It’s easy to focus entirely on your own brand when you’re thinking about retail execution.

Is our stock on the shelf? Are our tickets correct? Do we have the right number of facings? Is our promotional display in place?

All important questions.

But while you’re looking at your own products, there’s something else worth paying attention to: what are your competitors doing?

The retail environment can tell you a lot about your category, your competitors and even your own opportunities. And when you have people regularly visiting stores, you have the chance to see what’s actually happening at shelf level rather than relying solely on reports, sales data or assumptions.

Who Is Winning the Best Space?

Shelf position matters.

Take a look at where competing products are positioned. Are they at eye level? Have they gained additional facings? Are they appearing on promotional ends, off-location displays or other high-traffic areas?

Changes in shelf space can sometimes give you an early indication that a competitor is gaining momentum, investing more heavily in a retailer or launching a new product.

It can also highlight opportunities for your own brand.

What Are They Promoting?

Promotional activity is one of the most obvious things to monitor in store.

Competitors may be running price promotions, bundles, gift-with-purchase offers, demonstrations or additional displays.

Seeing this activity at store level helps build a much clearer picture of what shoppers are being presented with when they're making their purchasing decision.

It also gives your sales and marketing teams useful information when planning future promotional activity.

Are New Products Appearing?

Stores are often one of the best places to spot changes within a category.

A new product, new packaging, a different size or even a new range extension can tell you where competitors believe the market is heading.

And it isn't just about spotting the product.

Where has it been positioned? How much space has it been given? Is there promotional support around the launch? Is stock readily available?

Those details can be just as valuable as knowing the product exists.

What Does Their Stock Availability Look Like?

An empty competitor shelf can be interesting.

It might indicate strong sales. It might also indicate a supply problem.

Equally, consistently full shelves could suggest excellent stock management, or slower sales.

One store won't tell you the whole story, but when the same patterns start appearing across multiple stores, they can provide useful insights.

This is where having a nationwide field team becomes particularly valuable. What looks like an isolated issue in one store may actually be a much wider trend.

How Strong Is Their In-Store Execution?

Sometimes the biggest difference between two competing brands isn't the product itself. It's how well that product is being executed in store.

Are their shelves consistently full and tidy?

Are promotional tickets correct?

Are displays being maintained?

Is point-of-sale material visible and current?

Are they consistently achieving the shelf position and facings they appear to have been allocated?

Good execution can make a significant difference to visibility and ultimately sales.

If a competitor consistently looks better at shelf, it's worth understanding why.

What Are Store Teams Saying?

There is another source of information that can easily be overlooked: the people working in the stores.

Store teams see customer behaviour every day. They know which products shoppers ask about, which products regularly run out, what customers struggle to find and which new products are attracting attention.

Building good relationships with store teams can provide valuable context that numbers alone can't always give you.

Don't Just Collect Information. Use It.

Competitor information is only valuable if it reaches the people who can do something with it.

Photos, observations and feedback from the field can help sales and marketing teams identify trends, respond to competitor activity and make better decisions about everything from promotions to ranging and retail execution.

The important part is looking beyond individual store observations and identifying patterns.

If the same competitor is gaining additional space across several stores, that's worth knowing.

If a new product suddenly appears nationwide, that's worth knowing too.

And if your competitors consistently have better stock availability, stronger displays or more prominent positioning, there may be something to learn from that.

Your Stores Are a Valuable Source of Market Intelligence

Retail visits aren't just an opportunity to merchandise your own products.

Every store contains information about your category, your competitors and what's happening at shelf level right now.

At Plum Agencies, our nationwide field team works across New Zealand retailers, helping brands with merchandising, sales support, retail execution and valuable insights from the shop floor.

Because sometimes one of the best ways to understand your own performance is to look at what's happening around you.