Open Access

Luis Hettich

• Within the last few years, the traditional retail industry in Germany has changed dramatically, experiencing a shift from stationary to multi-channel retailing. Whereas big corporations in trading can profit from recent developments, small and medium- sized retail companies struggle to stay competitive. The underlying paper examines these developments with a focus on small and medium-sized companies in the music equipment retail industry in Germany using studies and recent findings on the area as well as expert interviews that have been carried out in order to get deep insights into the industry. On the basis of the conducted analysis, the paper shows that the only way to stay competitive is through strategic specialization, which means differentiating itself from competitors within a promising niche. The strategy is implemented in an exemplary company within this industry and necessary steps for the strategy to succeed, such as a resourced-based view and a step-by-step execution have been undertaken. Even though it does not represent the one perfect way of implementing it, it does in fact provide guidelines and limits of such a strategy.