Spate of Struggling Brands Highlights the Need to Keep Evolving Your Small Business

So far in 2017, more than 300 retailers have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, including RadioShack, Payless and The Limited. And other brands like General Mills are also struggling to remain relevant with consumers.

This isn’t exactly surprising. The retail industry has been reeling for years as some brands have been unable to adapt to major competition from online stores like Amazon.  A recent study found that 74 percent of small business websites have no ecommerce element to allow customers to make purchases online.

But as General Mills’ problems demonstrates, business struggles in 2017 aren’t just about the competition between online and traditional retail. Some businesses have to consider other changing trends, like the increasing importance of healthy food items. Brands like Campbell’s Soup have already learned that failing to adapt to this trend can lead to falling profits.

Evolving Your Small Business

Overall, there’s no magic solution for keeping your small business relevant as the world and your customers change around you. Whether failure to adopt the latest technologies or to change your product to meet modern tastes is at fault, it doesn’t matter. The only option is for companies to continually monitor and evaluate trends. This allows them to make small adjustments over time to keep up with consumer preferences. Businesses that fail to do so can’t hope to survive for very long.

Radio Shack Photo via Shutterstock

This article, "Spate of Struggling Brands Highlights the Need to Keep Evolving Your Small Business" was first published on Small Business Trends