Competitor Product Research: All You Need to Know About It

The e-commerce industry is seeing a rapid boom, especially after the pandemic. People could get their must-have items from the comfort of their homes while keeping themselves safe. As for businesses, it allowed them to explore new avenues and target different markets.

It also provided a fantastic opportunity for your new businesses to enter the lucrative industry. However, finding the right product to stand out in this hyper-competitive market is vital. Creating a product that customers love and buy is not an easy task.

That is where product research comes into play. It allows you to find the right product to get a competitive edge. So, how do you ensure the effectiveness of competitor product research? We’ll discuss ways that will help you with your product research process. But before that, let’s understand what product research is all about.

Table of Contents

• What is Product Research?

• Why Is Competitor Product Research so Important?

• Essential Factors to Keep in For Competitor Product Research

• The Bottom Line – Competitor Product Research

What is Product Research?

Product research refers to collecting data about finding the best product to resonate with your customers. You’ll have to conduct surveys and examine the users’ preferences to understand their needs. Then you can find or create a product that fulfills their demand.

Before launching the products, you need to understand what your customers need so you can take the right initiatives and come up with a market-fit product. Also, testing and getting customer feedback before you move on to the final stages is crucial.

Most people go for a soft launch of their Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to understand how effective their product is doing among a segment of customers. It will help them understand the customers’ response and make the right changes before finally releasing the product in the market.

An important thing to understand is that product research is about more than just launching the product in the market. It is an ongoing process where you have to study customers’ reactions to the product to identify issues that need to be fixed and continuous improvement.

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Service for Competitors Research

Why Is Competitor Product Research so Important?

Understanding what your customers want and delivering the goods is the foundation for your business’s growth. If you don’t know what your customers want, no company can sustain itself in the long run.

It will ultimately lead to failure in the long run. Therefore, product research is more than necessary for e-commerce businesses. Some factors show how product research can help align your product ideas with customer needs.

Finding Out the Pain Points of the Customer

If it resolves their pain points, people will only be interested in your product. So, how do you find out what issues customers are facing? The answer is product research, which allows you to collect data and insights to understand the customers’ problems in a better way and offer them a reliable solution.

Aligns Your Business Goals and Customers’ Requirements

Getting a better idea of your customer’s needs and requirements will help you develop a product roadmap that will serve your target audience and your eCommerce business.

Increases Chances for Innovation and Accuracy

Having a clear idea about your customers allows you to try different experiments. Therefore, it opens the room for innovation where you can make relevant product changes that will resolve their problems.

Gain a Competitive Edge

Researching your competitors’ e-commerce products will allow you to understand what works for them and is not. It can also allow you to differentiate your products by adding features that can set you apart.

Essential Factors to Keep in For Competitor Product Research

Now that you know what product market research is about, you might wonder how to conduct one for your eCommerce business effectively. So, to help you out, here are a few factors you need to consider for competitor product research.

Identify Your Main Competitors

The first thing you need to do is identify the leading players n the market. Identifying your main competitors in the market will allow you to compare your products with them. There are two main categories that you can divide the competing brand into:

• Direct competitors
• Indirect competitors

Direct competitors are companies that sell more or less the same products you offer. Conversely, indirect competitors are businesses that provide products that are not similar to yours, but they can satisfy your target audience’s needs.

Keeping an eye on your direct and indirect competitors is vital since they can significantly influence your product’s pricing and other things over time.

Learn More about Your Competitors

Once you determine your main competitors, you’ll have to understand the product line. It is not only about analyzing the products and features but also essential to know how they market and sell their products to the customers.

It is imperative to note each product’s features to understand how your competitors operate. If you don’t know where to start, here are a few points you can consider:

• What is the competitors’ share market?
• What are the segments of the target audience they are focusing more on?
• Is a pricing strategy different for their products when they sell online and offline?
• How does each competitor differentiate their products from others in the market?

These questions will help you identify the competitor’s pricing and product placement strategy. You’ll know what prices the customers are willing to pay for the items and where is the best place to sell products.

Perform a SWOT Analysis

Performing a simple SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis will help you understand the competitors’ position in the market. Once you complete a SWOT analysis of your competitors, you can compare them with your strengths and weaknesses.

As a result, it will give you a better idea of where your company is standing and how you can work on areas for improvement within your brand. You can check the things where the competitors have an advantage over your brand.

It is best to understand which thing is doing well for your competitors. Is its product offering immense value to its customers, or are its content and social media marketing good for them? Also, you can target the weakest area of your competitor and try to use it to your advantage.

Understand their Sales and Marketing Strategies

Besides learning about your competitors’ market share, you can also research the competitors’ sales tactics and results by considering the following points:

• What is the sales process of your competitors?
• Which online channels work best for them (Amazon, eBay, their website, etc.)?
• How did they expand their operations?
• Which areas were your competitors targeting, and how did they grow their operations?
• How do they use discounts and other promotional offers to attract customers?
• What is their total sales volume?

It will allow you to discover your competitors’ sales tactics and marketing strategies to engage and attract their target audience.

Look at the Other Perks That Your Competitors are Offering

Pricing your product is the most critical aspect to ensure your target audience buys your product. In addition to pricing, your competitors might also offer different perks or benefits to their customers.

If you think that your price provides your customers with a higher value due to your superior features, then you can set a higher price. But, your sales and marketing team would have to develop relevant strategies that will allow your target audience to understand why the additional features in your products make it worth the money.

On the flip side, there is a possibility that you can sell your products at a lower price to penetrate the market. If that is the case, then you can offer the products at a lower price than competitors. It will help you get a larger market share since it will appeal to prospects looking for the product at lower pricing.

While there is no doubt that numerous factors go behind the pricing of a product, it is vital to know the industry standards when it comes to pricing. This way, you can price your profuct’s reasonably.

Most importantly, you can look at the perks that your competitors are giving to their customers. You can look for ways to top up those perks, which can significantly divert customers toward your brand.

It could be a referral program, loyalty card, or a month-long free trial version. These perks can be the make or break part of your product. So, it is vital to understand how your competitors use the additional perks and benefits to their advantage.

Learn About the Competitors’ Content Strategy

We all have heard that “Content is King,” and there is a reason why it is known for that. Engaging and interactive content can be the driving force behind the customers’ decision-making process. The relevant content will help the target audience understand the product’s value and how it can resolve their pain points. Therefore, it is more than essential to have a content strategy to help you set up apart. Content will be a significant factor when developing your marketing strategy, so you must understand how your competitors leverage it.

You can check whether they have different blogs on topics related to the products, an eBook, or a few whitepapers. Moreover, you can also assess the channels they are using to deliver their message. For instance, you can check whether competitors rely more on social media marketing or video marketing. Additionally, you can check if they are using stock images or generic ones.

Pictures play a significant role in content since they retain the readers’ attention, especially for long blogs and articles. It also allows you to present your point of view in a better way about the additional features of the product if you are pricing the product at a higher rate than your competitors.

One more thing to notice is the engagement level of the content with the customers. You must assess how the audience engages and interacts with the posts and content competitors post.

Check which topics your competitors are mainly using and what feedback they are getting on them. Also, analyze the average number of likes, dislikes, comments, and shares your competitors get for each post.

Competitive Product Analysis

Apart from competitor product research, it would help if you also did a competitive product analysis. The competitive product analysis enables you to discover the significant differences or similarities between you and the competitors’ products. It is substantial for every niche, even if you sell a homogeneous product.

The first step in competitive product analysis is assessing product pricing. Next, you need to compare the basic specifications of your product with the competitors. Once you understand the basic specifications, you should find the differentiators between your product and your competitors.

This way, you can identify the gaps in the market where you can sell market and sell your products. It may open up new avenues for your company to explore or a new target market that they can enter.

If you want to learn more about how to conduct competitive anlaysis, then also read this blogpost on the topic: What is Competitive Analysis and How can I Conduct it Online?

The Bottom Line – Competitor Product Research

The growing eCommerce industry offers a wide range of opportunities for many people out there. Therefore, if you want to enter the market, it is best to focus on product research for your eCommerce platform. Finding the right product can help you survive and grow in the long run.

Therefore, keeping the points and factors mentioned in mind when researching the product is vital. To summarize, you’ll have to first find the main competitors in the market and learn more about them. Next, you need to understand better the marketing and sales strategies that work best for them.

Most importantly, find out what pricing strategy your competitors are using and the additional perks they offer their target audience. Lastly, learn and take inspiration from their content marketing strategy to apply the same things and methods to your brand.

Ines Maione