Enlightening Pangdonglai's Tea Marketing Experience as Exemplary for Industrial Development

Despite the impressive market expansion in recent years, the nation’s tea industry has been persistently plagued by serious shortcomings. Among them, low consumer confidence in products and operation, ineffective marketing and distribution system, ambiguous standards, weak brand presence, and outdated promotional strategies. Transition from commodity sales to building a loyal consumer ecosystem on the products and business can not only benefit operational profit margin but ensure a sustainable, thriving industry in the evermore competitive modern marketplace. This article conducted a systematic analysis of the working model as executed by Pangdonglai Tea Supermarket in Henan and identifies the key factors that led to their success to be (A) transparent operation, (B) efficient management, and (C) satisfactory clientele experience. These characters were manifested in the company’s policy in balancing product quality and pricing, optimizing product mix, delivering satisfying consumer services, digitizing operation system, and striving for IP-protected brand name building. Using their experience as an example, this article presents strategies recommended for the tea industry to nurture entities based on consumer trust by operating with functional mechanisms that embrace transparent hierarchical standards, streamlined supply chain, market-oriented innovative products, publicly acclaimed customer service, progressive PR, and IP-protected brands.