10 Things Your Competitors Can Teach You About E-Commerce

The e-commerce market is growing at an exponential pace, and has intensified the competition never like before. How would you know whether your e-commerce strategy is performing better than your competitors? One way is to measure the performance against your marketing goals. The other way is to understand how your competition is doing. If your competitors are ahead of you, then perhaps they are doing something right, that you are not.

Don’t be embarrassed or shy of peeking into the competitor’s e-commerce store. Chances are that you will take home some valuable lessons to implement at your end. Here are 10 things your competitors can teach you about e-commerce.

1. What products and services they offer?
What keeps the audience engaged and glued to a website is the range of products and services it offers. Find out what unique product lines or categories differentiate your competitors from others. Are their product descriptions or specifications better than your products? Are there any value added services, guarantees or free shipping that they are offering, but you are not? Do they offer up sell / cross sell / add on suggestions? Make a list of their most sold or popular products and services and see if you can match them.

2. How have they packaged their products?
Packaging is a part of an online shopping experience that you provide to the customers. Try to study if your competitors are going an extra mile in making sure that the products are delivered in their original condition? Or are they using a particular packaging style or a shipping partner that saves on their shipping costs? Evaluate their packaging strategy and note down, what is lacking at your end.

3. How have they priced their products?
Price is a major factor that kick-starts the war in the e-commerce space too. If your competitors are selling at less, without affecting their margins, then it spells trouble for you. Is the competitor offering steep discounts on any product? Or are there any trade discounts on bulk purchases? Are the customers getting real time prices to compare? Perhaps, you need to either match their prices or offer add on value such as free shipping, better return policies or full refund for cancellations.

4. How do they market their products?
Your competitor’s social media can be a primary indicator to study their marketing efforts. If you don’t have a social media presence, you already know where to start! Tap into their facebook or twitter data to know what value proposition they are emphasizing on. Also, find out how they are advertising and promoting their products – email marketing, surveys, newsletters, call to action, or any other means.

5. What is their UI?
A well laid out user interface (UI) can offer a better and sophisticated user experience to your virtual customers. Take a detailed tour of your competitors website and carefully study their visual appeal, branding, navigation, content, speed and other user-friendly features. Are they offering several payment methods or is there 24/7 customer helpline available? Is their checkout process quicker and simpler than yours? Gather data on what the competitor has put on the home page, be it offering specific deals or new product introductions. In case your website doesn’t have this kind of UI, you need to think about redesigning it.

6. What are their lead generation methods?
Your competitors can also tell you how they are the best lead generation websites. Do they have a landing page or a contact form, where customers can leave their contact details? Or do they have publish an e-book, a newsletter, a video, a case study or a white paper, which can be downloaded in exchange of contact details? Perhaps, your competitor also holds regular webinars; asks for a physical address for a free gift delivery; or offers free trials of the software. A lead generation analysis at your end will give a clear picture on what and where you are lagging behind.

7. What freebies/promotions do they offer customers?
Who doesn’t love freebies? Whether it is a complimentary gift card, a discount coupon, free shipping over a certain amount of purchase, free samples or a launch period offer – customers are always up for these grabs. By knowing what type of freebies or promotions your competitors are running, you will know what is differentiating them from the rest and what captures the attention of customers.

8. How do they engage their customers?
When you are in e-commerce business, you have a great option of connecting with your customers via social media channels. Check out their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin or Pinterest page to find out how they are interacting with their customers and how they are sending out their core messages. What type of content are they posting, how many followers they have or what reviews are they are getting – studying all these aspects will go a long way in devising your own customer engagement programme.

9. What schemes applied by your competition have failed?
Your competitors did not rise to the top without facing any flaks or setbacks. Perhaps, they launched a promotional offer that didn’t generate a single lead or they offered a free trial that didn’t meet the customers’ expectations. What you need to do is to learn from their mistakes and ensure that you do not fall into the same trap.

10. How did they build their reputation?
Online Reputation Management (ORM) makes sure that your brand portrays a positive image and presence among all stakeholders. It would make sense to understand how your competitor is keeping up with the reputation – do they know what customers are saying about their brand or are they addressing every complaint and suggestion promptly? You can find this out by reading online reviews about the competitor’s website on Google Revies, Yelp or other sources and make a note of positive and negative comments made by the customers.

Now that you have learnt your e-commerce lessons from the competitors, what should you be your next course of action? Implement these learnings in your business, optimize on your strengths and build on the weakness of your competitors. Brace yourself to become better than your adversaries!