In an overly crowded commercial world, where diverse products are more in abundance than ever before, big retailers are setting a new trend which is bottom-up and basically consumer driven. The relationship between retailers and manufacturers is taking a new turn, as retailers no longer want to only negotiate prices with manufacturers and choose from an existing range of finished products, but rather to have a say in what manufacturers are to produce for them.
“Big retailers want to be more in control”, says Frank Tyneski in an interview with BusinessWeek Innovation chief Bruce Nussbaum. Retailers want to differentiate products for their retail channels in order to address their customers’ unique needs. To achieve that, they are setting up their own research and design departments to gain better understanding of their customers’ needs based on observations, ethnography and other qualitative research techniques.
This acquired knowledge of consumers’ needs is then used to put pressure on manufacturers to create unique products especially for them. The rules of the game are surely changing!
