The retail industry is not only highly competitive but is also ever-changing. This means that industry trends can quickly become obsolete, especially if you are depending on third-party data to base your business decisions on. 

So, how can you identify industry trends that are relevant to your business that you can confidently base your business decisions on? By monitoring your competitors, including tracking their prices, promotions, stock status, shipping policies and customer reviews. And if you’re a retailer, you are probably already doing this on some level.

So here are some trends, patterns and behaviour that you can identify from your competitor monitoring efforts. 

Trends in competitor behaviour: Monitoring your competitors regularly will allow you to notice patterns and trends in their behaviour, including their responses to market changes, product launches, price strategies, and  promotion strategies, and even their response to customer behaviour and expectations. 

For instance, if you notice that one of your competitors tends to launch their new products towards the holiday season so he is able to capitalise on the holiday shopping

These patterns and trends can help you predict competitor behaviour and capitalise on them.

Trends in customer behaviour: customer behaviour can be hard to observe and it does not help that it is ever-evolving. However, businesses base their decisions and actions based on customer behaviour and by observing your competitor’s behaviour through price and promotion tracking, you will be able to see patterns and trends in customer behaviour. 

For instance, businesses noticed that in recent times, sales during promotions, irrespective of the time of the year, increased sales. This helped them see that customers didn’t mind shopping for holiday gifts ahead of time to avoid holiday rush and stock-outs.    

Customers’ willingness to pay: One of the primary aspects of competitor monitoring is price. Tracking your competitors’ product prices will help you understand your customers’ willingness to pay and decide the level of consumer surplus you want to create for your products. 

For instance, if you notice that most of your competitors have priced their products higher than you, that could mean that your customers are willing to pay higher for the product and you are losing out revenue unless your lower prices are a promotional strategy or a  strategic decision to penetrate a new market. 

On the other hand, if one of your competitors has priced higher than you but you notice that they don’t seem to want to match their prices and they have sales, they are probably offering something that you are not for which the customers are willing to pay a higher price – an opportunity for you to explore. 

Trends in customer expectations: Competitor monitoring tools like pricechecker fetches and compile product ratings and reviews left by customers on competitor websites. Customer reviews are a gold mine of information and inspiration. 

  Analysing the reviews can unearth trends in customer expectations in terms of product quality and performance, shipping policies, pre and post-sales service, customisations, etc. positive reviews can present inspirations and negative reviews, opportunities. 

Advertising and promotion trends: If your competitor monitoring tool only does price tracking, then you are definitely losing out. Pricechecker also tracks and fetches promotion data including promo codes and price after promotions. This helps you base your pricing decisions on more than just the list price but based on the true price your customers are paying. 

Not only that, PC allows you to see promotions run by your competitors over a period of time. This helps you understand industry trends in promotions.

For instance, if you are a winter wear brand, you are most likely to offer promotions after and before the season to clear stocks. But if you notice that your competitors are offering promotions during the summer to capitalise on customers who are travelling to colder places to beat the heat, the data will help you jump on the bandwagon. 

Trends in shipping policies: After product price and promotion, shipping cost and timeline have a significant effect on a customer’s purchase behaviour. Unfortunately, trends in shipping policy is very subjective to industry, product price, customer geography and demographics, among other things. 

To remain competitive and relevant, it is not just important to find the sweet spot between speed and price but it is also important to monitor shipping options provided by your competitors, so you can aim to match it or offer more attractive shipping options.

For instance, if your competitors are offering 5-8 day shipping for free, you can choose to offer a faster shipping option at a cost, but you cannot afford to offer slower shipping even if it’s for free.    

Final thoughts

Industry trends observed and identified by third-party companies can be too broad to base your sole business decision on. On the other hand, industry trends published by businesses in your own industry can be skewed to their business, niche, and target. 

It is, therefore, crucial that you invest in competitor monitoring that goes beyond price tracking and helps you understand industry trends that are relevant to your business based on the true competitors for your products and services.