Explore and analyse your competition’s catalogue

Explore and analyse your competitors’ catalogue

11/10/2021

Maria Jose Guerrero

Knowing your main competitors’ product and service ranges is key in defining the best sales strategy for your e-commerce site. Using competition monitoring software, you can see the size of their catalogue, the specific items on sale, and any structured information that appears on their e-commerce site: stock, brands, categories, EAN codes or descriptions etc. This will give you an overview of what the competition is offering to users, which will help you define how you can differentiate yourself from them. We will explain some of the other benefits and the first steps that you should take to analyse your competition’s catalogue.

Benefits of analysing the competition’s catalogue

On the one hand, maintaining constant monitoring of other businesses’ catalogues allows you to stay updated with new features introduced. It enables you to react on time and maintain a competitive position in the mind of the consumers. But there are more benefits.

Identification of opportunities for growth

Competitor analysis allows you to spot standard practices in other e-commerce sites and their level of success. You can then incorporate them into your business or disregard them if they have not been effective, thereby saving costs.

Reduction of the risk of losses

Through competitor analysis, you can quickly detect, for example, the removal of products from their catalogue and study the reasons for this. This is valuable information when considering what products to include in your catalogue. In addition, you can obtain information on the best and worst selling products.

Organic search engine optimisation for your e-commerce site

For new sites or brands looking to incorporate new products in their catalogue, it is also interesting to find out which categories, keywords and descriptions appear on the competition’s products. A study of the most competitive brands on the market would be a good starting point.

First step: Identify the real competition of your e-commerce site

Due to the high volume of online stores that exist today, you need to identify your real competition, before you start your analysis. These are the shops or brands that will compete with you to attract users. To do this, you can rank your competitors.

Direct or first-degree competition: e-commerce sites that operate in the same market with identical or very similar products directed at the same buyer persona.
Indirect or second-degree competition: brands or stores that operate in the same market and target the same customer profile but whose products or services have different features to yours.
Replacement or third-degree competition: businesses that make products available to users that could replace your own as they meet the same needs. One example of a replacement product would be the consumption of sweeteners instead of sugar.

You should also consider the scope of these competitor businesses, i.e., if they only sell products locally, nationally or internationally. Once you have identified them, you can start to assess how their solutions differ from yours. You can assess what differentiated value your products and services bring to potential clients. Remember that the ultimate goal is to optimise sales and improve consumer confidence in the brand.

Finally, you should be aware that the competition’s product analysis should always go hand in hand with studying their prices. Get the current and historical price for each product or service. This will help you to determine the competition’s sales strategies and how you can beat them. It will also help you to predict their moves in the future and achieve a more competitive position in the market. You can help yourself by using automated competitor price monitoring tools to increase the productivity of your e-commerce business and speed up decision making.

11/11/2022

Consumer behavior: How can behavior tracking be effective for setting the right pricing strategies?

Behavior tracking is becoming massively popular today. As a result, pricing strategies born from studying consumer behavior are a merchant's dream come true. If done right, it can conquer every market for the business quickly. With abundant data available, the strategic makeover of the pricing models is becoming easy for companies.

What is behavioral tracking, and how is the data beneficial in pricing?

For a quick understanding, behavioral tracking refers to gaining in-depth knowledge and insights into consumers through their web data. Their browsing habits, spontaneous decisions, shopping interests, and preferences come under behavioral tracking.

How can enterprises use customer behavior data?

Companies can use customer behavior data as a tool to strengthen their hold on the market. A customer’s preferences, values, and tendencies allow businesses to work in sync with them through the collected data. Apart from this, customer behavior can also aid in:

Tailoring customer needs for customer retention

Personalization is becoming the heart of a company’s growth. No matter in which area an enterprise is functioning, tailoring the services, products, and solutions is becoming increasingly crucial. Uniqueness and personalization attract the crowd like no other.

Increasing the overall value

One of the best ways customer behavior data affects a business is by upgrading the value of customers for the business. The customer’s characteristics allow the company to target the people that match the business prospects well.

Optimizing every type of content

Everything that is up for digital display requires content. You must have seen companies unveiling their products or services through advertisements and making the initial public appearance. Two essential sales strategies – upselling and cross-selling comes through content optimization.

Pricing Strategy

Last but certainly not least is the influence of customer behavior data on the pricing strategy. The pricing strategy essentially constitutes content derived from data analysis. Companies need to have a dynamic approach to the pricing system to attract the right customers.

17/02/2015

Saint Valentine’s Day, always a good opportunity

V-Day is looming, a long-awaited date for all and also a good occasion for the eCommerce. According the study conducted by Prosper Insights and Analytics, it is forecasted the average consumer expense that day will be the highest in last years. Furthermore, 25% of them will buy online, which means an increase of 4% regarding 2014 (The US department of Commerce). This is, therefore, a key date where market competitiveness increase and which could be assumed as a big opportunity for our business or, a big fail if we do not adopt the correct strategies.

How to turn this event into an opportunity? To achieve this goal, we need to adapt our prices to this hostile environment, i.e. we need to develop an appropriate Dynamic Pricing strategy that allows us to adapt our prices to the variations produced in supply and demand and to position us ahead of our competitors. In V-Day, the frequency in changes will be higher, carrying it out each hour or even each minute. It is estimated that 65% of leader retailers have the ability to respond quickly at these variations, such Amazon. For this reason, it acquires great importance the correct use of a software specialised in price motorisation of competitors. Do not miss the time and adapt your business to new adversities.

28/12/2022

Which are the best footwear marketplaces to sell on?

Footwear marketplaces are booming. The last decade has seen the launch of new specialized marketplaces with millions of different users. Among them are Spartoo, Sarenza and Farfetch, portals with international reach. Their main value is that they unite hundreds of footwear brands, as well as offering clothes and accessories. Although each has its own characteristics, they are all vertical marketplaces, i.e., they focus on a specific area, and their sales categories are interrelated. For sellers, these portals provide an opportunity to expand sales channels and drive the globalization of their e-commerce business. We explain how to sell on these footwear marketplaces so that you can assess whether they align with your plans for the future and then start defining a possible pricing strategy.