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.
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