Supermarket Chains in China Abrasives Industry: To Be or Not To Be

The competition is becoming fiercer and fiercer in hardware industry, and almost every enterprise is continuously and actively to seek new ways to stand out among competitors. Recently, a new distribution channel is emerging in hardware industry, which is the chain supermarket. In abrasives industry, that mode also springs up. For example, Zhuhai Elephant Co., Ltd is an explorer in that direction. The reason why that mode is born is that homogeneous competition is quite intensive. In order to outstand in the competition, abrasives manufacturers have to transform their sales channels to increase sales. Currently, this strategy is still in experimental stage, and it is essential to make more detailed plan. 

Another new form is the so called purchasing alliance. That sounds like a good idea, and through alliances between dealers, the purchasing group can be formed rapidly. The buying, integration, and distribution can be centralized, which will broaden their brand influence and make them took dominate position in market. Maybe they will be listed through asset reorganization. However, limited by their independent developments, that model doesn't achieve big success now, and is still a loose distributor joint which doesn't possess commercial value. 

In these years, there are several factors restricting the change of distributor model in hardware industry, such as concepts, the capacity of capital and gray procurement. Moreover, plenty of upstream suppliers also confine manufacturers to change. The sales channels of hardware industry in China have not kept up with the development of brand. From the perspective of the ease of making profit, the combination of several brands has the most promising future, while the single brand doesn't have advantages in chain models. 

In the final analysis, it can be found that joining the supermarket chains is a way to exist and develop. The key point is that whether the enterprises have owned strong capacity of capital, product sourcing, integrated research, chain management, brand building and talents fostering.