The competition in the e-commerce space is fierce. Customers are more informed than ever before, and they'll easily spot when a company has great products and service, or if they're just a fly-by-night business.
When you know how your competition functions, you can stand out in the industry. You manage to work out a strategy that is also likely built after studying how the competitor operates in the marketplace. As a business owner, the response you have for your competitors' marketing strategies will tell a lot about your marketing strategies.
The knowledge one gains from such study/research is possibly advantageous to set competitive prices. However, you could also use it to figure out the competitors' weaknesses and thereby focus on improving your business performance. Further, it will allow you to assess any threats posed by both new entrants and current competitors in your niche.
In this blog post, we'll explore the best ways to find your competitors and why they're an important metric for any e-commerce store. If you know who you're competing with, you can better plan your marketing strategy and offerings to try and outperform them in both conversion rates and revenue.
Who are your competitors?
With the increase in internet usage to buy goods and services, the scope of competition also rises. Your competitor can also be someone from another country. Every business faces competition. Even if you're an ice cream vendor, you compete with restaurants, movie theatres, or even fast food joints where customers would spend money rather than at your place.
When your competitor offers a similar substitute product in the market, the one you're selling becomes redundant.
It would be best to remember that competition is not only about losing revenue to a rival. It can be a product or service in development that you plan to launch or get licensed. And also, keep in mind to constantly study your market and industry. You most definitely have to be on the lookout for new competition cropping up in the market.
The information you obtain from studying your competition will help you know the gaps in the market that you can exploit. Furthermore, with this data, you can also know which are the lesser competitive areas so that a lot of focus isn't devoted to such areas.
What to do when your competitor is doing better than you?
And if you're sure your eCommerce competitors are thriving in the industry, see what the reason behind it is. They may be improving customer service or selling products at competitive prices, redesigning their market strategies, revamping their website, and many other things. If you know there are areas where you could make improvements to have the upper hand, then you have to carry out such changes immediately. If you have to change how you operate or market your product, consider the best way to do it.
Moreover, it will help add more value to your product or service.
What to do when they aren’t faring well?
Try to find what the competition is doing worse than you. It can be limited to product range or service, marketing, or distribution. Usually, poor after-sales service can also hamper the image of a company. Upon discovering this point, to one-up your competition, work on these areas to gain that competitive advantage.
However, remind yourself never to stop improving your strengths as you can always be under the competitors' radar, who are likely assessing you. They may adopt and enhance your good ideas.
How to find your eCommerce competitors?
You can find your competitors using a variety of methods:
1. Search the Internet:
One way to find your most important ecommerce competitors is to use the search engine on your computer. Enter the keywords that describe your industry and see what comes up. If you are looking for competitors in the fitness industry, for example, type "eagle fitness" into the search bar. You should get a list of sites that sell fitness-related items.
Go on Google, Bing, and Twitter to find out about companies dealing with similar products or targeting the exact keywords as you. You can also identify them by using Google rankings. It talks about how much traffic an online store receives and the size of its operations.
2. Check with the customers
One way to find out who your top competitors are is to ask your customers.
Ask your consumers what forums they like to read, what Facebook pages they follow, and then study these sites for mentions of the companies that sell what you sell. Or ask them what other brands they'd considered before they would choose to buy from you.
3. Find out from other stakeholders
To find your most important ecommerce competitors, you should talk to other stakeholders in the industry. Ask them what they think are the biggest brands and which brands do their best to compete with.
Check for companies in your niche, ask your vendors and suppliers who they think are your competitors. For example, if you're in the pet food industry and are trying to determine your five biggest competition, then you would ask other stakeholders such as suppliers, distributors, and retailers.
4. Use automated tools on the web
One way to find competitors is to use automated tools like AHREFS and SEMrush. Go on SimilarSiteSearch.com and SEMRush to identify competitors. You can try and create keyword alerts for your competitor's brand names. And when you find a company that’s likely to be a close competitor, keep tabs on them.
The Google Adwords Keyword Tool can help you identify what search terms people are using and will give you advice for keywords that might be worth paying for ads to get in front of people who are searching for those terms.
5. Track through social media platforms
One way to find out who your competitors are is to search social media platforms. This is a good approach because people are more likely to post their thoughts or reviews on social media than they would in a review site or blog post.
Monitor their social media pages, follow their official company handles on Facebook and see what they post or the page updates. Even subscribe to their newsletter. You can search for the company's name and see if anyone has mentioned them on any of the major social media sites. You can also use tools like Hootsuite that let you track mentions across multiple platforms and channels so you're never missing anything.
6. Compare inventory levels
Identify competitors' by checking the stores that manage a similar inventory level.
When you get on a competitor's website, you can scroll down to the bottom of their website and see their current inventory levels.
You can also look at their recent sales or compare the number of reviews they have so that you can see which products customers prefer. These store will attract price-sensitive customers who will switch to the store that offers a better deal.
Apart from the above, even advertisements or press reports can help you find out who are your competitors.
Conclusion
Having information about your competitors doesn't mean you've got to copy them. You have to try to innovate your products rather than imitate their products. And with the knowledge you gain from monitoring your competition, you stay aware of the trends and tactics they follow and how they can impact your business.
For instance, you could observe a sudden drop in your conversions without changing the site traffic. It can mean that a competitor has changed prices for the product or is running a promotion to attract your sales.
If you are selling the same or similar products, you want to be aware of those companies that your customers are purchasing from most frequently. This way, you can see if there is an opportunity to improve your sales by increasing the benefits you provide to your target audience. And with this competitive data, you can also better identify which products you should be focusing on and consider if it might be worth a campaign to advertise them more effectively. Keep track of these metrics and see how they change over time.
Datahut helps retailers monitor competitor data through its web scraping services. Our services help businesses stay ahead of the competition by providing online data in a format that is easy-to-digest and accurate.
In a world where competitors are just a click away, businesses need to be able to quickly respond to changes in the market. We make sure you have access to any information you need, whether it's pricing information, availability of products, or sales figures.
Contact Datahut to learn more
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