By 2026, 24% of all retail sales will occur online. This is obviously a big number and a number that is rising as you’re reading. But here are 2 things this number tells us:

• Over 9.1 million eTailers are competing for this 24%’s attention

• Ecommerce is yet to capture the other 76% of retail sales.

In a market as competitive as retail, keeping a close eye on your competitors can give you valuable insights and inspiration you can use to grow your business.

Difference between competitor analysis and competitor monitoring

Competitor analysis is done at regular but long intervals and it involves identifying potential competitors based on the product line, size, and revenue, doing a swot analysis, and building a report that will help you understand your position in the market and build long-term plans and strategies.

While competitor monitoring may sound similar, it is a continuous process that involves monitoring and collecting dynamic data that must then be constantly tracked and analysed. Competitor monitoring provides crucial insights that will enable you to forecast better and proactive adapt your strategies to keep up with fluctuations in the market, trends, and customer behaviour.

Why is competitor monitoring crucial for Ecommerce

Know your market positioning: it’s one thing to know your competitors but monitoring closely will help you know what makes you different from them and identify your USP. But you have to constantly monitor them so you can know if they are catching up to you before they do, so you can work on new differentiators.

Gauge entry barrier into the target market: If you are having trouble entering a niche or reaching your target audience, observing your competitors closely to see how they are doing will help you understand where you are going wrong and get through the entry barrier.

Understand consumer expectations: Customer expectations are not set by the customers themselves. Your competitors maybe provide additional value to their customers that increase customer expectations. Monitoring your competitors will help you identify both the real customer expectation and the ones set by the market, so you can up your game.

Identify gaps and opportunities to capitalise on: Monitoring your competitors closely and analysing your own offerings will help you identify market opportunities. For example, a product or service that your customers will enjoy but is not being offered or is not being offered in the best way possible. Constant monitoring will help you identify these opportunities quicker and respond to them when the need is relevant.

Recognise potential threats and weaknesses: Similarly, when your competitor makes a mistake, you can learn from it and proactively adapt your plans and strategies to avoid making a similar mistake. Monitoring your competitors closely can help you proactively identify threats and weaknesses in your strategies so you can modify them in time.

Competitor monitoring for Ecommerce

Competitor monitoring can be a little different for Ecommerce retailers when compared to traditional retailers. Especially if you are a multi-brand retailer. The key aspects you must track are:

• Website Traffic – For Ecommerce website metrics can give very crucial insights on customer behaviour and how your competitors are faring. Information about the following can give you key insights into your sector and customer behaviour.

• Channel of acquisition (social, organic, direct, etc.),

• Keywords that they are getting more attention for,

• Demographics that they are attracting (location, age, gender, etc.), and

• Devices where they get the most traffic from

Social traffic: Social media is a key sales and marketing tool for any online business and Ecommerce is no different. However, social media can be a challenging domain to master and capitalise on. Monitoring your competitors’ accounts, and observing their content and techniques will help you draw inspiration, avoid creative blocks, and jump on the latest trend wagon while it’s still relevant!

Price and promotion: Product price and promotion play a crucial role in a customer’s purchase decision. Constantly monitoring your competitors’ prices and promotions will help you price your products competitively and dynamically and draw inspiration from your competitor’s promotional strategies.

Become your competitor’s customer: The best way to know how your competitors make their customers feel is by becoming one. Follow your competitors, on social media, subscribe to their newsletters, and purchase from them regularly to understand how they are providing value for their customers.

How pricechecker can help

Pricechecker is a price intelligence tool that has been developed by leveraging decades of experience in the retail sector. Pricechecker monitors your competitors and fetches their product prices, promotion data, and stock status.

We also go a step further and analyse the data for you to give you a price index based on product, brand, and product segment. This data will help you understand where you stand among your competitors both product-wise and product-segment-wise.

Additionally, Pricechecker allows you to create a watchlist of your most price-sensitive products. Pricechecker will then send you email notifications every time your competitor for that product makes any changes. This way you can always keep your prices for your most price-elastic products optimised to maximise sales and revenue.

Pricechecker also allows you to create and download custom reports based on your needs and requirements. PC’s 2-dimensional filters lets you filter data row and column wise giving reports and analytics a whole other dimension.

Are you a retailer looking to get ahead of your competition, talk to us!