Competitor analysis
No ecommerce brand operates in a vacuum. Whatever you sell, there are almost certainly other businesses selling something similar — and your potential customers are comparing you to them, whether you like it or not. Competitor analysis is how you get ahead of that. Instead of guessing what sets you apart, you do the research and find out.
It's not about copying what your competitors are doing. It's about understanding the market you're operating in so you can spot opportunities, avoid mistakes others have already made and find the gaps that your brand is uniquely placed to fill.
What should a competitor analysis cover?
There's no single right way to do a competitor analysis, but here are the areas worth looking at:
Products and pricing
Start with the basics. What are your competitors selling, and what are they charging for it? Are they positioning themselves as a premium option or competing on price? Understanding where you sit on the pricing spectrum — and why — is an important part of finding your place in the market.
Website and user experience
Spend some time on your competitors' websites as if you were a customer. How easy is it to find products? How good are their product pages? How does their checkout work? You're looking for things they do well that you could learn from — and things they do badly that you could do better.
Marketing and content
Follow your competitors on social media. Sign up to their email list. Look at what keywords they're targeting in their paid ads. What kind of content are they putting out, and how does their audience respond to it? This will give you a sense of what's resonating in your market — and where there might be space to do something different.
Customer reviews
This is one of the most underrated parts of a competitor analysis. Your competitors' reviews are a goldmine of insight into what customers in your market actually care about. Look at the glowing five-star reviews to understand what people love — and pay close attention to the one and two-star reviews to find the pain points that aren't being addressed. Those gaps are your opportunities.
How to organise your findings: SWOT analysis
Once you've done your research, a SWOT analysis is a handy framework for making sense of it all. It stands for:
Strengths — what are your competitors doing really well?
Weaknesses — where are they falling short?
Opportunities — are there gaps in the market that nobody is filling properly?
Threats — is there anything a competitor is doing that could pose a risk to your brand?
Going through this process for your top two or three competitors will give you a much clearer picture of the landscape — and help you figure out where to focus your energy.
Who should you be analysing?
It's tempting to fixate on the biggest names in your industry, but they're not always the most useful comparison. A huge, well-established brand with a massive marketing budget is operating in a different league. Instead, focus on:
Direct competitors — brands selling the same or very similar products to the same audience
Indirect competitors — brands solving the same problem in a different way
Aspirational competitors — slightly bigger brands in your space who are a step or two ahead of where you want to be
You don't need to analyse dozens of businesses. A focused, thorough look at three to five competitors will tell you far more than a surface-level scan of twenty.
How often should you do a competitor analysis?
The ecommerce landscape moves fast. Brands launch new products, change their pricing, shift their marketing strategy and come and go all the time. A competitor analysis isn't a one-and-done exercise — it's something worth revisiting regularly, especially if you're launching a new product, entering a new market or noticing a dip in your own performance.
Even a quick monthly check-in on what your key competitors are up to on social media and whether their pricing has changed can help you stay one step ahead. 👀