Being different is a matter of life or death

„Either you are different from your competitors, or you are dead”. This was the topic to be discussed at the ECR Europe conference held in Milan, in April. The above sentence comes from José Luis Duran, chairman of the board of directors of Carrefour, the biggest European retail chain, who used it no less than five times. According to Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, chairman and CEO of Nestlé and co-president of ECR-Europe, “We have not been attractive enough for consumers, otherwise they would have spent more money on FMCG products.” Regarding the FMCG market, he does not believe in the idea of the “global consumer”. – Only local consumers exist and I personally would say that only individual consumers exist – he adds. The assortments of successful manufacturers are not global. They tend to develop individual contacts between their brand and local consumers. The chairman of Carrefour said: – We have to co-operate more closely with manufacturers to predict what consumers will be looking for, the demand of tomorrow. He also noted that instead of focusing on store types, market players should covert to brand-focused business activities. – Price will remain the number one consideration. Innovation means new products and services. Private labels should not dominate shelves, because we need innovation. Demand for bio and wellness products is growing and this allows us to be different. One of the obstacles of co-operation between manufacturers and retailers is if too much market data is generated. – We only need to see the considerations of the consumers. He made three points: about new methods of co-operation, the sharing of information and integrated logistics with joint distribution centres. Anders Moberg, chairman and CEO of Ahold, pointed out that “Consumers are the bosses”. He also remarked that wellness and healthy food is good for us since healthy people live longer and stay consumers longer. – Different consumers have different needs. We should be able to provide ideal conditions for shopping for all of them.