Do you recall any brand that you liked but could not find it later? Have you ever seen a brand in the last alley while you were looking for it for months? So, why many good for use brands actually disappear from the market or fail to get a share in the market? Is market research helping retail businesses in developing a brand value?

In this instant-changing era of retail industry, the manufacturers of brands need to evaluate the retail scenario for determining the best route to market. Evaluating the retail environment helps the retailers to stay on the cutting edge of trends and in avoiding common pitfalls. Executing market research efficiently can be a significant investment, and the knowledge obtained can help in boosting the chances of retaining a loyal customer base. Customer retainment is an important exercise for it eventually provides repeat business and the said customer enthusiastically promotes the brand through word-of-mouth.

For building value of a brand, the brands (and distributors) need to develop a strong relationship with retailers. Retailers must analyze the benefit for their customers before developing a partnership with any brand, other than brand positioning, demonstrated historic value and projected growth. A strong customer loyalty not only dramatically increases profits and lower the costs but also ensure a positive customer experience, which is a top-most challenge for most of the retailers. Market Research provides strategic insights for brands to help in improving customer relations and increase retention.

Following are the four key steps on how to do market research for a retailing brand to improve customer relations while designing and implementing successful strategies:

Analyse Customer Preferences in Retail:

For any B2C brand, it is essential to have a thorough knowledge of what is the right potential customer and what are their segmentation. Market Research helps companies in narrowing down some major points such as customer demographics, their needs, the willingness to pay, influencing factors for their purchasing decisions, the influence of different marketing media, psychoanalysis of potential customers, how and where they shop, etc. With this information, the company can design and outlay their products and services to get fit into the customers’ preferences.

It is always right to ask the following questions from yourself:

• Who is my targeted consumer, and how large is that segment?

A brand needs to know whom it is targeting. A baby product may target babies from a specific origin (considering their skin type) and the paying capacity of their parents for the products. Market research is essential for understanding the market size of this segment of customer.  If we consider Singapore’s market, it can be segmented as:

Source: CIA World Factbook

However, when a brand is studied, they have to specifically discuss the targeted geography for the targeted customers.

• Where do the customers prefer to shop for products like yours?

For a retailing brand, it becomes more profitable to know the purchasing behaviour of the targeted customers. If the brand knows where the customers are located and from which retail store they would usually buy the product, this data can work wonders in devising the best strategy.

• What is the preference of shopping for such products?

There are several retail brands which are facing huge competition from the alternatives that are available to the customers. In fact, the advent of online options has actually impacted retail stores even though it might be beneficial for the brands to know the customer preferences. If we consider the Singapore market, it is important for the retail brands to know that customers are increasingly opting for online options and they might have to think of strengthening their online retailing options along with brick and mortar stores.

Source: Hootsuite

• How should a company reach the targeted consumer?

Understanding the influencing factor helps brands and retailers in taking better marketing, merchandising and partnership decisions as per the consumer’s requirement. Market Research assists companies in determining the best mode of marketing by capturing the market trend according to the product.

Channel Distribution:

When comparing the opportunities of the channel growth, market research is a very powerful tool that allows brands to analyze how the channels are changing over the time and landscape of the total retail. Product category standards are the first thing to have an eye while considering distribution strategy for a brand. It is essential to note down that certain retail format can be both a driver and a blockade, depending on the region and category, and the channel type may vary with the different rate of growth or decline. So it is necessary for a brand to consider varying market nuances while planning the distribution strategy.

What About Looking For New Opportunities?

For a retail brand, an innovative distribution strategy has a potential to work wonders. Amway (American Way) is one of the earliest brands which was founded in 1959 and that used an amazingly innovative distribution and retailing strategy to make a mark in the market at the lowest cost. The company worked with commission-based agents and explored segment of workers that would have been happier with a certain amount of incentives and could work from home. The company sells a huge range of products focusing on niches such as beauty, health, home care, jewellery, electronics, dietary supplements, air purifiers, water purifiers, insurance, etc. working on the model of multi-level marketing. The network of housewives proved to be a strong marketing tactic as well as customer base. In addition, the company could retain its brand image by limiting its supply while increasing the demand.

To support distribution strategy the important thing required is retailer-specific information. It is not enough to obtain the strongest opportunity for a brand to develop a strong retail partnership and stronger distribution strategy. In this, market research helps in identifying the right and new market opportunities in terms of geographic regions for expansion, market size, industry dynamics, key competitors, major industry supplier and market share statistics or by testing the market’s readiness for the new product or services.

Brand Story:

Now after grabbing all the above-mentioned opportunities, it’s time to create engagement through your brand story with your target retail partners. This is one of the most effective strategies to get the kick-start to on your brand’s unique story by creating a strong context of your brand product and start it with a category-first approach. A brand story built on category insights helps the brand to recognize easily and communicate effectively with the industry partner and it shows a potential worth and opportunity to the retail partner.

Stories are a powerful tool to communicate with humans and the easiest way to connect with people. This is what a well-known brand used to connect with its consumer. Daniel Wellington founded in 2011 is one of the fastest-growing European private companies. The brand story behind the foundation of Daniel Wellington was when Filip Tysander, founder of the company met Mr Wellington on a trip to the British Isles and started manufacturing watches after getting inspired by him and his watches. He took back the inspiration to Sweden and created a brand on that person’s name Daniel Wellington.

Market Research is a base for growth for the companies and it has the potential to provide a strong direction to the business development. In a country like Singapore, where new technologies are emerging strongly and start-ups are becoming a major attraction from business and economic point of view, start-ups and new businesses can be well-benefitted by market research. In this fast-paced business environment, Craft Driven Market Research can support your dreams by providing you with an appropriate market study and bring your product to the most impacting shelf.

For customised market research reports for any kind of startups and business in any industry, you can contact Craft Driven Market Research team here directly.

Tags: Craft Driven, ecommerce, market research, Retail Business, Retail Industry, Singapore Market Research