How Midland identified a gap between supply and demand and developed new products thanks to STAT

Overview

Midland, an established company in the production of transceivers, has been facing aggressive competition on marketplaces for some years now. Recently, the company used STAT to monitor its categories of interest and developed a strategy to regain market share.

During the first months of 2023, Midland monitored the search trends related to the words “walkie talkie” and “cb“, products that represent its core business.

Thanks to the valuable insights identified through STAT, the company was able to defend itself from the online competition by developing an ad hoc strategy based on two main actions: the development of new products and the optimization of its existing catalog, all to better meet the user demand.

Midland

For over 60 years, Midland has designed and produced high-quality and technologically innovative transceivers and related accessories.

The group has more than 15 subsidiaries (branches and strategic partners) in Europe and extra-EU, and a distribution network in over 90 countries, under the guidance of the Italian Headquarters based in Reggio Emilia.

Their wide range of products can meet the communication needs of different users: from truck drivers looking for traffic information, to bikers who travel in groups, to outdoor enthusiasts who need safety and rescue during their adventures.

The main business focuses mainly on three product ranges:

1. Walkie-Talkies, which are handheld transceivers;
2. CB, various radio wave transceivers to talk and exchange information in any condition;
3. Motorcycle intercoms that, thanks to the Bluetooth technology, connect to other technological devices (such as GPS navigators or mobile phones).

STAT

STAT is Witailer’s proprietary intelligence platform that lets you explore e-commerce trends in just a few clicks.

STAT gives access to over 1 million searches, aggregated by category, allowing brands to intercept new trends, delineate the competitive arena and develop successful products.

CASE STUDY

Development of new products

As for the walkie-talkies, a large volume of searches related to professional radios immediately emerged from the monitoring through STAT. Within the category Electronics, and more specifically in the sub-category Radiocommunication transceivers, in fact, the most popular searches of the last 12 months have been:

More in-depth searches within the search term “walkie talkie professionali” then highlighted how two of the most clicked products by users were semi-professional radios (with some accessories included in the package and with an aggressive price point) belonging to minor producers of medium-low quality present exclusively online:

Although users looked for professional walkie-talkies, they often ended up buying low-end but “ready-to-use” alternatives (for example, sold in double packs or with earphones already included).

Historically, Midland has always sold on Amazon packs with single Walkie-Talkie and without earphones (which you can buy separately).

Given the evidence shown by STAT, the company has therefore decided to create two new kits to better meet the needs of users:

• A kit with two radios and earphones (Midland Kit Team Work 2 Walkie Talkie);
• A kit with four radios and a multiple charger (Midland Kit Team Work 4 Walkie Talkie).

Optimization and adaptation of the existing catalog

In the CB world, search volumes are lower than walkie-talkies’. An analysis of the Radio CB sub-category showed the following as the most popular search terms:

Going then to deepen the most used search term, Midland was able to identify which products were the most clicked on that specific word:

This allowed the company to discover not only that the most clicked product was that of a competitor – while the brand’s product was in third place – but also that the same competing product had won 100% of the conversions.

Specifically, the specific product was very similar in terms of technical quality to the one offered by Midland, but sold at a much more competitive price, thus attracting all users.

Aware of the fact that a competitor’s product was strongly eroding its customer base, the company has since then decided to offer its own alternative at a more aggressive price.

Not only. In the previous months, among the most popular products, there was also a portable CB kit with a magnetic antenna, from the same competitor, of which at the time Midland had no alternative in its catalog.

Based on this information, the company decided to create an ad hoc kit to better meet the user’s needs, creating its own CB car kit with a magnetic antenna.

“Midland is among the world leaders in the transceiver industry but has long been trying to fight the aggressive competition on marketplaces. STAT has allowed us to analyze the online demand in our categories of interest: by cross-referencing data such as user searches and the respective most clicked products, we have thus identified a significant gap between supply and demand. Thanks to this valuable information we developed new specific products to better meet the demands of users, counteracting the competitors’ offer and reclaiming our market shares.” Gabriele Torreggiani, Vice President, Midland