Dear retailer, do you know where you stand in relation to your competitors?
In the fiercely competitive retail landscape, it is crucial for retailers like you to assess their competition. Understanding where you stand in relation to your main rivals is key to winning over customers. Competitor intelligence involves gathering and analysing publicly available information to gain valuable insights into the competitive landscape. Armed with these insights, you can make informed and strategic decisions regarding your positioning to distinguish yourself from competitors.
Competitor insights encompass a range of information about your competitors’ products, pricing and how buyers compare one product to another. While you may have a good understanding of how consumers use your products and which ones are comparable to yours, there are instances where this knowledge may be insufficient. For example, a vase could be used for decoration, holding flowers or even storing items – so how would you position this? It doesn’t matter what you perceive as the most comparable products to yours; what truly matters is how consumers compare your product to others.
These valuable insights are best obtained through data-driven and automated models that leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to provide real-time information about the competitive landscape. AI can help you compare products that may not have been previously considered comparable, uncovering hidden patterns and consumer preferences that can guide your strategic decisions.
At Valcon, we create insight engines that leverage data to create business- and domain-specific insights into the competitive landscape. Our approach involves flexible web scrapers, product categorisation and matching models, as well as validation and decision-making through interactive insights dashboards. This helps our clients identify pricing opportunities and react swiftly to competitors, detect market trends, adapt assortment and pricing as well as analyse long-term competitor strategies.
Let’s illustrate our approach with an example. One of our clients in the global home furnishing industry was looking for ways to match its assortment to competitor assortments in an effective and efficient way. However, with over 200 product offerings in more than 50 markets, comparing against multiple competitors was a labour-intensive and expensive task.
We introduced the client to an in-house solution that used AI and machine learning to handle heavy workloads. The solution used machine learning algorithms and natural language processing to compare and match product images, descriptions, dimensions and materials and identify similarities and differences. This enabled our client to adjust pricing strategies, identify product categories where there was a need for more efficient design and closely monitor market movements. Using “just” the power of AI, the solution is scalable to all markets, learns and improves over time and provides high-quality results.
Contact us today to get an offer on how we can help you gain competitor insights to make informed and strategic decisions about your positioning in the competitive landscape.
Want to learn more? If you would like to learn more about how Valcon can help your organisation gain competitor insights to make informed and strategic decisions about your positioning in the competitive landscape, please contact one of our experts below and we’ll be in touch right away.
Dr. Danilo Zatta, Partner
[email protected]
+49 172 6937532
Anders Worsøe Gantzhorn, Partner
[email protected]
+45 2022 5337
Valcon’s pricing levers can help increase your profits and commercial success without cutting costs. By making a small adjustment to the price of your products and services, you can have a significant impact on your company’s earnings. Our team of pricing experts have helped companies across the globe with their sales, pricing and top-line strategies. Read more here.
