https://www.newsroom.co.nz/a2-milk-n...e-daigou-sales
Sounds like ATM problems with daigou went back before the pandemic and the pandemic simply accelerated the problems. ATM basically cut the profitability of the daigou channel which made ATM what it was in China in favour of e-commerce channels.
Excerpt:
‘ Li, who is in regular communication with daigou sales people in China, said in recent years as A2 Milk diversified its marketing and sales channels by selling through platforms like JD and Alibaba’s Tmall, daigous lost profit to the e-commerce behemoths.
“This comes back to the fundamentals. They didn't look after their relationship with daigous well.
“They moved onto working with Alibaba and these platforms, essentially cutting out the daigous because they had direct sourcing. But you can’t forget these small daigous are thousands of sales people promoting their products through word of mouth,” Li said’