Traditional "competitors" in the same industry are usually just helping each other grow, rather than stealing each other’s business.
SSRN · March 18, 2026 · 6299119
The Takeaway
Using mobile foot-traffic data, researchers found that when consumers visit multiple brands in the same category, sales growth at one brand predicts growth at its 'peers' for up to six months. While traditional economics assumes a zero-sum game between similar firms, this data shows that shared consumer demand creates a tide that lifts all boats in a way industry classifications fail to capture.
From the abstract
We propose a novel approach to identifying economically linked peer firms based on consumers' co-visitation across retail brands. Using large-scale mobile foot-traffic and transaction data, we find that sales growth at a consumer-based peer is predictive of sales growth at the focal brand for up to six months ahead. This association strengthens with more intense shared foot traffic, closer geographic proximity, and higher local income and population density. Among public firms, these consumer-ba