It is said that knowing yourself and your enemy will ensure victory in every battle. So how do you study your competitors?

When you first start selling products online, your main concern is finding good products to sell, then finding suppliers and listing your products. But as your business grows, you’ll realize the importance of researching your competitors.

Many e-commerce sellers believe that their store or products are unique and stand out from the competition, but few actually validate their store or products against their competitors and themselves by:

• Customer experience;

• customer service;

• Buyer satisfaction;

• Product added value;

• return policy.

To get to know your competitors better, you can use online PPC campaigns to get a sense of your competitors’ business scope. On the other hand, you can check out the keywords that your competitors are using to rank their products.

It’s important to understand your competitors. If you don’t understand how they operate, it’s hard to beat them. If you don’t know what differentiates you from your competitors, it’s hard to make your product stand out.

Conducting a market analysis for your e-commerce business, especially focusing on your competitors, can help you:

• Develop smarter marketing strategies;

• Understand current trends in your niche;

• Create comparative goals for the business;

• Constantly reprice products to maintain advantage;

• Find methods or channels that can attract users;

• Learn from your competitors’ mistakes and successes;

• discover new niches and untapped markets;

• Create competitive advantage.

First, you need to distinguish between two main types of competitors:

Direct competition : For example, if you sell Swatch watches and someone else sells Tissot watches, you are competing directly with that other person in the market, even if the watches you sell are priced slightly differently.

Indirect competition : A good example of indirect competition is the sale of jewelry or other wearable devices with time functions, such as the Apple watch.

First, you need to focus on your direct competitors, and then your indirect competitors. The best way to identify your competitors is to search directly on e-commerce platforms such as eBay for the products you sell. Taking watches as an example, you should search for watches and select the top 5 competitors within a limited price range. If your watch sells for $100, then look for sellers with a price range of $70-130. Those above are not your direct competitors because buyers usually do not exceed their budget. So how can sellers find out their competitors?

Step 1 : Navigate to the category on eBay based on the product you are selling. Using watches as an example, click on Jewelry & Watches:

Step 2 : Go to the Watches category and select “wristwatches”:

Step 3 : At this point you’ll want to use some specific filters to narrow down the results to the sellers who sell products most similar to yours. You can filter based on the following elements:

• Product condition: New with tags;

• Price range: $70-$130 for more search results;

• Product Location: North America;

• Shipping options: Free international shipping;

• Showing only: Free Returns.

Step 4 : Once you are done, you can click on “Lowest Price + Shipping”:

Step 5 : Now look for sellers who meet the following criteria:

• There are hundreds of feedbacks;

• There have been a lot of sales lately;

• The seller has 99% positive reviews;

• Has been selling on eBay for at least one year.

It is recommended that you find 5 sellers that meet the above criteria, click on the username of the selected seller and then:

• Research their prices;

• Check out their other products;

• Check out the comments.

Once you’ve identified your competitors, learn from them and use the following information to your advantage:

One of the best ways to understand what your competitors are doing and what mistakes to avoid is to check reviews and feedback. For example, many buyers may ask if a watch is waterproof, which indicates that they have a need or interest in waterproof watches. Sellers need to see this information and make you visible to potential buyers by selling waterproof watches, or if you already sell such watches, highlighting this feature. Sellers can consider doing the following:

• Use images of waterproof watches as main images on eBay;

• Use the word “waterproof” in your title and highlight the fact that your product is waterproof in your product description.

Also, check out the negative reviews of your competitors. For example, in the picture below, a buyer expressed a quality problem in a negative review of a competitor: "The watch broke within a few days of receiving the product. I emailed the seller, but there was no response!"

Quality is a major concern for watch buyers, and you can see this from other feedback. For someone spending $100 on a new watch, durability and the assurance that it will work well over time is critical. This is where you can offer a one-year warranty or a refund policy, which will increase your credibility when customers compare your product to other sellers, and perhaps help you convert visitors into buyers and get them to choose you over your competitors.

Today, many savvy eCommerce buyers want to stay connected with existing/potential customers. These may include:

• Provide various special offers via email;

• Message push;

• Keep updating new products on Facebook or Instagram;

• Have an external website that showcases the brand image and communicates the brand story.

Consider subscribing to your competitors’ newsletters, following them on social media, or checking out their website. You can get a lot of information about the brand through customer communications, which can help you:

• Identify current product trends;

• Understand the brand’s identity and the customers they are targeting;

• After determining the target audience, sellers need to think about whether they can attract them;

• Analyze special offers.

Try to determine if these products are selling or if they are new products trying to break into the market. Keep track of their progress. Is it still discounted after a month or has it returned to full price? This may indicate that the product has successfully entered the "retail consciousness" of the target audience.

Testing products can be more expensive and demanding, so it is recommended that sellers only purchase 1 to 5 products from competitors, and you must be sure that these products are your fiercest competitors. In addition, if you sell expensive products, then buy cheaper or free products (i.e. watch cases instead of the watches themselves), or you can buy one watch at a time and check the return policies of competitors. You should pay attention to the following issues:

• How quickly did the product arrive and how fast was the shipping service?

• Does the competitor keep the buyer informed of the progress of the purchase from start to finish?

• Do competitors follow up on buyer satisfaction with their products?

• Do they include any freebies in the package?

• What is their return policy like and how are refunds processed?

Whether the experience is completely positive, negative, or mixed, it will help sellers better understand their competitors.

Many eCommerce sellers today view social media as a powerful marketing tool and actively use it to communicate with customers and promote new products, so when you research your competitors, check social media as well. Keep a close eye on your competitors’ social media accounts and understand exactly what they are posting and how they are interacting with customers.

What do they post on Instagram? Are the images they post mainly lifestyle images of the product, or professional product images?

You also need to see if your competitor's Facebook account is full of special offers and discounts, or are they trying to provide valuable content to customers, attract buyers and increase the professionalism of their brand and products? This will help you understand how to structure your own social media account, especially how to create posts with high engagement. For example, a photo of a beautiful woman in a bikini or a handsome man in a swimsuit wearing a branded watch on Instagram may get 1,000 likes, compared to other posts that may have between 100-200 likes.

After you research your direct and indirect competitors, enter all the relevant information you have collected into a document that is updated regularly. If you see some trends or strategies that are particularly interesting, then make an action plan and follow up, especially sometimes it may take multiple stages or take some time (such as buying from competitors, testing and then returning products). It is worth reiterating that almost every market is constantly changing, so you need to constantly look for other competitors. Therefore, sellers can develop a process to check in on competitors at a fixed time every month, or check when they launch new products.