Turning offline retail data into strategic advantage
Understanding what happens in physical stores is harder than tracking digital competitors, yet it is just as critical. Pricing changes, store expansion, promotions, and in store experience all shape customer behavior and market share. NextGap helps businesses bring structure, visibility, and insight into the physical retail landscape.
This case highlights how Physical Store Research with NextGap enables teams to monitor competitors, identify trends, and make better strategic decisions using real world data.
The challenge
Companies operating in or alongside physical retail often face limited visibility into competitor activity. Store level changes happen frequently and across locations, making manual tracking slow, fragmented, and unreliable.
Common challenges include:
- Limited insight into competitor pricing and promotions
- Difficulty tracking store openings, closures, and expansions
- Lack of consistent data across regions and markets
- Slow reaction to changes in customer experience or positioning
Without reliable competitive intelligence, teams are forced to rely on outdated reports or assumptions.
The NextGap approach
NextGap centralizes physical store research into one structured and scalable system. By continuously collecting and organizing data from multiple sources, NextGap provides a clear view of competitor activity across physical locations.
Our approach includes:
- Monitoring store presence and geographic expansion
- Tracking pricing, promotions, and in store offers
- Analyzing changes in store concepts and layouts
- Capturing signals from customer feedback and local trends
All insights are transformed into actionable intelligence that teams can use immediately.
Key insights uncovered
Using NextGap for physical store research allows companies to uncover patterns that are often missed with manual analysis.
Typical insights include:
- Which competitors are expanding fastest and where
- How pricing and promotions vary by location
- Emerging retail concepts and experience trends
- Regional differences in customer expectations
These insights help businesses understand not just what competitors are doing, but why it matters for their own strategy.