In today’s highly competitive retail environment, it’s incredibly difficult to stand out among well-established competitors. Even the most seasoned retail operators will inevitably face certain challenges that are unique to emerging brands as they try to grow.
Each industry is filed with well-known slogans, recognizable logos and enduring brands that have been around for years.
So to those emerging brands that are coming of age and looking to play in the same space as the more established brands, this series is dedicated to providing answers to some of the biggest challenges that you’ll face as you try to grow.
- Investing Limited Dollars: One of the largest challenges for an emerging brand is cash flow. With limited dollars to invest and high costs associated with building, marketing and training, it’s important to prioritize where to allocate funds and minimize the risk of opening a bad location.
- Scaling the Brand: The second challenge involves scaling the brand. After the first stores are opened and additional dollars are driven into your emerging concept, the next question is, where do I go next? Some of the challenges there relate again to cash flow and finding the next available piece of real estate that fits the brand for growth. To add scale, brands need to figure out which markets make sense, either for corporate owned or franchise locations.
- Out-Maneuvering Competition: The third challenge concerns out-maneuvering the competition. You are likely facing the challenge of either stealing share from established brands in a mature market or positioning yourself as a leader in an emerging category. That being said, first in usually wins for emerging concepts. But in today’s day and age, great real estate is harder to find and also typically means a higher price tag.
Those three challenges ultimately boil down to one question: where do I plant my flag next? Specifically, where do I open my next location in an existing market and which markets should I tackle next in terms of growth and development?
In the next post of this series, we’ll be talking about how analytics can help you determine where you should open your next location in an existing market.
You don’t have to wait until the next post to find out the answer. We can talk today about how our customer value model can help you make that decision with hard facts and no guesswork.