How to Gather Intelligence on Your Competitors
By Tanuj Rastogi
From showing up on the first page of search results to increasing website traffic and
luring potential customers on social media, it all boils down to outperforming your competitors
when it comes to e-commerce.
The volatile e-commerce market is competitive and dynamic. Over the years, the industry
has enjoyed growth that is nothing short of a revolution. Not to mention, the competition which
continues to soar by leaps and bounds. So much so, that the internet is crammed with information,
guidelines and tips on how to start and maintain an e-store and drive success as an e-commerce retailer.
However, those comprehensive blogs, articles and guides on the web aren't the only sources
of information individuals involved with e-commerce can refer to. You might not expect this but
some of the most effective e-commerce tips, strategies and advice can come from your competition itself.
Believe it or not, even the smallest of your competitors can teach you lessons that can
help you to avoid common slip-ups and discover opportunities to grow and differentiate your
business from others.
Research you Competitors
While many e-commerce entrepreneurs and marketers are creative enough to come up with
unique business ideas, there are chances that every new idea is inspired from something that
already exists and of course presented with innovative changes.
Your competition not only serves as a spur to your business, but also provides you with
vital information that helps you make right decisions for your e-commerce business.
To cash in on your competition, you need to first research it. This research will allow
you to determine what your competitors are up to, why they are doing so, what customers like
or do not like about their product/service, which of their strategies can benefit your business too.
A good competitive research must reveal the following things about your competitors and
the e-commerce industry in general:
• Marketing practices
• Branding strategies
• SEO tactics
• Weaknesses and strengths of competitors
• Customer loyalty rate
• Latest market trends
• Growth opportunities
Getting a good understanding of your competitors will provide you with the information,
which in turn will enable you to establish effective strategies for your own business and add
value to your business.
Steps to Researching your Competitors
• Visit the competitor website(s) and analyse the UX, layout, content and
other aspects of the website. You might want to hire a professional Magento website designer
if you want to outdo your competitor in terms of e-commerce features on your store. A professional
can help you effectively analyse the website and all its components.
• Check out their social media channels to track their activity and check
how they connect with their audience on social media.
• Order a product from the competitor's (obviously as an anonymous user)
website to observe how they interact with their customers and how they serve them.
• Get in touch with their customer support with a made-up query to see how
promptly the team responds to and acknowledge customer queries.
• Check customer reviews online about their product and service.
While you can carry out a competitive research on your own on a daily basis, there are
many other tools and means to perform competitive research in case you don't have time to invest
on research or have other core operations to focus on.
You can hire a professional to do the competitive research for you or you can integrate tools
like Twitter, Google Alerts and RSS feeds to stay updated with the activities, updates and trends
of your competitors.
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