Easy-to-use competitor analysis spreadsheet
Knowing who your competitors are and what they do and offer is essential. Here is how to analyse your ecommerce competitors using an easy spreadsheet.
A basic competitor analysis includes a regular, qualitative review of their websites, prices, product mix, customer service, policies and marketing. It is more than a simple SWOT analysis – conduct a good competitor analysis and you can improve your bottom line.
Competitor analysis spreadsheet for a webshop
A good way to do a competitive analysis is by creating a spreadsheet where you can monitor your top competitors.
- List your competitors in the top row of your spreadsheet. Depending on how comprehensive you want your competitor analysis to be, list between five and ten competitors.
- In the left-hand column, start filling out the key areas you want to analyse. Important categories to include are: Aesthetics, Content, Product Selection, Price, Customer Service, Shipping Options, Social Media, Email Marketing, Search Engines, Advertising.
Of course, you can add your own, industry-specific, categories as well. (Though we suggest keeping the number of categories down to ten, to make it easy to monitor top scores.)
- Next, you need to objectively rate the competition for each of the categories on a scale of one to ten, where ten is the highest mark. You will need to spend some time understanding each competitor’s offer – don’t hesitate to sign up to your competitor’s email marketing, etc. (Though maybe consider setting up a fake email address for this!)
- In the bottom row of your spreadsheet, add up the totals for each competitor. This will help paint a picture of who is your strongest/weakest competitor. You can also easily work out which competitor is strongest in which category (for example, who does customer service best, or social media best, etc.)
- Be sure to regularly review your table.
Websites are dynamic and e-Commerce websites changes their product mixes seasonally, so you need to keep reviewing your scores. By working out how your top competitors have achieved their prime position, you can work out ways to improve your own business and your own sales.
Source / read more: esellermedia.com