As online shopping quickly secures its hold in our daily routines, the decisions to invest in growing trends for your online business may have to be just as swift…if not quicker. The Australian e-Commerce landscape may have been on the backfoot when compared to countries like the USA and China, but the amount of consumer online adoption and growth it has experienced over the course of COVID-19 (coming in at #10 for worldwide e-Commerce sales to be exact) leaves no room for further ignorance. 

As an eCommerce business owner, capitalising on this growth means that you must be on top of new eCommerce innovations. Namely this means AR, omnichannel offline-online offerings, flexi-payment options and AI. Pay close attention to your customer’s journey and where your brand sits in their list of evaluation. Understand what to look for when analysing customer data. Be ready to constantly reconsider your approach. Most importantly, dedicate time to see what your competition is currently achieving and see how bigger players are innovating. 

With e-Commerce’s ever-changing landscape, being able to understand your competitors better than they understand themselves is an important shortcut to consider where you’re positioned. However, before jumping into the deep end, here are 4 quick things that you can add to your regular task rotation as a quick checklist to see where you place against your competition.

Search 

A great place to start is playing at being a customer. Search through industry  keywords to see where your competitors appear. While it can be hard to rank for more competitive keyword terms, have a look through their backlinks and see what websites they’re associated with, who are talking about them and what they’re saying. This gives you an idea of where you can improve SEO-wise, what your brand positioning is and what you might be missing out on when it comes to product descriptions and backlinks. 

Reviews

Customers take reviews super seriously when it comes to shopping online. Mining reviews gives you valuable insights into exactly what customers are looking for and what you can offer as primary solutions. Not just the glowing reviews, considering the negative reviews as well could give you an idea of what customers prioritise. For example, they may love your competitor’s products, but there might be a mention of a lack of customer support, or inefficient delivery time – giving you a good idea of angles to focus on in your campaigns and promotions. 

User Experience

Now, put aside your customer lens and get your marketing goggles on! Go through their website. See the points where their pop-ups appear, for what reasons and what their entire checkout process is like. Is their website loading faster? Do they make it seem like they’re reading the customer’s mind as you go through their offerings? How are they making it super easy for customers to shop their site – is it in the way they’re categorising their products? Is it due to their use of eye-catching copy? The more you notice these website performance subtleties and patterns, the better you’ll be able to optimise your customer’s convenience with clear and specific actions. 

Social Media

At a glance, looking through their social media gives you an understanding of your competitor’s messaging. Getting a good grasp of their content strategy through their social media channels lets you in on the intention behind customer interactions and how they are establishing their brand. Whether it’s using social media as a platform to address FAQs, build out their brand philosophy, or even as a means to advertise their product features, identifying what their customers react to will give you a clearer picture of how you can structure your content as well. 

“You mean to say…on top of everything else I’m doing to get my online store off the ground – there’s more to do!?” We get it – reading this would make an overwhelmed online business owner feel even more frazzled. That’s where we come in. 

If you need any further assistance with automation, optimization, shortcut expertise and effective marketing strategies, fill your details in for a free strategy session today.