eComID’s Industry-Wide Problem, Industry-Wide Solution Strategy

Most B2B positioning follows a predictable pattern: identify your competitors, articulate your differentiation, and fight for market share. The entire playbook assumes a zero-sum game where one company’s win is another’s loss.

In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Oscar Rundqvist, CEO and Co-Founder of eComID, described a fundamentally different approach. Instead of positioning against competitors, eComID positioned for collective action. Instead of claiming they solve returns better than alternatives, they reframed returns as a problem no single brand can solve alone.

“We acknowledge that product returns is not one brand’s problem, it’s an industry wide problem,” Oscar explains. This isn’t just messaging. It’s a strategic choice that changes everything about how eComID builds, sells, and scales.

The Zero-Sum Trap

Traditional B2B competitive positioning creates inherent constraints. When you position against competitors, you’re asking prospects to choose you instead of them. This works fine in established categories where the pie is fixed.

But when you’re creating a category, zero-sum positioning creates problems. It forces you into comparison frameworks before the market understands what you’re comparing. It makes every customer win feel like competition rather than collaboration. It limits your addressable market to customers willing to switch.

Most importantly, competitive positioning misses the fundamental dynamic of industry-wide problems: individual action isn’t enough. When “54% of all dresses that was bought online in Europe last year were returned,” when return rates hit 30-50%, no single brand’s efforts move the needle on consumer behavior at scale.

If the problem is systemic, positioning as a vendor to individual brands misses the opportunity. You need to position as the platform for collective action.

Reframing the Problem

Oscar’s framing is precise: not “brands have a returns problem,” but “product returns is not one brand’s problem, it’s an industry wide problem.”

When you frame something as industry-wide, several things happen. First, you remove defensive reactions. Brands aren’t being told they’re uniquely bad. Second, you create permission for collaboration. Third, you position your solution as infrastructure rather than competitive advantage.

This reframing shows up in how Oscar talks about root causes. “During the pandemic, amount of return was almost like, free doubled in the US,” he notes. This wasn’t individual brand mistakes. “The customer behavior back then changed because the physical selling, like, got completely out of the way.”

Brands had to respond to market conditions. The result? “That led to a quite irresponsible shopping behavior online, and that had now got stuck.”

By rooting the problem in industry-wide dynamics rather than individual failures, Oscar creates space for industry-wide solutions.

The Platform Implication

When you position around industry-wide problems, you’re building a platform, not selling software. The distinction shapes every product and GTM decision.

A software vendor optimizes for individual customer success. A platform optimizes for network effects. The more brands that adopt eComID, the more powerful the system becomes, because consumer behavior change requires consistency across brands.

If one brand implements dynamic return policies, customers might shift to brands without those policies. But if the industry adopts similar approaches, consumer behavior adapts. The value increases as adoption spreads.

“We also want to provide an industry wide solution and really tackle this problem into a new kind of era of returns, where online shopping is not what it is today,” Oscar explains. The goal isn’t helping brands individually optimize. It’s transforming how the entire industry handles returns.

The GTM Advantage

Positioning around industry-wide problems creates distinct go-to-market advantages. First, it changes the sales conversation. You’re not convincing brands to switch from competitors. You’re explaining why the industry needs to solve this collectively. This removes defensive reactions.

Second, it enables customer evangelism. When a brand implements eComID, they benefit from other brands also implementing it. This creates incentive to encourage peer adoption, rather than hoarding competitive advantage.

Third, it positions you for regulatory conversations. When Oscar notes “hopefully, and probably there will come some regulation soon,” eComID isn’t positioned as a vendor reacting to regulation. They’re the industry solution that regulation might accelerate.

Fourth, it creates natural PR opportunities. Industry-wide problems get media attention. By positioning around the industry problem, eComID becomes part of larger conversations about fashion sustainability.

The Category Creation Multiplier

When you’re creating a category, industry-wide positioning accelerates awareness in ways competitive positioning can’t. Every conversation about the returns crisis becomes a conversation that could lead to eComID, because they’re solving the industry-level problem everyone’s discussing.

“We’re trying to engage wherever this is discussed, trying to encourage this to be discussed even more,” Oscar explains. This engagement strategy works because eComID isn’t selling against competitors. They’re contributing to an industry conversation.

When brands discuss the returns crisis with peers, when sustainability experts write about fashion’s environmental impact, when regulators examine e-commerce practices, eComID’s positioning makes them a natural part of those conversations. Not as a vendor with a competing solution, but as a participant in solving the collective problem.

The Data Network Effect

There’s another dimension to industry-wide positioning that Oscar hints at but hasn’t fully deployed yet. When you’re solving an industry-wide problem through a platform, you can build data network effects that individual implementations can’t.

eComID’s intelligent guidance system learns from purchase and return patterns. The more brands implementing it, the more data it sees about sizing consistency across brands, about which product categories generate returns, about which customer segments respond to which interventions.

This creates a moat that competitive positioning can’t build. Individual brands implementing competitive solutions generate data only for themselves. Brands on an industry-wide platform contribute to and benefit from collective intelligence. The value compounds as adoption spreads.

The Principle for Platform Thinking

Strip away the specifics of returns reduction, and you find a principle that applies whenever solving coordination problems: if the optimal outcome requires collective action, position around the industry-wide problem rather than individual solutions.

This works when problems have strong externalities, when consumer behavior change requires consistency across providers, when network effects determine solution value, or when regulatory pressure demands industry-level response.

Oscar’s approach with eComID demonstrates that escaping zero-sum competition isn’t about avoiding head-to-head battles through differentiation. It’s about reframing the problem so competition becomes collaboration. When winning means everyone in the industry adopting better practices, your customers become your advocates rather than your moat.

The returns crisis in fashion e-commerce is an industry-wide problem. eComID’s genius is recognizing that such problems demand industry-wide solutions, and positioning accordingly from day one.