Unlocking Insights: Understanding Demand Analysis in Retail

Do you know that customer experience is the biggest competitive advantage for 81% of marketers? In fact, ensuring good customer experience is increasingly becoming difficult. However, it doesn’t have to be when businesses strive to understand customer needs and market trends. That’s what demand analysis in retail is all about. It attempts to decode the target market, where a business can successfully launch its products and gain profit margin. 

Sounds simple as it may, it involves considerable expertise, skill and data-analysis. Translating the data into concrete business decisions is yet another task. We will explore those details in this blog. Keep readint to get an idea about retail demand analysis, the process, best practices, and challenges in demand analysis.

Demand Analysis Meaning

Businesses that enter new markets have to evaluate customer needs, market sentiments, competitors, and target markets for making several decisions. It is known as demand analysis. It is a crucial and calibrated step to assess target markets and how they can gain maximum profitability. 

Demand analysis reveals concrete data regarding customer demands, and buyer personals. Based on the data, companies make decisions on budget allocation, production planning, marketing and advertising, product pricing and innovation, etc. Demand analysis varies depending on the type of product, maturity of a business, capital, and resources.

The Importance of Demand Analysis in Retail

• Business success depends on identifying and satisfying customer needs.
• Analysing consumer behaviour is crucial for holding appropriate inventory levels.
• Demand analysis provides essential insights for decision-making processes: budget decisions, marketing and advertising costs.
• Demand forecast requires demand analysis for better outcomes.
• Businesses can decide product pricing based on consumer demand trends.
• With the help of demand analysis, companies can set up production planning.
• Demand analysis serves as a foundational element in business strategy.
• It guides effective lead generation by giving insight into customer needs.
• It gives a view into new markets to release products or services.
• Demand analysis helps in effective inventory control.

Steps in Demand Analysis

1. Market Research

The first and foremost thing businesses attempting demand analysis is to dive deep into the target markets. Market surveys are the most used traditional method to understand consumer needs. Survey your customers about the new product and find out how satisfied they are. If consumers express dissatisfaction, it is time to develop on the product or bring something new. 

While consumer surveys are common for market research, use a variety of methods like interviews, focus groups, public events, observations, experiments, and secondary data analysis. It ensures the credibility of collection data. 

Interestingly, most companies analyse just 12% of their gathered data. They miss out on 88% of potential opportunities and threats. Effective use of data is one of the biggest competitive advantages out there. So, not just gather data, but act on it.

Create concrete buyer personas in numbers. It will also reveal opportunities in secondary markets where the audience might need your product or service.

2. Evaluate the Business Cycle

After market research, the focus must become internal i.e. evaluating the business cycle and maturity. There are three stages in a business cycle: Emerging stage when there is high demand but low supply, Plateau stage when the supply meets the demand, and declining stage where demand is going down. 

In other words, some products seem to have a lifetime cycle, while others have short. For example, the oldest beer brew has been popular in the market since 1040. But some breweries have gone bankrupt. 

Analyse the market and business life cycle to measure stability. Determine if the market is growing, stable, or declining. Similarly, assess your business’s maturity level. Integrate this into product demand analysis. If the market grows but you can’t match it, consider how to sustain profitability.

3. Aiming at a Product Niche

When doing a product demand analysis, it is crucial to be specific. Avoid painting a better picture by considering the entire market or a bigger part of the market. Customers are not just looking at the quality, pricing and unique features of a product. They are looking for brands they can connect with. Brands that share personal values and motivations along with the product needs.

So identifying a niche and tailoring a product for that niche wins the game. It also helps customers differentiate your products from that of competitors.

4. Define the USP

After knowing the markets, it is time to differentiate yourself from them. Businesses must develop products or services with an aim to solve customer problems rather than make profits. It automatically increases demand. 

Identify trends and seek growth opportunities ahead. Consider societal aspects such as wages, costs of related products, and tax adjustments.

5. Competitor Analysis

Start by identifying the market competitors and their market share. It also gives insights into market demand by highlighting the best selling products, how they’re winning the sales game, and increasing market shares. You can also understand what new products they are launching and how. 

But, it also depends on which stage of the business cycle you are in. For emerging brands, there will be few competitors. As your business matures, the competition will be tough.

Challenges in Demand Analysis

• Understanding the consumer behaviour, preferences, and costs involves complexity. From employing different market research methods to accuracy of data, demand analysis requires skilled expertise. 
• Time consumption is another challenge as gathering data can be lengthy. Depending on the response time of the customers, it can take unsustainably longer.
• Demand analysis often relies on subjective judgement rather than concrete data. So translating it into business decisions is cumbersome and tricky.

Data-driven decisions often require sophisticated technologies like AI, analytics, and ML. It is capital-intensive. On the other hand, with help of such technologies, businesses can make decisions 5X faster.

Best Practices in Demand Analysis

Regularity: Consumer needs and market sentiments change rapidly in today’s world. That is why businesses must conduct demand analysis regularly to gain updated information. Depending on the product type, conduct the demand analysis at least once a month.

Variety in Data-collection Methods: Use a variety of data collection methods for maintaining accuracy and consistency.

Comprehensive Data Collection: Gather data from all market segments to understand consumer response. It helps make informed marketing decisions for your products and services. 

Thorough Analysis: After achieving data collection, thorough analysis is required to narrow down the essential data and eliminate fallible data. 

Data-driven Decisions: While expert opinions are crucial, always depend on data-driven decisions before consulting them. There is no place for guess work.

Related read: Methods of Demand Forecasting

Conclusion

Entering retail markets without demanding analysis is shooting in the dark. It is a very unsustainable way to enter target markets. Given the volatility of markets and increasing consumer awareness, businesses that want to stay longer must focus on detailed demand analysis. Without that, they’re staking business reputation and brand value in the long-run.

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