Author — Acceptable
The sales volume is not enough, and the red envelope comes to make up for it......
In the face of problems such as sluggish sales, high inventory, and declining liquor consumption, the promotion war in the liquor industry with "reverse red envelopes" as a drama is intensifying since 2023.
Famous wine companies entered the game
In this noisy promotional drama, attacking the C-end has become the main theme, and many famous wine companies have also been involved in it - under the drama, whether it is the traditional famous liquor represented by Wuliangye, Guojiao 1573, Gujinggong, etc., or the new "princes" such as Zhenjiu, a new dish of "opening the lid, scanning the code, and receiving red envelopes" has been added to the marketing scene.
In this promotion war, reverse red envelopes are widely used as a digital means, with different amounts of red envelopes, and the promotion methods and content are also diverse. Among them, the highest amount of red envelopes can reach 4,999 yuan, and at least "another bottle".
The purpose of liquor companies to stimulate the market with red envelopes is nothing more than to help channel merchants do a good job of "destocking" by stimulating and increasing the corkage rate of liquor in the terminal consumption link, and then win more consumers for the brand liquor that the factory itself participates in the next competition in the market environment of stock competition.
Because of the demonstration effect of the pioneers, in this reverse red envelope war, more and more national famous liquor companies, as well as well-known brands in real estate liquor have been pulled into the "battle situation", and almost every company has shown full sincerity, trying to stimulate the sales growth of their own products by grabbing the pain points of consumers by scanning the code to send red envelopes.
Reverse red envelope, destocked as standard?
During the epidemic, although the consumption scene of liquor showed a cliff-like decline, the performance of listed liquor companies in the capital market was exceptionally good - between 2020 and 2021, the stock price of liquor collectively hit a new high, and the stock price of most listed liquor companies has doubled.
On July 6, 2020, the market value of Kweichow Moutai exceeded 2 trillion for the first time, causing a carnival in the industry. However, under the epidemic, the carnival of liquor is always short-lived, and from the second half of 2022, the market trend will gradually change and the industry will adjust. The liquor market has fallen into a state of sluggish sales, weak market, channel pressure, high inventory, inverted prices, and confrontation between manufacturers due to contradictions, and there have even been dozens of sensational news in the industry that dozens of distributors have taken a liquor company to court.
In the ensuing time, how to stimulate consumption, pry up sales, protect the market, how to destock, and how to increase the corkage rate have become the mainstream direction of liquor marketing. 2023 is regarded as a key year for the liquor market to "restart" after three years of the epidemic, but it is also from this year that in the context of the overall decline of the market, issues such as dynamic sales, inventory, and manufacturer relations in the liquor industry have gradually become the focus of attention.
Destocking became the mainstream of the market, and then there was a promotion war with "reverse red envelopes" as a promotional tool. Especially at the beginning of the mid-Autumn Festival and National Day liquor sales season in 2023, with the purpose of helping channel merchants "clear inventory", the policies of liquor companies have been tilted towards the C-end, and reverse red envelopes have gradually become the market standard. However, despite this, it is still unable to leverage the willingness of the terminal to stock up, and it is difficult to stimulate the channel to press the goods.
It was a good medicine, but it was played as "poison"
If used well, the biggest effect of the reverse red envelope lies in the stimulation of the consumer terminal, and thereby stimulates the market consumption of the liquor brand.
In the era of stock competition, when choosing liquor, everyone is more inclined to brands that can bring benefits and practical benefits to themselves. In addition to high-end consumption, scanning the code to get red envelopes is indeed one of the promotional methods that can bring interest to the consumer public.
The application of reverse red envelopes is to use digital means to divide the marketing expenses and market profits in liquor sales through the benefit distribution model set on demand, part of which is given to consumers, and stimulate consumption, increase sales, and lock in customers by allowing them to get benefits, while the other part is bound to the purpose of promoting open bottle consumption, and also uses red envelopes to return to dealers.
Under this model, even if some products are no longer sold at the dealer level, they can also ensure the profits of dealers, thereby reducing the opportunity of market price inversion and avoiding the "lose-lose" situation of messing up the manufacturer's market and losing dealers' profits.
It stands to reason that this is a "good medicine" for wine companies and distributors to work together to stimulate market sales, but there are always crooked monks among the distributors who chant crooked scriptures, and they have turned the "tonic" that should have been used on consumers into a market "laxative" through more secret "cheating methods", resulting in the desire of enterprises to activate the market and stimulate consumption through reverse red envelopes was wantonly humiliated.
Activate channels and increase open rates
In the past two years, the inventory of the liquor industry has peaked, which has become a problem to be solved, which not only affects the enthusiasm of liquor dealers to make payments and purchases, but also makes some merchants in the state of "boiling winter" have the idea of retiring and giving birth to the idea of not renewing the agent.
Obviously, the poor economic environment, the lack of profitability in selling liquor, and the large inventory, the difficulty of dynamic sales, and the tight capital chain are several major factors that have dealt a blow to the confidence of liquor distributors. In the state of unbalanced contradictions among manufacturers, the future performance growth of liquor manufacturers has also shown great uncertainty. The widespread use of reverse red envelopes in the liquor industry may be based on this background.
At first, wine companies used reverse red envelopes for three purposes: one is to effectively stimulate C-end consumption, the second is to stabilize market prices, and the third is to stimulate channel vitality on the premise of ensuring the profits of channel dealers. The logic is that when a bottle of wine is sold, as long as the consumer scans the code, they can get a red envelope reward, and at the same time, the tobacco hotel that sells the bottle of wine, and the distributor who supplies the tobacco hotel, can also get the corresponding rebate.
Scanning the code means opening the bottle for consumption, and the number of scanning codes represents the opening rate of a brand. Therefore, during the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day in 2023 and the New Year's Day and Spring Festival in 2024, many liquor companies will take the corkage rate as an important consideration for the effect of channel "inventory clearance".
Under the premise of stimulating terminal consumption, increasing the opening rate, and helping channel providers who are under inventory pressure to "destock", with the help of reverse red envelopes, through the reasonable distribution of benefits based on digitalization, the whole channel is full of vitality, which may be the real original intention of wine companies to participate in the reverse red envelope promotion war.
The cat behind the reverse red envelope
Some industry insiders said that the reverse red envelope not only improves the enthusiasm of the terminal sales staff to recommend to users, but also improves the efficiency of the use of enterprise expenses, especially in the banquet scene, some people will take the initiative to open the bottle in order to get the red envelope, which has an immediate effect on improving the market sales rate.
However, as a promotional tool, there are also certain drawbacks and loopholes in the practical application of reverse red envelopes. Recently, some dealers have fed back the following information to understand the truth of wine, revealing the trickiness behind the "reverse red envelopes" - in actual operation, some red envelopes are not swept away by real consumers, but are cashed out by store sales staff and their relatives and friends.
"The products that have been scanned and received red envelopes are basically sold to consumers at a lower price. For products that have been scanned, the store sales staff will explain it to the buyer during the sales process. If the other party cares, the salesperson will give the product that has not been scanned to the other party, and if the other party does not care, the salesperson will sell the product that has been scanned to the other party, of course, the price will be relatively cheaper. The above-mentioned dealer said.
Although the reverse red envelope is not the majority of the products that are arbitraged by scanning the code, the practice of the salesperson selling the product at a low price after scanning the code to receive the red envelope is bound to have a certain degree of impact on the channel price system established by the manufacturer. Especially for high-end products with large red envelopes, selling products at a low price after scanning the code will directly lower the image of the product.
In addition, in the business scenario, it is common for wine buyers not to scan the code for the sake of face, which has also become one of the factors affecting the performance of the code scanning rate.