What changes when the brand is the retailer
- The network is the product. Formats, store locations, openings and closures matter as much as the offer.
- Assortment is a strategic choice. Breadth versus depth, private label versus supplier brands.
- Price is a game of perception. On the products customers compare, and on promotions in whatever form they take in your sector.
- Retail isn’t just grocery. A fashion banner and a grocery banner have formats, seasons and promotions that look nothing alike: everything has to be read within the right merchandise category.
How to read the market, in five steps
1. The competitive set by catchment area
The banners serving the same customers in the same territory, plus online stores. A brand that manufactures products and also sells to you is a supplier, not a competitor.
2. Competitors’ networks, formats and assortment
How many stores, in what format, where they’re opening and closing; what they put on the shelf; how they push their private label. This is where you see how they take share of wallet.
3. Perceived price
The products customers use to judge value, the strategy — everyday low prices or frequent promotions — and the weekly circular or the sales, depending on the sector.
4. The voice of store customers
Store reviews, read by catchment area: service, wait times, availability, cleanliness, staff. They’re retail’s equivalent of social listening.
5. The shopper journey
From online search to the store and back: in-store pickup, app, loyalty card, local marketing. Where you lose the customer between one channel and the next.
The most common mistakes
- Reading a retailer with a manufacturer’s metrics. What counts is traffic, conversion, average basket, turnover.
- Mistaking suppliers for competitors.
- Applying one sector’s rules to another. Fashion and grocery don’t promote the same way.
- Making up competitors’ numbers. If they aren’t public, they should be declared unavailable.
