Our latest update to our Digital Go-To-Market Review series — The World’s Most Future-Proofed Brands — highlights best practices from the highest-scoring brands across all of the product categories we’ve reviewed. This series includes kid, baby, and toy; apparel and shoe brands; beauty brands; consumer electronics brands; CPG (consumer packaged goods) brands; and home goods brands. To win in this evolving digital landscape, we find that brands must innovate, sell directly to the consumer, and demonstrate strong e-control.

When the brand website does not lead on price or omnichannel pickup or has out-of-stock items or insufficient information on quality or product features, consumers are tempted to buy products on other channels such as online marketplaces. But when consumers buy products on online marketplaces versus a brand website, brands can wind up with arm’s-length relationships with those customers. Other considerations include less control around placement and consumer data, plus potential proximity to gray-market sellers for brand goods.

How We Conducted This Research

Forrester’s Digital Go-To-Market Review series assesses a set of brands in a specific category to see how well they are positioned to thrive independently. In this update, we analyzed our reviews of 177 retail brands on five elements, covering 21 sub-elements. Specifically, for each brand, we reviewed its:

  • Direct-to-consumer strength.
  • Brand visibility online.
  • Distribution and e-control.
  • Organic consumer enthusiasm.
  • Product innovation.

Seventeen Brands Lead The Way

After synthesizing all 177 brand reviews, we deemed the top 10% (17 brands) as best in class (see below figure). We featured the top three brands from each sector that had the highest scores in buyability, findability, distribution and e-control, consumer enthusiasm, and innovation. To learn more about what makes these brands stand apart and best practices for retailers overall, please see the newly published summary report, The World’s Most Future-Proofed Brands. And if you’d like to discuss our findings for your business, please email me (skodali@forrester.com) or your Forrester account manager. If you’re a client, please schedule an inquiry with me to discuss our findings.

 

The Top 10% Of The Digital Go-To-Market Review Series

 

(Taylor Hansen, research associate, contributed to this post.)