Why leaning into strengths beats trying to fix every weakness.

Every retailer has weaknesses.

Your store may not have the lowest prices. You may not have the largest selection. Your website may never compete with Amazon. Your advertising budget may be a rounding error compared with the national chains. You probably can't stay open 24 hours a day, deliver everything tomorrow or stock every product in every color.

That's okay.

The mistake isn't having weaknesses.

The mistake is building your marketing strategy around trying to convince customers that you don't have them.

Independent retailers have limited resources. We have limited money, limited people and limited time. Trying to compete everywhere usually results in being particularly good nowhere.

A better marketing question is surprisingly simple:

What do we do exceptionally well?

Then market the daylights out of it.

You Don't Have to Win Every Category

Retailers have an understandable tendency to compare themselves with competitors.

Their store is bigger. Their website is better. They have more locations. They're open longer. Their price is lower. They offer free shipping.

If you spend enough time studying competitors, eventually you can assemble a very impressive list of reasons customers shouldn't shop with you.

That's not particularly useful.

The objective isn't to beat every competitor at everything.

The objective is to give a particular group of customers a compelling reason to choose you.

A specialty retailer may never beat a mass merchant on price. But the mass merchant may never match the specialty retailer's expertise.

An independent furniture store may not stock thousands of sofas. But perhaps its salespeople are exceptionally good at helping customers coordinate a room.

A shoe store may not have the largest inventory in town. But perhaps it stocks widths competitors ignore and employs people who actually understand fit.

Those aren't apologies.

They're marketing strategies.

Ask Your Customers Why They Choose You

Owners aren't always the best people to identify their company's strengths.

We're too close to the business.

We may believe customers choose us because of our selection when they actually come because of a particular salesperson.

We may think our prices are the attraction when customers value convenience.

We may believe we're known for fashion when customers really value fit.

So ask them.

Not through a 42-question survey that requires a customer to surrender half of an afternoon.

Ask one simple question:

"Why do you shop here?"

Then listen.

If you ask enough customers, patterns begin to emerge.

Those patterns may tell you more about your real competitive advantage than a strategic planning retreat ever will.

Your Sales Data Has an Opinion Too

Customers tell you what they value with words.

They also tell you with money.

Study the products customers repeatedly purchase.

Look at categories with unusually high repeat business.

Identify products that generate referrals.

Determine which categories sell successfully without heavy discounting.

Look at where your gross margins are strongest.

Examine what your best customers purchase.

If a particular category produces strong margins, high repeat business and enthusiastic customer recommendations, that's probably not an accident.

Your sales data may be pointing directly toward an area of strength.

Retailers sometimes spend enormous energy trying to repair weak categories while underinvesting in the parts of the business customers already love.

Before fixing everything that's wrong, make sure you're fully exploiting what's right.

There Is a Difference Between a Weakness and a Requirement

This doesn't mean retailers should ignore every weakness.

Some weaknesses are simply unacceptable.

If your store is dirty, clean it.

If employees are rude, fix it.

If your inventory system routinely tells customers merchandise is available when it isn't, solve the problem.

If your website doesn't work on a phone, that's not a charming independent-retailer quirk.

Certain capabilities are the price of admission.

But there is a difference between fixing a fundamental operational problem and attempting to become best-in-class at everything.

Your website needs to function well.

It doesn't necessarily need to be better than Amazon's.

Your prices need to be competitive and defensible.

They don't necessarily need to be the lowest.

Your selection needs to satisfy your target customer.

It doesn't need to include everything manufactured on planet Earth.

Know the difference between a weakness that damages the customer experience and a limitation that simply reflects your business model.

Expertise Is Worth Marketing

One of the greatest underused strengths in independent retail is expertise.

Retailers often employ people who have spent years, sometimes decades, learning a product category.

Then their advertising says:

"20% OFF THIS WEEKEND!"

What happened to the expertise?

If your people know more than the competition, market that.

If your staff can solve problems an online algorithm can't, market that.

If you carry unusual sizes, market that.

If you can special-order products, market that.

If you have relationships with vendors that allow you to solve unusual customer requests, market that.

If your employees know the difference between selling somebody a product and helping somebody select the right product, definitely market that.

A competitor can copy your price tomorrow.

Institutional knowledge is considerably harder to copy.

Build Marketing Around Proof

There is a danger in simply declaring that you're great at something.

Every business claims to have great service.

Every restaurant has delicious food.

Every contractor does quality work.

Every retailer cares about customers.

Customers have heard all of this before.

Don't just claim your strength.

Prove it.

If selection is your strength, show the selection.

If expertise is your strength, create videos answering customer questions.

If fit is your specialty, explain how your fitting process works.

If you have experienced employees, introduce them and tell customers how long they've been working in the category.

If service is your advantage, use customer testimonials and reviews to demonstrate it.

Specific evidence is more persuasive than generic adjectives.

"Great customer service" is advertising.

"Mary has been fitting children's shoes for 18 years" is evidence.

Evidence wins.

Strengths Can Become Moats

The most valuable strengths are difficult for competitors to reproduce.

Price isn't usually one of them.

A competitor can lower a price in thirty seconds.

But developing an experienced staff takes years.

Building a reputation takes years.

Creating relationships with generations of customers takes years.

Developing expertise in a complicated product category takes years.

Building an assortment around the needs of a particular local market takes years.

Those strengths create what investors sometimes call a moat: something that makes the business harder to compete against.

Independent retailers should identify those moats and deliberately make them wider.

If expertise differentiates you, invest in training.

If selection differentiates you, protect the inventory depth that matters.

If community involvement differentiates you, become more involved.

If relationships differentiate you, give employees the time and tools to develop them.

Don't merely advertise your competitive advantage.

Invest in it.

Stop Trying to Appeal to Everybody

One of the hardest things in marketing is accepting that your business isn't for everyone.

That's actually good news.

If you're trying to appeal to everybody, your marketing becomes painfully generic.

Great prices. Great selection. Great service. Friendly people. Convenient location.

At some point, every retailer starts sounding like every other retailer.

Strong marketing requires choosing.

Who is your customer?

What does that customer value?

What are you unusually good at providing?

Why should that person choose you?

The sharper those answers become, the easier marketing becomes.

You stop shouting at everybody and start speaking directly to somebody.

Make Your Strength Stronger

Retail strategy often begins with a list of problems.

Maybe it should begin with a list of strengths.

Identify the three things your business does particularly well.

Then ask how much of your marketing budget, employee training, inventory investment and management attention supports those strengths.

You may discover something uncomfortable.

The thing customers value most about your business isn't receiving nearly enough attention.

Fix that first.

Because businesses rarely become exceptional by sanding every rough edge until they're perfectly average.

They become exceptional by identifying something customers genuinely value, becoming remarkably good at delivering it and making certain the market knows about it.

You don't have to be the best retailer at everything.

You need to be the best choice for the customers you're trying to serve.

Figure out why that is.

Then build your marketing around it.

_________________________________________________________

About the Author

Alan Miklofsky is a semi-retired business consultant and longtime independent footwear retailer. He spent approximately 40 years operating The Shoe House, Inc., doing business as Alan’s Shoes in Tucson, Arizona, before selling the business in 2022. He was a member of the National Shoe Retailers Association Board of Directors for 29 years and served as its Chair from 2009 to 2011. Alan was named NSRA Retailer of the Year in 2015 and received the top national score in Footwear Insight’s Gold Medal Service Award in 2019, and the store followed up with another top service score in 2023.

An early adopter of e-commerce, Alan founded Shoes.com as a Yahoo Store in 1998. He has contributed articles to Footwear Insight, Shoe Retailing Today and Specialty-Retailer.com and continues to advise retailers and businesses on financial performance, marketing, merchandising, operations and growth strategy. He is also a speaker on the practical application of artificial intelligence in independent retail.