Fashionably late: Strategies for competing against a pioneer advantage

This study delineates the conditions under which a late entrant is able to outperform a pioneer brand by examining the value relevance of alignable and non-alignable attributes. The first experiment shows that the late entrant can surpass the pioneer by adopting either a distinctive (new, non-alignable attribute) or enhancing (improved, alignable attribute) strategy depending on the value relevance of the new attributes. The second experiment provides evidence that pricing cues become instrumental when the value relevance of the late entrant with a distinctive strategy is low. In this context, the findings show that increasing the price of the product counter-intuitively enhances the preferences for the late entrant. •A late entrant benefits from either a distinctive strategy or an enhancing strategy, depending on the value relevance of the new attributes.•A higher-priced late entrant product can gain significantly more market share from a pioneer brand when non-alignable attributes are valuable.•When consumers value a non-alignable attribute, price differential does not matter.