, and at this time, the more brands in hand also means more pressure, and they can only give priority to brands that guarantee profits and have fast turnover. Zhejiang dealer Zhou Zekai (pseudonym) said.
In fact, under the price-sensitive consumer trend, dealers not only need to make trade-offs on brands, but also screen product prices. Guangzhou distributor Zhao Di (pseudonym) believes that the channel inventory should return to benign, or solve the current problem of inverted prices in the wine industry. "Nowadays, many high-end wines have not been recognized by consumption, and they used to buy one out of ten boxes and eight boxes, but now they are two boxes in one box. They all treat your suppliers as a small warehouse to operate, so dealers have to choose products, choose these high-quality products, and do it at high-quality prices. ”
In addition, Zhao Di predicts that rational purchase and comprehensive cost control will become the channel consensus in 2024. "With this year's inventory, everyone will not blindly go to the purchase, reduce the inventory as much as possible, reduce the occupation of funds, and will not rent any large warehouses, but also reduce labor costs. ”
This view is shared by most dealers. Gao Ming (pseudonym), a distributor in Henan, also told the wine industry that he is comprehensively reducing the purchase of famous wine and controlling inventory. "I am controlling the purchase volume of famous wine, and I no longer buy in large quantities. If you replenish the stock, you also need to replenish it, that is, you can go in and out, and you don't have too many goods. Recently, in this market, all kinds of wine have fallen, and we must try to control the purchase volume. ”
There are also voices that dealers who hold more high-end products are facing greater inventory pressure. Chen Ke (pseudonym), a distributor in Shenzhen, told the wine industry that high inventory in the early stage would also be troublesome. "In the process from 2021 to 2022, many distributors have accumulated inventory of soy sauce wine, and the brands of soy sauce wine mainly sell high-end wine. According to the current consumption situation, the sales rate of high-end wine is still very slow, and the inventory pressure is bound to persist. ”
In Chen Ke's view, wine merchants with high-end products accounting for a large proportion of the inventory structure can drive the sales of high-end products by developing low-end products. "It is relatively easy to destock the wine in the mass price band, and someone can pick up the dump goods, but no one will take the loss at the high price. Through the new development of some low-end products, with the drive of high-end products, can only be solved slowly in this way. At present, we are just going slowly with the high-end cheap, and we can still maintain it. ”