Online retailers who want to keep one step ahead of the competition
E-commerce :a very dynamic market
In 2008, online sales are expected to reach $204 billion for the US market (source Forrester Research, April 2008).
The Chinese market is booming: eMarketer expects an annual sales growth of 58.5% between 2006 and 2011. India also shows great promise for growth over this period, with 48.8%.
More and more Internet users purchase online
86% of Internet users buy online (Source Nielsen January 2008).
In 2007, online sales reached nearly $150 billion.
Behavior of Internet buyers increases competition :
Their two main criteria for purchase remain
:
Price
Availability of products
Consumers check out what key retailers have to offer
but they have become savvy bargain-hunters.
E-retailers must therefore :
Know their competitors inside out
Constantly monitor their positioning versus the competition
Adjust their offer in real time
Closely monitor their product lines
...AND KEEP ONE STEP AHEAD !
Competitive monitoring mainly includes :
Price listings from competitors' websites
Data from search engines and price comparison websites
...but this type of benchmark is not perfect because it is :
Time consuming and not cost efficient :
mostly done manually dealing with a large number of websites
Incomplete : the number of e-retailers and products featured increases exponentially
Biased : the business model of search engines and shopping directories is only based on affiliated sites / sponsored listings which
doesn't allow transparency and relevancy of information
