The Retail Buzz

New article at One Step Retail Solutions that talks about factors involved with erosion of brand value and how to evolve to align your brand within the new economy.

Here is what the article says ...

There has been a lot of discussion around the erosion of brand value and the fact that consumer brand loyalty has been slipping for an extended period of time.

Many factors have contributed to this, not the least of which is the ability to compare products and prices on the Internet. Any given retail chain or online store also develops its own "brand image" that can improve or deteriorate based on the overall shopping experience and merchandise lines.

For example, in the early years of online sales there were a number of absolutely livid Web shoppers whose purchases didn't arrive in time for Christmas - those store brands certainly suffered! Now that time has healed the wounds and the retailers involved managed to revamp their systems and rebuild their service and delivery image, online sales continues to reach record numbers.

But rather than looking at it as a single company or brand that is losing value, I would argue that when one brand is slipping more often than not another is gaining. An example of that would be the wireless handset industry - while Motorola lost its place as a leader, BlackBerry held its own and now even new players such as Dell and Google are entering the market.