This is my way to China (part 2)
I continue the story of my journey to China. Those who missed Part 1 , I recommend to start with it.
In the process of becoming a business, it seemed to us that working with well-known manufacturers is reliability in business for many years. But very soon the following happened: in the process of growth, we began to market the trademarks of various consumables that we did not own. Of course, we constantly tried to get the coveted exclusive contract, but the suppliers did not really meet us.
The arguments for refusal were different: the presence of "older" customers in Russia and, accordingly, the reluctance to lose them when an exclusive contract was concluded with us, and our inability to choose from them the entire range of products, and of course, the monthly volume of purchases. Here I will stop in more detail.
The fact is that when we started supplying supplies from a South Korean company, in Russia only one company from Vladivostok cooperated with them. When a year later, after the start of cooperation, we reached the volume of purchases of products in the amount of 60,000 kilograms per year - we put the question squarely: either give us an exclusive or we stop cooperating.
')
As a result of long negotiations with the Koreans (they even flew to Moscow for this), we were asked to sign a contract for the purchase volume of 240,000 kilograms per year! At the same time, they allocated us a territory from Novosibirsk to Kaliningrad. And also denied responsibility for the possible supply of products from the Vladivostok company to our territory! Here we need a pause to comprehend the whole essence of this sentence ...
Of course, we abandoned this "SUPER-contract".
I want to note that the Korean partners did not sit still, idly, while we "unwound" their brand in Russia, in the hope of getting the coveted exclusive soon. It soon became clear behind our back, but on our shoulders they pushed their products wherever possible. Including our customers. Some, the most active, successfully "caught the wave" at that moment.
And here's why: in order to be an interesting supplier for a wide range of consumers, you need to constantly keep in stock a large range of products, and at least a three-month supply of it, based on the average monthly sales volume. Otherwise there will be failures in the range and, as a result, the decline of buyers' interest. After all, they like to have EVERYTHING and ONLY for them in the warehouse. And in principle they are right. But to do this without serious investments is very difficult.
So, some of our clients "knocked" directly to the Koreans and received approval for cooperation. But since they were unable to buy the 20-foot container at once, they took the products in small batches and delivered them to Moscow by a “collection”. By the time it came out longer than the "twenty", but for the price, they won an order of magnitude. But only the most popular series were purchased from the manufacturer, but the rest of the range was purchased as needed from us. It turned out very convenient, but only for them. And we lost part of the market due to the fact that the Korean partners began to make shipments past us.
When they found out about this, there was no limit to our indignation. But, realizing that we have no right to “chop down in the heat of the moment”, we were forced to look for a way out of this situation. The most difficult question required an urgent solution: how to replace this type of product in its “matrix”, if you cease to cooperate with a Korean manufacturer?
Of course, we found a way out. I will tell about it in the next post .
In the process of becoming a business, it seemed to us that working with well-known manufacturers is reliability in business for many years. But very soon the following happened: in the process of growth, we began to market the trademarks of various consumables that we did not own. Of course, we constantly tried to get the coveted exclusive contract, but the suppliers did not really meet us.
The arguments for refusal were different: the presence of "older" customers in Russia and, accordingly, the reluctance to lose them when an exclusive contract was concluded with us, and our inability to choose from them the entire range of products, and of course, the monthly volume of purchases. Here I will stop in more detail.
The fact is that when we started supplying supplies from a South Korean company, in Russia only one company from Vladivostok cooperated with them. When a year later, after the start of cooperation, we reached the volume of purchases of products in the amount of 60,000 kilograms per year - we put the question squarely: either give us an exclusive or we stop cooperating.
')
As a result of long negotiations with the Koreans (they even flew to Moscow for this), we were asked to sign a contract for the purchase volume of 240,000 kilograms per year! At the same time, they allocated us a territory from Novosibirsk to Kaliningrad. And also denied responsibility for the possible supply of products from the Vladivostok company to our territory! Here we need a pause to comprehend the whole essence of this sentence ...
Of course, we abandoned this "SUPER-contract".
I want to note that the Korean partners did not sit still, idly, while we "unwound" their brand in Russia, in the hope of getting the coveted exclusive soon. It soon became clear behind our back, but on our shoulders they pushed their products wherever possible. Including our customers. Some, the most active, successfully "caught the wave" at that moment.
And here's why: in order to be an interesting supplier for a wide range of consumers, you need to constantly keep in stock a large range of products, and at least a three-month supply of it, based on the average monthly sales volume. Otherwise there will be failures in the range and, as a result, the decline of buyers' interest. After all, they like to have EVERYTHING and ONLY for them in the warehouse. And in principle they are right. But to do this without serious investments is very difficult.
So, some of our clients "knocked" directly to the Koreans and received approval for cooperation. But since they were unable to buy the 20-foot container at once, they took the products in small batches and delivered them to Moscow by a “collection”. By the time it came out longer than the "twenty", but for the price, they won an order of magnitude. But only the most popular series were purchased from the manufacturer, but the rest of the range was purchased as needed from us. It turned out very convenient, but only for them. And we lost part of the market due to the fact that the Korean partners began to make shipments past us.
When they found out about this, there was no limit to our indignation. But, realizing that we have no right to “chop down in the heat of the moment”, we were forced to look for a way out of this situation. The most difficult question required an urgent solution: how to replace this type of product in its “matrix”, if you cease to cooperate with a Korean manufacturer?
Of course, we found a way out. I will tell about it in the next post .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/100736/
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