RETAIL MARKETING STRATEGY

Element In Retail Strategy

•         Target Market - the market segment which the retailer plans to focus its resources and retail mix.

•         Retail Format - the nature of the retailer’s operations, its retail mix.

•         Sustainable Competitive Advantage - an advantage over the competition,

Competitive Advantage

        A competitive advantage is what makes you better than the competition in your customers' minds. Businesses were the first to adopt this method of success. But it is true for anyone, from an employee to a country. Before determining your competitive advantage, you've got to know these three determinants.

1. What you produce. Whether it's a good or service, you must be clear on what you are providing. It must be something that offers real value. That means you need to describe the advantages and benefits of your product or service. You've must be aware of trends that affect your product, especially new technology. For example, the Internet forced newspapers to redefine how they delivered the news.

1. Target market. Who are your customers? You've got to know exactly who buys from you, and how you can make them happier. That increases demand, the driver of all economic growth. Newspapers found out their target market drifted to older people. That's because they weren't comfortable getting their news online.
2. Competition. That's not just other similar companies or products. It includes anything else your customer does to meet that particular need. Newspapers thought their competition was other newspapers until they realized it was the Internet. How could they compete with a news provider that was instant and free?
3. 
   

Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Just because a company is the market leader now, doesn't mean it has a sustainable competitive advantage.

A temporary price cut to gain market share might work in the short-term. But that lead will disappear when it restores those prices to a profitable level. A company must create clear goals, strategies, and operations to sustain its competitive advantage. The corporate culture and values of the employees must be in alignment with those goals, as well. It's difficult to do all those things well. That's why few companies can create a sustainable competitive advantage.

Opportunities For Retailers To Develop Sustainable Competitive Advantages

- Customer Loyalty

- Location

- Human Resource Management

- Distribution and Information Systems

- Unique Merchandise

- Vendor Relations

- Customer Service

3 Approaches For Sustainable Competitive Advantage

• Build strong relationship with customers
• Build strong relationship with suppliers
• Efficient internal operationsHow Countries Use Competitive Advantage

How Countries Use Competitive Advantage

A country can also create competitive advantage. That's called national competitive advantage, or comparative advantage. For example, China uses cost leadership. It exports low-cost products at a reasonable quality level. It can do this because its standard of living is lower, so it can pay its workers less. It also fixes the value of its currency, the yuan, at a lower value than the dollar.

India started as a cost leader but is moving toward differentiation. It provides skilled technical, English-speaking workers at a reasonable wage. Japan changed its competitive advantage. In the 1960s, it excelled at cheap electronics. By the 1980s, it had shifted up to quality brands, such as Sony.

America's comparative advantage is innovation. U.S. companies bring innovative products to market faster than other countries. A great example is Silicon Valley, America's innovative advantage.

The reason for that is America's vast and affluent domestic consumer base. It's easy to test new product ideas and work out the bugs at home. They are marketed throughout the world once they are successful. Amar Bhidé makes a good point in The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a More Connected World. Even if the United States starts to lag behind other countries in producing engineers, it's still better at bringing those innovations to market.

References

http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/05/30/the-worlds-most-competitive-countries/#4412a0a7b058