Who are your new competitors?

This article is about groceries… but the implications behind it are likely to impact almost every category of business.

Building on the post from last Friday (see immediately below), I saw a Lempert Report newsletter last week that discussed the emerging channels that are competing for food dollars: Including drug stores and dollar stores. Click here to see the story.

Implications: If you run a supermarket, you have competition beyond the similar grocery store down the road. The lines that define a category are becoming blurred… as drug stores get into the grocery business, grocery stores get into the pharmacy business.

The bank on the corner doesn’t just compete with the bank down the street. They are seeing loans and deposits go to the credit union, car loans go to the car dealer, IRAs sold by the insurance company, 401k’s offered by the employer, and home improvement loans taken by the big home improvement retailer.

What business are you in? And who do you compete with… besides your competitors? Have you thought about ways to preserve share, among a diverse set of new competitors? What is driving this proliferation of options the consumer finds available? And how does your marketing message need to change to fit-in to this new landscape?

Mike Anderson