Self-competition

In business, self-competition occurs when a company competes with itself for customers, either through its products or retail locations. Product self-competition arises when a company offers multiple similar products, potentially causing a decline in sales of existing products even if total sales increase. For example, a bakery introducing blackberry muffins might see raspberry muffin sales drop. To minimize this, new products should differ significantly from existing ones, such as adding bran muffins or whole loaves of bread instead of similar flavors. Retail location self-competition happens when two stores of the same company are situated too close together, reducing business for one or both locations. The acceptable distance to avoid this depends on the type of business; for instance, newspaper stands can be closer than amusement parks or ski resorts. Franchises like McDonald's often prohibit locations within a certain radius of each other. Subway, for example, has faced internal competition due to its presence in Wal-Mart stores near other Subway locations. Self-competition can also result from mergers and acquisitions, as combined businesses may have overlapping products or locations. Success in such cases depends on eliminating redundancies while retaining profitable products or features. For instance, a company might keep the superior product from one brand and the better packaging from another. Large companies with significant market share are more likely to experience self-competition, as seen with General Motors discontinuing its Oldsmobile line due to redundancy with Buick. Additionally, self-competition can be managed through tactics like clearance sales or delaying product introductions to ...