7 Competitive Intelligence Benefits For E-Commerce Business

E-commerce businesses are used to gathering and analyzing data. This is one of the reasons why they are willing to pay more for analytics software than others.

But what about competitors? How do you know if you are doing better than your rivals? Gathering competitive intelligence is the key to boosting sellers' ROI. It helps you understand your customers, competitors, and the marketplace as a whole. It is a meaningful way to stay one step ahead of the competition.

Here are some benefits of implementing competitive intelligence into your e-commerce business.

What Is Competitive Intelligence In E-Commerce?

Competitive intelligence is collecting and using information about your competition to your advantage. It might sound like spying, but it is a prevalent practice used by all companies — even yours!

7 Benefits Of Competitive Intelligence For Your Online Business

Competitive intelligence (CI) is collecting data about your competition and using that data to improve your business. The benefits of CI are numerous, but let's look at seven of the most important:

1. Identify Your Competition

Knowing who your competitors are is essential to successful marketing. You need to know what they are doing to gain market share, how they advertise their product or services, and how they respond to new technological development or consumer preferences.

2. Understand Your Competition's Strengths and Weaknesses

A major benefit of competitive intelligence is understanding the strength and weaknesses of your competitor's business. This gives you an idea of what works for them and what does not work for them. It also helps you identify their marketing strategies and tactics so that you can learn from their success or avoid their failures.

3. Spot Opportunities for Growth

CI allows you to spot opportunities for growth by showing where there is room for improvement in your industry and niche market. It allows you to see what your competitors are doing well and what they could be doing better so that you can improve their efforts or create new products or services that fill the gap in the market.

4. Gain a Competitive Advantage

Competitive intelligence helps you gain an advantage by providing insights into your strengths and weaknesses. This information can help you build better strategies and improve marketing efforts. For example, if a competitor offers free shipping on all orders over $50, you may consider offering free shipping on all orders over $100 or $200 to stay competitive.

5. Identify Potential Threats and Risks

CI will enable you to identify potential threats and risks from other companies competing with you in your market. This will allow you to plan for these threats beforehand so that when other companies enter your market space, you are prepared for them.

6. Analyze Your Competitors' Marketing Strategies

Competitive monitoring helps you analyze your competitor's marketing strategies. You will find out what marketing channels they use, which is most effective for them, and how they allocate their budget between channels. This will help you determine where to focus your own marketing efforts and how to allocate resources within those channels.

7. Stay On Top of Trends

Competitive intelligence helps you stay on top of trends in your industry and identify potential new opportunities. It can help you identify new products or services offered by competitors and what aspects of those products or services are most popular with consumers.

Top 5 Competitive Intelligence Service Providers For Your Business

1. Retailgators

It is one of the best competitive intelligence companies in the world. They provide a wide range of services. As an industry leader, they have extensive experience providing leading-edge solutions. They offer insights about your competitors' customers, products, and pricing. The company was founded in 2001 by the team. Today Retailgators has 100+ employee strengths, completed 8000+ projects, and 700+ clients worldwide.

Services

• E-Commerce Data Scraping
• Price Intelligence
• Brand Monitoring
• MAP Monitoring

2. AIM

AIM is one of the top competitive intelligence service providers in the world. The company was founded in London in 1989 and has grown rapidly. It is in more than 50 countries and employs over 2,000 people. It offers various services, including market research, customer insight, business intelligence, and risk management.

Services

• Competitor Analysis
• Business Intelligence
• Market Intelligence
• Knowledge Management

3. Aware

Aware is a leading provider of competitive intelligence services. They offer various products and services, from research reports to custom data mining solutions. In addition to its extensive product line, Aware offers access to its team of experts at any time, whether you need advice on a specific issue or want an answer to a quick question.

Services

• Training
• Research and Analysis
• Competitive Intelligence
• Web Scraping

4. Cascade

Cascade is one of the top competitive intelligence services providers in the world. This company has been in business for over 25 years and has more than 200 employees. They have offices in the United States, Latin America, and Europe. Cascade offers a wide range of services to help businesses grow.

Services

• Competitive intelligence
• Market research
• Sales and marketing support
• Competitor analysis
• Data mining

5. Octopus

Octopus is one of the leading competitive intelligence providers. The company has been in business for over 15 years and has a team of over 500 employees worldwide. Octopus provides a wide range of services to companies.

Services

• Competitive Intelligence Services
• Market Research
• Strategic Planning

Wrapping Up

Competitive intelligence is crucial for any e-commerce business. It sets you apart from your competitors and informs the decisions you make for your online store. It lets you know what your top competitors are doing and how they use their marketing efforts to succeed.

Using a suite of competitive intelligence tools, you can keep tabs on your competition and learn about your customers' preferences. And as a bonus, each tool can increase your ecommerce ROI.