This book examines and explains the current situation and problems of supermarket chains in
England. Supermarket chains are operating in a profitable market but they are confronted with
the problem of high competition and compared to manufacturers they have only few possibilities
to differentiate. Especially the importance of differentiation is questioned in this book. It
is examined whether differentiation is really essential for gaining competitive advantage. For
a comprehensive and substantiated demonstration secondary theoreatical data and a study with
primary data is used. With theories of manufacturers and retailers possibilities for
differentiation are identified. Aspects of customer perceptions are considered as important as
differentiation and thus included and linked to differentiation strategies. A study
ascertained best practice by surveying students to examine perceived differentiation factors.
Upon critical success factors perceived added value is identified as a major issue of
differentiation strategies and included in this study. The research led to the fact that
differentiation is not conducted by all supermarkets and that undifferentiation can also be a
profitable strategy. Hence positioning strategies solely based on differentiation is seen as
inadequate. For a successful applied competitor based strategy a combination of differentiation
types price and differentiation interdependencies market segmentation and customers' critical
success factors is suggested.
