How Do Agents Choose Brand Agents?

Saying: "men are afraid of going wrong, women are afraid to marry wrong men".

At present, the underwear industry is still the absolute mainstream in the way of agency operation. Therefore, as an agent, how can we choose a satisfactory brand to act as an agent?

First, the risk that the manufacturer may bring to the agent.

First of all, let's see if we choose the wrong brand, what risks can we bring to the agent himself?

The agent's goods are directly supplied by the manufacturer. Therefore, the business risks of agents come from their own sales quality, account control, cost control, personnel management and so on.

On the other hand, manufacturers will directly bring business risks to agents.

Such as:

1, burst warehouse: for the new agent brand manufacturer, there will be a first purchase restriction, although the manufacturer will promise to exchange it in a certain period of time, but underwear is not like other products, no style can be recognized by the market in one or two months, so the manufacturer may change the time limit when the time exceeds.

In addition, some factory salesmen often award the goods to the agents in order to complete their performance and write off. Most agents will be inaccurate in their purchases due to carelessness, obstruction or encouragement, and the final products will be unsalable in the warehouse, causing some losses.

2, break the goods: in the current market situation, whether it is international brand or domestic well-known brand, will be more or less out of stock in the peak season.

So for other domestic brands, let alone, because the manufacturers themselves production and marketing coordination is not accurate, goods supply arrangement is unreasonable, the market forecast ability is not enough.

Therefore, in the off-season, agents take pains to pay the cost and fight the market, but they lose their goods in the rush season, and they lose profits and hurt their customer relationships.

In particular, when new products are on the market, just when they are done, they may destroy all the inputs ahead, and it will be difficult to recover later.

At the same time, it has provided an opportunity for other brands to make their brands fail.

3, quality problems: product quality is not as good as promised before, or the quality of midstream product is declining, resulting in unsalable sales, and the factory can not return the goods to compensate for the early sales cost.

4, integrity problems: manufacturers did not or partially failed to honor their original promises of rebates, bonuses, and promotional activities, advertising times to advance money, goods and so on.

5, fleeing goods: the manufacturer's market management is weak, causing other agents to flee to their own area, causing confusion in the market, price confusion, and at the same time, the image of the agent is damaged.

6, change agents or reduce the agent area, but do not care about the inventory goods of the agents, you know, underwear, especially bra products, once the intermediate code is broken, the head and tail code will be difficult to sell, resulting in unnecessary losses.

...

Since agents have so many risks after acting for a brand, what should they do before deciding on the brand to minimize these risks?

Confucius said, "know yourself, know each other, fight all the battles, know the enemy and know the other, win or lose half and half."

Therefore, any agent should be aware of "one's own knowledge and one's own knowledge" before acting as a brand.

Two, agents should be "confidant".

Many agents complain that it is too difficult to cooperate with a good manufacturer: if you choose a big manufacturer, or you already have a "famous owner", or the big manufacturers "big bully", not only harsh conditions, low profits, but also "irregularities", and often find some excuses not to fulfill their commitments; if you choose small factories, the profit is higher, but the risk is too great.

What is more, if some fraudsters are confronted with the advance payment, the manufacturers may not know where to go.

The root of this situation is that agents do not know themselves clearly, nor do they know what manufacturers they need to choose.

The key factor to solve this problem is "bosom friend" and understand what kind of business it is and what kind of needs it has.

The "confidant" of agents is reflected in the following aspects:

First, identify your goals.

Do you have a plan to pursue short-term or long-term interests?

This determines the brand that we can operate.

If we want to pursue the long run, we should consider choosing one or several big manufacturers with strong strength, because the interests of these manufacturers are more stable and long-term, and the business risk is small, so we can not just take immediate interests, but should combine short-term interests or long-term interests to pursue the best interests of the two.

If it is short-term interest, which product will be made by which product is profitable, this business philosophy is popular in recent years, but in recent years, this business philosophy has been gradually withdrawing from the market because of its adverse impact on the healthy development of the agents.

Second, know your strength.

The strength is different. The conditions for choosing the other side are different.

This includes whether the agent is the new force in the local market, or the old business that has been in operation for many years; whether it is through the mainstream sales channel or the secondary sales channel; whether it is an agent with strong market regulation ability or a small and unimportant agent.

At the same time, we must make sure that we have a "right match" for our own capital, and only have a definite goal to find the suitable agent manufacturer.

Third, determine your market positioning.

Is it a middle and top grade product, or a general low-grade product? The consumer group is a close-up consumer, or an ordinary mass consumer group.

Only when the agent knows his position, can he find a suitable agent manufacturer.

Fourth, recognize your strengths and weaknesses.

Only in this way can we foster strengths and circumvent weaknesses and shorten the length of development, and choose the appropriate agent manufacturers to lay a solid foundation for winning the market victory.

The advantages and disadvantages of agents include: experience, marketing, sales, management, network resources, personnel quality, local relationship network and so on.

The more sober the agents know themselves, the more likely they are to find a suitable agent manufacturer to protect their health and sustainable development.

Three, agents should "know the other".

For agents, manufacturers are upstream suppliers, partners and strong supporters of market development. Manufacturers' behavior directly affects the interests of agents and terminal retailers.

Rather than in the days to come, it is better to choose a good partner from the beginning because of all kinds of irresponsible behaviors of manufacturers.

What is the standard of good manufacturers?

I want to see from the following aspects:

1, strength certification:

The more unnamed enterprises, the more important the strength certification is. Otherwise, the manufacturers are going to "shut, stop and turn" halfway. The agents will not only have their investment in the air, but also a lot of problems such as warehouse inventory, due rebates and so on.

The following aspects should be authenticated.

(1) enterprise scale and capital strength: knowing the number of factory staff and building of factory building, we know the strength of the factory.

Enterprises are large in scale and strong in capital. The manufacturers' capital chain is relatively stable, and their ability to resist risks is enhanced.

Product situation: through the understanding of the product quality and length and width of the product line, the sales situation is generally known.

The product quality is mature, the enterprise must have the scientific product mix, the different season has the different product to be able to sell, the different brand needs the different packing, satisfies the consumer's different demand.

Advertising publicity: manufacturers of various types of advertising investment and promotional programs, and so on, the reputation of large manufacturers is much higher than small manufacturers, advertising investment is also many.

2, reputation survey:

The choice of a business partner is like getting married and looking for an object. A beautiful woman who regards marriage as a child's play will bring her husband to a top green hat. The handsome man with a bad mark will probably be a reluctant man. What matters is whether he is sincere, whether he has credibility or not.

1. Promise to cash in: whether the manufacturer's promise to return goods is timely, rebate, and whether the reward is punctual; whether there has been any product quality problem, whether it has been actively responsible for it; whether the return promise can not be fulfilled directly causes losses to the agents; the rebate reward delays too long, indicating that the internal business statistics and sales settlement management are chaotic, and it is better for such an enterprise not to advance funds for promotion.

2. Stability of personnel: frequent turnover of personnel. Frequent turnover of salesmen (especially middle and high level) indicates that business operations are extremely unstable and many problems will become unsettled.

(3) the first purchase quantity suggests: whether the factory's first purchase quantity is reasonable or not, and the manufacturer really wants to do the market in a down-to-earth manner, it should be responsible for the agent. The first purchase quantity requirement should be practical, and there is a corresponding distribution promotion plan.

Cooperation Sincerity: has the manufacturer voluntarily raised the area and time limit of agency?

Is it possible to hide other agents that have been developed but not done well?

Contract culture: whether we should pay attention to contract culture, such as manufacturer's payment method, quality assurance, rebate settlement period, manufacturers' behavior of tracing, collecting evidence, sanction methods and so on, which are easy to cause manufacturers' disputes. A sincere and reputable factory house will pay great attention to it and solve it well.

3, market capacity:

(1) sales status: to understand the market performance of the products in other regions: the specific sales situation of the products, the price system, the staff of the factory, the advertising fee and so on.

It is also necessary to understand the current sales area, the unsalable area and the unstarted area, to see if the products are really suitable for the region; whether the product series is perfect, whether there will be a good season and the lack of diving in the off-season?

2. Advertising input plan: the advertising input plan and input performance of the manufacturer to the market; when and where and under what conditions to advertise in what way, it is better to require the manufacturer to provide written advertising plan.

(3) marketing personnel quality: whether the marketing staff have a system professional training, marketing personnel to our factory's product characteristics, brand characteristics and other elements clear, marketing staff before and the agent to talk about cooperation, have a full understanding of the local market and competitive products and can put forward their own views, marketing personnel on the development of the local market have specific plans, specifically including:

Which product is the first choice product? Why?

What are the factory price, wholesale price, supermarket price and retail price? Why?

When do we shop in that way for that channel?

How to treat credit sales?

Regardless of the interests of agents, encourage customers to sell goods on a large scale and sell their products to themselves?

How much manpower does the agent require?

Chinese style

Agents do not represent good brands, but agents are hard to develop.