When we talk about analyzing the competition at the point of sale, we’re not just referring to the technologies that can make this task easier. The main point, here and in other competitive aspects of the business, is to understand exactly what makes a person prefer a particular brand and how to shape that preference in our favor. Of course, there are resources that can make competitive analysis at the point of sale less of a challenge, but first we need to understand why this kind of study is worthwhile.
Analyzing the competition is one of the ways to pursue excellence in the type of service we offer, because it lets us examine a business’s weaknesses and differentiators and clarify how they impact our results. The customer experience is one of the factors in competitive analysis, but a company’s positioning, the way it interacts with customers inside and outside its stores, and even the product mix it offers are all ingredients in a successful corporate recipe.
How about getting a better understanding of what drives businesses to invest in competitive analysis at the point of sale and learning about some of the strategies that make this understanding possible? Stay tuned for the insights we’ve put together for you!
Understanding how to meet market demands
One of the main reasons a business should invest in competitive analysis is to better understand market demands. We often focus heavily on issues like consumer engagement with our own brand and overlook how those consumers behave toward our competitors. You can learn from others’ lessons even if your brand is currently among the market leaders.
How do your competitors handle their customers’ demands? Do their services or product portfolios offer a wider range of options than your company delivers today? Does that offering translate into better numbers, or could it point to a new approach for delivering greater added value in the way you do business?
All of these questions can be answered through competitive analysis, and they’re a good reason to invest in this effort.
Winning more customers
Competitive analysis also means understanding how your competitors approach customer acquisition so you can gather enough knowledge to do it better. When we look at the type of engagement generated on the social media channels of brands that compete directly with ours, we can build a bit more acquisition know-how. But what if we told you it’s possible to do this at the point of sale?
Observing what draws a consumer into your competitor’s store is a good way to figure out what to invest in to generate the same kind of interest. And understanding how they acquire customers at the POS can be even more relevant than following their social media posts.
Defining a value proposition
Another important aspect of competitive analysis is that it helps us understand more effectively what to do to meet market demands. A strong value proposition means your business can deliver not only what is asked of it, but an extra effort that makes your products and services synonymous with quality.
In retail, we can see this at the point of sale by analyzing customer preferences and the feedback they provide. Often, when similar products are sold by two companies, it’s a unique value proposition, one that connects with the shopper‘s deepest desires, that determines whether or not they’re won over.
Investing in the right technology
We talk a lot about using technology at the POS, whether to make the space where you display products stand out or to analyze how consumers interact with the point of sale. However, you need to invest in competitive analysis to determine exactly which type of technology investment is right for your business.
There are many possibilities, including:
- augmented reality;
- projections;
- apps; and
- the Internet of Things.
But which of these is best suited to attract people and deliver results? By analyzing our competitors’ efforts at the point of sale, we can get an initial sense of what works and which ideas should be discarded. And that information is enough to put your project ahead of the rest.
Ensuring market intelligence
Market intelligence is about understanding how other companies behave and what can be done with better performance. However, it’s basically impossible to carry out without competitive analysis at the point of sale. After all, all the information we gather about our competitors so that market intelligence can be executed successfully needs to be, in equal measure, relevant, clear, and actionable.
This means that to better analyze a POS, tracking openly available data isn’t enough. You need to investigate, on site, what brings a business the best ROI. That’s exactly why competitive analysis at the POS can offer insights that no other type of competitive analysis would bring to the table.
It’s by understanding how your target audience interacts with your brand and with others that you can map out an effective plan to maximize returns. That’s why this discipline is essential to business success.
Collecting data for competitive analysis at the point of sale can be optimized with POS software, for example. This type of technology integrates, for example:
- inventory information;
- details about your customers;
- payment methods used; and
- the productivity of each of your sales associates.
This information is crucial for decision-making and, together with other resources, such as those that enable automated feedback collection and those that create interactive POS displays generating real-time metrics for the business, can greatly improve this type of in-store analysis.
Competitive analysis at the point of sale can set a business apart, but investing in technologies that make a POS special is another resource you should consider to truly stand out in retail. Interactive storefronts, holograms, augmented reality, and creative displays that bring innovation into our daily routine are tools that can make a difference and help you sell more. Discover and explore them in the AliceWonders case gallery!
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