Beyond Sales Staff: How Brands Can Drive Terminal Sales in the Post‑Guide Era

Since early 2024, major FMCG brands in China have begun large‑scale layoffs of contract sales guides (导购). Reports cite a near‑20% reduction at a leading beverage brand, a foreign dairy firm completing a round of cuts, and a domestic dairy giant removing over 5,000 staff, many from terminal guide positions. The trend is accelerating toward 2025 as large supermarkets close at an unprecedented rate, with 832 nationwide closures projected for 2025 and chains like Yonghui losing 381 stores.

First pressure – technology substitution. Consumers now complete their purchase journey online before entering a store, watching live‑stream unboxings, reading Xiaohongshu posts and comparing prices on e‑commerce platforms. The information they receive in‑store is already covered by algorithms and smart recommendation systems, making the traditional guide’s scripted pitches redundant. An industry insider notes that a single livestream can reach as many consumers as a guide stationed in a store for a year, without the employer bearing social insurance, travel subsidies or shelf‑display costs.

Second pressure – changing consumer expectations. CCTV Finance surveys show that over 90% of young consumers value "emotional value" and nearly 60% are willing to pay for it. The 2025 Z‑Generation Emotional Consumption Report adds that 56.3% of respondents prefer "happy consumption" for emotional or interest‑driven purchases, up 16.2 percentage points year‑over‑year. Young shoppers seek autonomous shelf exploration, social discussion, and surprise from niche brands, and often avoid the forced dialogue and sales pressure that guides represent.

Case study – Dongpeng Energy Drink. Over 14 years the brand built a "one‑code‑five‑in‑one" system by printing a unique QR code on each bottle cap. Consumers scan the code to join red‑packet giveaways, lotteries and a "one‑yuan enjoy" redemption. Public data shows 3.2 billion scans, a 42% lift in terminal sales, and a reduction in channel leakage from 18% to 1.2%. In 2025 the company projected revenue exceeding 200 billion RMB, with its flagship product contributing over 155 billion RMB.

The brand decomposes the traditional guide role into three digital actions: (1) attract first‑time purchase via scan‑based red packets, (2) incentivize repeat purchase through the one‑yuan reward, and (3) bind the retail outlet by giving store owners rebates for each scan. The QR code thus directly links brand, store and consumer without human intermediaries.

According to iResearch’s 2024 "FMCG Digital Marketing White Paper", companies that adopt a unified QR‑code + BC integration achieve a promotion ROI 2.7 times higher than conventional methods, a figure channel directors are urged to internalise.

Implications for channel managers. The removal of guides signals a shift from labor‑intensive to data‑driven channel management. Directors should act on three fronts:

Audit the digital foundation: ensure every SKU carries a unique QR code; the marginal cost of a cap‑code is negligible compared with the data asset generated per scan.

Redesign the terminal incentive chain: align consumer motivation (scan for reward), store owner motivation (rebate for scan) and distributor motivation (share of sales uplift) within a single interaction.

Replace intuition with data: use real‑time scan metrics to identify high‑performing stores, detect "zombie terminals" (stock without sales), calculate promotion ROI instantly, and pinpoint leakage points in the supply chain.

In conclusion, the disappearance of in‑store guides is not a tragedy nor a conspiracy; it is the first gear being replaced as FMCG channels transition from "people‑centric" to "data‑centric". Brands that continue to rely on manual reports risk falling behind competitors who already visualise store‑level sales heatmaps through scan data.