If Gap Needs a Niche

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The New York Times carried an article today with the headline – Gap Is in Need of a Niche.

If one of the largest retailers in the world is facing its demise from a failure to differentiate what chance do you think your small business stands doing the same.

Attempting, intentionally or accidentally, to appeal to all is a sure way to kill sales and buzz.

Find a way to narrow your market focus to the smallest niche possible and you will no longer need to worry about competing on price.

Find a market that is not being served well, cut your little piece of it and create an experience like no one ever thought of creating.

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Posted by: John Jantsch on Jan 27, 07 | 6:06 pm
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Steve

Gap is not only missing a niche, they are missing leadership. It is the leadership, that can not only find a niche, but then exploit it.

Australian department stores have had to do this over the last 5 years and the turn around in the companies has been astonishing.

Kevin Hillstrom

Now try carving out a niche while Wall St. demands that you grow sales and profit at the same time. I've been in enough board rooms and executive meetings to know that leaders talk about these things all the time, they aren't dumb.

Trying to get 35,000 employees to all act in a consistent manner, selling product that 500 merchandisers all agree is targeted to the exact same niche, while preventing further comp store sales decreases, now that is where the rubber hits the road.

Strategy Central

<trackback>If the Gap Needs a Niche
This seems to be a theme today. It's being widely reported that The Gap is in trouble. Maybe you shop there. In the spirit of clarifying your organization's win...check out this post: If the Gap Needs a Niche over on</trackback>

John Jantsch

Kevin,

Great points - throw in SARBOX and you can see why so many firms are going back private.

Greg Stielstra

Way FM, the Christian music radio network, targets a specific, imaginary, 26-year-old woman named Jennifer who personifies their listener. They know that if they focus on Jenny, they'll get her friends. If they focus on Jenny and her friends, they'll get neither.

Spread the fire. GS

LandingTheDeal

<trackback>Niche Selling: The Best Way to Build Your Business?
I'm becoming more of a believer in niche marketing and selling. Specifically targeting your market, and then providing goods and services for that highly specified market, makes good business sense.The guys over at Duct Tape Marketing seem to...</trackback>

Jodi Kaplan

Our senior senator in NY, Chuck Schumer, has just done essentially the same thing as that radio station. He's written a book talking about the problems of his target voters/customers, and has given them names, professions, a home, opinions, etc. He said his staff calls them his "imaginary friends", but he's essentially created a profile, targeted a niche, and built a strategy in the book for how the Democrats can best reach those voters and win elections.

I guess we'll know the results next year!

Ron Elizondo

Although this wasn't really carried or published in some major newspaper before, this has been discussed for quite some time. It's rather weird to me that Gap Leaders and managers had not seen this.

IMO they'll be hitting the hard truth in the next couple of months, where I believe sales will start to decline. They're offering nothing but the conventional, that just doesn't make it anymore.

Great Link,
Ron.

brandcurve.com - Gap is

<pingback>...moment? I guess only time will tell. NYT LINK Via (Duct Tape Marketing) Technorati : Gap, NYT, brand, clothing About 'Gap is facing the HARSH truth…' This entry was posted on January 29th 2007 by ron. It was ...</pingback>

Caroline Melberg

It's the Long Tail in action - Gap's plight illustrates the problem that many large corps are facing right now - how to "nichefy" (to borrow Chris Anderson's word) themselves in a world of consumers traveling further and further down the tail. Learn who your customer is, figure out what they want - then delight them by providing exactly that.

Great blog!
Caroline

Christina

Caroline took the words right out of my mouth - The Long Tail by Chris Anderson talks about niche business in his book and on his blog - He also focuses on how the web has enabled the niche business to blossom. How actually the web has driven niche business.

Love the topics covered on your blog! Every single one is relevant to the now and what's hot on the table.

Christina

Ponn Sabra

Thanks John for your post. I shared with my fellow women entrepreneurs that the #1 place I started creating a niche online was article marketing, particularly at one directory. For details: http://empowerwomennow.blogspot.com/2007/02/17-...

A loyal reader,
Ponn

Aaron Gerdes : Appealing to ev

<pingback>...to generate a trackback link. The ...</pingback>

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