How do you monitor and respond to competitive and environmental changes in the retail market?

In my professional experience, brands must be mindful when adopting to market trends purely for the sake of competition. For example, Rare Beauty and Fenty are two brands that were built on inclusivity, and their popularity is glaring. However, consider all of the brands that followed suit—increasing shade ranges, adopting packaging, ‘diversifying’ assets— and still fell flat. If not embedded in a brand’s ethos, adopting to trends purely for the sake of relevance and competition can be costly to a brand in a time when consumers are calling for authenticity.

The crucial task is to create of find a suitable benchmarking program with ongoing, consistent data collection. With metrics that are proven lead indicators (like shopper satisfaction) Ideally you'd first understand your competitor set ( which may be different by product category) and measure across this. Note that your own customer feedback is far less useful without external comparisons. But be careful,. you need to ensure that you compare like for like, just asking your own shoppers to tell you their perception about competitors carries an inherent bias that makes the data very misleading....

Sometimes the intelligence do not have to focus only on the existing market. When a particular category or business is mature, maybe a SWOT analysis can highlight opportunities for innovation or technology advantages that can help your business to stay ahead of the curve.

The P which stands for product might involve the need of planning something new for many reasons: competition, regulations, changing customer expectations, changed supply chain costs etc. Every operational performance has to be measured to understand when there is the need to modify something in the strategy.

Listening to your customers is the fundamental element of staying competitive in the market. The brand that can establish a personal connection with their customers on a broad scale is more likely to achieve success, and Nordstrom is a perfect example of a company that excels in creating a personal connection with its customers, despite a challenging retail market. Their success goes beyond just serving customers; it involves engaging them in a meaningful way, and we see this most notably in their commitment to diversity and inclusion. Their dedication to diversity not only reflects the values of a more inclusive society, but also resonates with a broad customer base that appreciates and patronizes their efforts.

Marketing done well is, at its core, a masterfully crafted story. When we consider the growth of brands in the retail space, the brand that is able to most authentically align with the values and principles of its consumer base sees long-term success. How then a brand crafts its narrative is pertinent to its ability to connect with its customers, and It's important to note that a brand's story does not have to be a one-time creation, an imperative understanding for new brands and entrepreneurs. As the company evolves and grows, so too can, and often should, its narrative. By continuously refining and updating its brand story, a company can stay relevant and engaging to its customers.