RETAIL EVOLUTION
1) Why are retail life cycles becoming shorter?
The retail life cycle is becoming shorter because many products in industries are revitalized by product differentiation and market segmentation.
The time you need in order to sell your products on a market and recover your investments shrinks therefore companies reassess the product life cycle costs.
There are more and more aggressive competitors that mean it is essential for companies to constantly innovate.
Consumers’ behaviours are very flexible and unstable.
Expected sales are not reached so companies decide to stop the production and minimize the costs.
It is getting harder for companies to define a good consumer’s profile therefore the demand is decreasing.
With the increasing pressure on prices during the maturity phase, a lot of companies drop out of the market.
A lot of products become obsolete very quickly that is why the life cycle has to be short.
Nowadays products are not really adapted to the “new generation” (for example: lack of simplicity / aesthetics).
The demand is not standard anymore.
2) Consider any situation in which an established retail format is facing new competition from an innovative retail format. How would conflict theory suggest that these rivals may react over the years to come?
By collaboration: they face conflict directly and try to find new and creative solutions to problems by focusing on the ...