"Freezing is the best display" - this market operation strategy has become the consensus of players in the beverage industry.
After the May Day, as the temperature in various places rises to more than 30 degrees, the freezer war of various brands in 2024 has also begun to break out, and it has entered the stage of grabbing positions in full swing.
Dongpeng, Yuanqi Forest, Wahaha......
The freezer war is on the verge of breaking out
As with all other consumer industries, channel is crucial for beverage brands, and no matter how good the product quality is, if it can't reach consumers, it's all in vain.
Therefore, the last thing to fight in the beverage brand war is the channel reach point, and landing offline is the "freezer battle".
In 2024, Zong Fuli's "first shot" after taking over Wahaha is to accelerate the reconstruction of offline channels.
Some dealers revealed that at present, Wahaha is actively putting freezers into offline terminals, and dozens of freezers have been put into every nearby county, striving to allow every customer to buy Wahaha's related products in major supermarkets and stores. It is understood that some of them are smart freezers, which help brands to dynamically monitor the number of goods.
Dongpeng Beverage, which has more than 3.4 million terminal outlets, said that many consumers will decide what drinks to buy at the moment they open the refrigerator door, so the most basic work of doing beverages is to put products on the shelves and increase consumers' purchase frequency and single-point output.
At the investor conference at the end of last year, I was asked, "What is the goal of the future freezer launch?" Dongpeng Beverage said: "The company has accumulated more than 100,000 freezers in the market, and will continue to increase investment next year." Not long ago, Dongpeng Beverage said that this summer, the company will increase the launch of freezers, put sales expenses in front, and prepare for the summer ready-to-drink season in advance.
In an interview with investors, Xiang Piaopiao also said that freezing is an important resource to promote the sales of ready-to-drink products. Since 2023, the company has been increasing investment in frozen resources, improving the number and quality of terminal outlets, and at the same time continuing to carry out product innovation, expand product categories, and enrich the display of frozen products.
There is also Yuanqi Forest, which started online in the process of taking root in offline channels, an important breakthrough point is the occupation of freezer shelves. After the earlier "freezer dispute", in the past two years, Yuanqi Forest has spared no effort in the launch of offline smart freezers. The relevant person in charge of Yuanqi Forest said that as of September 2023, the company has laid 22,000 smart cabinets in 15 cities across the country.
In addition, Mengniu, Master Kong, Uni-President and others have never broken the layout of offline freezers, for example, Mengniu will put Xiaoice cabinets to merchants for free, and provide certain electricity subsidies to end customers; There are other beverage brands that choose to increase sales by offering discounts or subsidies to ensure that they only sell their own products in the freezer; Of course, there is no shortage of price wars between some brands, if you subsidize 50, then I will subsidize 70, and even the two sides continue to increase until they "win" this freezer battle.
Why are beverage brands so "obsessed" with freezer delivery?
According to public data, 79% of consumers will choose to buy iced drinks in summer, of which 81% will choose frozen products from other companies because the target drinks are not refrigerated; Placing freezers in terminal stores can increase point-of-sale sales by 29%, taking the most common single-door freezer on the market as an example, it can immediately increase about 50 rows and about 20 sales orders.
In the peak season of beverages, even in the northernmost northeast region of the motherland, refrigerated drinks are 7-8 times the sales volume of room temperature beverages, and this is the case in the north, not to mention the higher temperature in the southern provinces and cities, the gap will only be greater, and the sales volume will only be more.
Especially in the summer heat, people's demand for cold drinks has increased significantly, and the display and display function of the freezer is bound to increase people's purchase decision-making rate in the process of directing consumers while increasing brand exposure. In other words, the freezer is both a grab and another kind of advertising at the terminal.
Another point is that in the current terminal, the store owner basically rarely buys the freezer by himself, and if your brand does not invest in the freezer, the store owner will reduce the purchase, or give up your position to other brands, and people's target choice of summer ready-to-drink drinks is impulsive consumption, without the display of freezers, sales will be greatly reduced.
As Dongpeng Beverage mentions, "Many consumers only decide what drink to buy when they open the refrigerator door." It is precisely because of the continuous increase in the layout of freezers that many people in the industry also regard "freezing" as a strong support for Dongpeng Beverage's search for the "second growth curve".
Nowadays, in the offline channel, Dongpeng Beverage's subsidies for both its own freezers and rental freezers are huge, so we can see that Dongpeng Beverage's products are basically the most conspicuous position in the freezer beverage area.
How can brands play this "freezer war"?
For beverage brands, every freezer is a battleground for "ice".
But if you want to get twice the result with half the effort in the freezer, brute force alone will not work, or it will only do more with half the effort.
How can beverage brands smartly navigate this freezer war?
Competing for the golden spot is the key, that is, to know where your "battlefield" is, which street and which point to attack? Which areas to occupy quickly and which areas to infiltrate slowly? We must not ignore the input-output ratio and blindly make barbaric efforts to distribute goods for the sake of distributing goods, which is not only ineffective but also a waste of enterprise resources.
In this process, it is important to consider the following.
First of all, the net sales scale of the regional market, the large net sales scale represents the good market sales, and the brand can give priority to it as a key layout point; Secondly, it is necessary to analyze the historical distribution data of outlets, and select the best ones after sorting the high-sales channels and low-sales channels.
Finally, in the selection of outlets, it can be analyzed from two aspects: single store sales and geographical location.
One is the sales volume of a single store, in the statistics of a single store sales should not only consider their own brand, but also consider the sales of other brands in the same category, because the lack of business execution or other reasons may affect the sales of the brand's outlets, since there are multiple brands in the same category have sales, it means that there is a consumer base, the market potential is in, and the brand sales will naturally have the possibility of improving.
The other is the choice of geographical location, such as crossroads, near learning, around the community, scenic spots, business districts, snack streets, etc., some high-frequency coverage areas with large flow of people and the life trajectory of beverage target consumers are important areas for brand offline exposure, so it is also an inevitable layout point when the freezer is launched.
In short, the strong terminal frozen display is one of the most effective strategies to block competing products and increase the sales of this product. The golden opportunity for the peak season of beverages in 2024 is just around the corner, and the enthusiasm of brands for freezer delivery is also earlier than the high temperature.