In a world of intense competition and frequently changing consumer tastes & preference, a lot of stores experience declining sales. It is quite common that a brand has some stores reaping good sales year-on-year while others becoming stagnant or declining. Channelplay can help test the following hypothesis around declining same store sales growth:

• Changing consumption patterns: A general consumer research which answers the following questions can help test this hypothesis:
  • Demand size – Frequency & quantum of consumption
  • Change in consumer tastes & preferences
  • Change in macro environmental factors – Political, Social, Economic or...

Lifetime customer value (LCV) is an idea that each customer should be analyzed in terms of current and future profitability to a brand. When a profit figure can be assigned to each customer, the marketing manager can then decide which customers to target.  The past profit that a customer has produced for the brand is the sum of the margins of all the products purchased over time less the cost of reaching that customer. This is feasible for firms which maintain their customer data like e-commerce firms and businesses selling products & services in an organized retail set-up. For other firms, there is dearth of customer data like businesses... (read more)

The need to better understand customer behavior and the interest of many managers to focus on those customers who can deliver long-term profits has changed how marketers view the world. Traditionally, marketers have been trained to acquire customers, either new ones who have not bought the product before or those who are currently competitors' customers. Today the tone of the conversation has changed from customer acquisition to retention. Now, the question is: “What do managers need to know about their customers and how that information is used to develop a complete CRM perspective?” Market research can provide that information as it... (read more)

My earlier article was about product strategies for brands which look to enter new markets. This article will deep-dive into product decisions which are required basis the lifecycle of a product – introduction, growth, maturity and finally decline. Such strategies increase the life span of each phase and maintain consistent excitement around the product. Product strategy can be divided into 3 components: Product-line analysis, Product-line length, and Line featuring & pruning. I. Product-line analysis To support decisions about which items to build, maintain, harvest, or divest, product-line managers need to analyze the market profile as... (read more)