At the beginning of 2017, prices for fuel and many imported goods rose across the board.
For many marketing and accounting experts, counting new costs is certainly a busy time due to the rising prices of suppliers and the depreciation of our ringgit.
The biggest headache is what exchange rate should be used for the 2017 forecast?
If you believe in financial analysts, they have boldly announced that ringgit will return to £ 4. 2/4.
Take GDP growth of 4% as an example4. 5%.
For those who do not believe, forecast 4. 5 to 4.
On the grounds of losing confidence in our government and net selling of our national debt, 7 will be adopted.
For now it will cost you about 4.
When you import, $5 is against $1, so I suggest you use this minimum number in your forecast.
Do a simulation exercise if the dollar reaches $4. 7, 4. 8, 4. 9 and 5.
If you can still show net profit at 5 then you are in a safe area of 2017.
After accepting a friend's invitation in 2016, I was the speaker at KLCCCI China Chamber of Commerce event sponsored by Credit Guarantee in January 7.
My task is "how do traditional retail businesses see the future ".
I am obviously a dinosaur speaker as the previous speaker is a young qualified aerospace engineer who is talking about Easy parcel, his parcel booking website.
Thinking about what to say for this event, I recalled many good memories of the early days of my trading business, when life was much simpler, business is a direct transaction between a willing seller and a willing buyer. Always a win-win situation.
Everyone is very happy.
Now, the modern way of trading is that I won. U lose.
Trading terms favorable to retailers are piled up in large quantities, the last mile of contact with consumers.
Dealers must make a living by scrapping.
With the advancement of technology, the popularity of broadband wifi and smart phones,
Business eventually replaced the traditional distribution channels of distributors. retailer-consumer?
My guess is the emergence of mixed mode-O2O, offline to online, online to offline.
Online businesses that require entity presence and traditional physical retailers that need to be online.
In the UK, Sainsbury Argos has just announced that they account for 18% of total online sales.
I believe this O2O hybrid model will be used as an adjustment strategy by most retailers because they don't know how serious e-commerce is.
Business will be interrupted.
Only time will tell us.
Traditional retail has been involved in the market since the Stone Age, where sellers and buyers meet and trade, logistics-delivery of goods/distribution channels to consumers-decision-making and payment methods.
Cash or credit terms?
There is no difference with e-commerce.
It is still a virtual market where goods are delivered directly to consumers.
Payment terms are prepaid by online credit card or cash on delivery.
The main difference is that there is no credit clause, no entity exists, and no dealer is required.
Our traditional distribution channels will also be broken.
It has been destroyed or evolved over the past 40 years or so.
When I started trading in 1985, there were very few importers and a lot less brands were offered in each product category.
I classify post-80 s and post-90 s as the golden age of retail distribution growth in Malaysia.
If I remember correctly, with the emergence of various commodity wholesalers in China, with the strengthening of distribution efforts, thousands of retail stores such as pop and mom grocery stores to mini-markets are emerging all over the country.
From dry goods to food, the operators of vans work day and night, from one town to another, stocking and distributing for all these new retail stores.
Even the medical halls in China have developed into some medical halls and some small mixed markets.
We have Wholesalers offering single grocery stores in remote Felda plans and logging camps.
Yeo Hiap Seng even has a onboard supply service in the state of Sarawak to provide a one-week supply and sales trip to the upstream crew.
That year, canned food sales in Sabah and Sarawak accounted for 40% of the country's sales.
To me, wholesalers are the unsung heroes of this era of retail growth.
A typical wholesaler startup is renting a double.
Stayed with the family who lived upstairs and had storage and office downstairs.
Usually he is a Chinese male, former
10-salesman
15 years of experience and established credit accounts with major brands owned by foreign companies.
From Colgate palmolli to Unilever to Nestlé to Ms Holland, these are the biggest companies, and wholesalers are most eager to have leading brands when building distribution networks.
Since the profit margin of the main brand is 4%, his operations must remain streamlined
5% of sales and additional profits can only be obtained from trade quotes, usually 12 plus 1 or Baker's.
His wife and children will help him run the store as he goes out to sell every day.
As the business grows, he will hire more sales people to cover a wider range of areas with the ultimate goal of covering the entire state.
Then he can cover the so-
Called general trade
Most companies will directly cover key customers or modern trade.
With the development and expansion of modern trade across the country, large supermarkets have gained market share from nearby moms and pop shops, individual mini-market operators and Chinese medical halls, resulting in a shrinking market for wholesalers.
Most wholesalers are closed after retirement.
More successful companies have grown into big companies with second and third generation professional management of it.
What I think most about is the Hing Group in Kepong and Kim Teck Cheong (KTC)
In Kota Kinabalu
While the KTC is listed in the boursaace market, lexing's annual sales of more than one billion ringgit remain a private market.
Lein Hing will celebrate its 40 th anniversary this year, with the KTC only a few years behind.
Just as history will prove that Chinese wholesalers have played an indispensable role in the growth of retail distribution in this country, we cannot forget other nameless heroes.
From the competent civil servants and trade ministers in the past to the fair police force that gave us a prosperous and secure environment.
The man of integrity is first class.
Unfortunately, like wholesalers, these nameless heroes have all disappeared and have been disappointed and corrupt by the double-sided political leaders.
Both online and offline, the structure of state-building has been destroyed, which will set the country back as other countries move forward.
We must decide what is right and what is wrong.
There is no mixed pattern of national conscience.