NEW YORK - Retailers may have lured holiday shoppers to their stores with discounts and promotions, but they??ll need to differentiate and offer a quality product if they want to keep the momentum going, reports Bloomberg.

The article highlights bricks-and-mortar retailers, but there is a similar outlook for convenience retailers, particularly those who offer foodservice. Simply put: "Product is king again." You may have the best prices in town, but the offer has be backed up with a quality product.

"It??s got to be all about the product," Christine Chen, a Needham & Co. analyst told the news source, noting that discounts alone are not enough to keep consumers shopping.

The product also has to have a "wow" factor; something that makes it stand out from the competition. Case in point, Victoria??s Secret.

"Our business is about differentiation," Stuart Burgdoerfer, CFO of Victoria??s Secret parent Limited Brands Ltd., said at a Jan. 12 investors?? conference. "We really have unique product, leading position with respect to our brands, no obvious immediate close competition."

And at the end of the day, it??s all about the customer ?" keeping store traffic steady and building loyalty. Retailers such as Abercrombie combated lackluster performance by refocusing on its core customer demand. "Abercrombie is reconnecting with its customer," Amy Noblin, a retail analyst for Weeden & Co., told the news source. "They just got off-track for a while."

Discounting may get customers in the door, but too much of a good thing can turn into a pitfall, or "discount fatigue," Chen told the news source. "When you promote all the time, there is no longer a call to urgency."