The ecommerce space is extremely competitive and forever evolving. You must utilize all the effective strategies to stay relevant, and one of those is gaining market intelligence.
More specifically, ecommerce market intelligence involves analyzing and interpreting consumer data to gain valuable insights into market trends, behavior, and patterns. It also involves constantly monitoring factors like pricing dynamics, customer reviews, and product availability.
In this fierce market, where customer preferences keep changing, market intelligence is a guide that helps businesses make better decisions and capitalize on opportunities. Let’s learn more about it in this post.
Role of ecommerce market intelligence
As also established above, the role of market intelligence in your ecommerce business can help shape your strategies by providing valuable insights about the market.
Here’s why it’s important:
#1 Customer insights
Market Intelligence provides useful information about customers within your niche, such as purchasing patterns, behavior, customer perception and reviews, and trends. With a deep understanding of this data, you can tailor your marketing efforts and product selections to achieve the best results. In fact, according to TechJury, data analytics makes decision-making five times faster for businesses. [1]
As an additional perk, keeping a tab on customer insights can keep your existing clients coming back since you know about their preferences and have reflected those on your online store. For example, if you know most people like to purchase when there are heavy discounts going on, you can set your store up accordingly and attract more sales.
#2 Faster decision-making
In an aggressively competitive market, it is not just about making the right decisions but also making them quickly. Opportunities you can bank on are plentiful but constantly fleeting.
To this end, market intelligence provides real-time customer data analysis, emerging trends, and predictions. More specifically, by analyzing marketing trends and products, along with customer reviews and feedback, you can start making fair predictions and pounce on opportunities.
#3 Competitor analysis
Monitoring your competition's activities is very useful. Data on their pricing strategies, promotional campaigns, and product inventory allows you to deduce their strengths and weaknesses and capitalize on them. You can also set yourself apart by offering products they don't possess.
For example, let’s say you’re in the kitchen appliance niche, and your competitor is BlendJet. After analysis, if you see that their customers usually complain about the low battery life, you must aim for increased battery capacity in your product and provide better value that can sway customers towards your brand.
The key is to identify gaps and fill those in with your products – ultimately attracting customers one after another like the domino effect.
#4 Return on Investment (ROI)
At the end of it all, the goal of any ecommerce business is to maximize its profits. One of its biggest indicators is your return on investment or ROI. How much are you getting back in relation to your spending?
With market intelligence, you can utilize data in your marketing efforts and product pricing strategies. See which products sell the best and give you the best return, and focus on high-value marketing channels. By playing your cards right, you will see a significant boost in your ROI and, hence, in your business.
Best ecommerce market research tools
You can use various tools to conduct market research for your ecommerce business to assist you in driving growth.
Let’s look at some of the best ones:
#1 Google Analytics
Google Analytics is an analytical and reporting tool that provides data in a clear and visually appealing way with the ability to customize your dashboard to display your preferred stats at a glance. It’s fantastic for new and existing online stores because as long as you’re running your business, you’ll always need to monitor your metrics – and this tool is best for that.
It consists of features like:
Website traffic analysis
Benchmarking
Conversion tracking
Integration with Google ads
Custom reports
Moreover, with the latest GA4 update, you get more advanced ecommerce-focused features and greater insights into your customers, products, and strategies.
#2 Kissmetrics
A market research tool like Kissmetrics can be handy for retaining customers and attracting more to your online store. It analyzes customer behavior on your platform, such as single-user interactions.
Here are some main features of it:
Customer journey mapping
Sales report
Demographic analysis
Funnel reports
Customer and retention analysis
Moreover, Kissmetrics allows you to keep an eye on your customer’s shopping carts and the orders they place for in-depth analysis. Sales funnel tracking and segmentation are other cool features of this tool that can help you understand your audience better.
#3 Adobe Analytics
Adobe Analytics can be a great option for larger-scale businesses, as it is an enterprise-level solution with numerous features. It allows you to track key performance metrics like pageviews, conversion rate, and bounce rate and pinpoint areas of improvement.
Here are some of the many features of it:
Predictive analysis
Customizable dashboard
Integration with Adobe Marketing Cloud
Conversion tracking
Advanced segmentation
Path analysis
You can integrate Adobe Analytics with in-house tools like Adobe Target. This can help you combine experimentation and personalization and utilize the collected data as the single source of truth for A/B tests and marketing strategies.
#4 SimilarWeb
Specializing in web analytics, SimilarWeb is a platform that offers information about your competitors and your market performance. It collects data from millions of websites, platforms, and products and continues to expand. You can get key insights into customer behavior, marketing trends, and data on customers in different demographics so you can tailor your marketing strategy accordingly.
The main features of SimilarWeb are:
Competitor benchmarking
Huge databases
Keyword research
Customer and retention analysis/insights
Real-time monitoring
One of the most surefire ways it can help your online store flourish is by giving you actionable data for your next top product and the best marketing channel to promote it in. It helps you shift focus to the channels that have the most potential.
#5 Matomo
Matomo is an open-source, cloud-based web analytics platform that can be a great alternative to Google Analytics. It gives you full control of your data by giving you 100% ownership. Moreover, you get insights into website traffic, customer behavior, and your store's performance.
Features that make Matomo worthy of consideration are:
Privacy and ownership of data
Customizable reports and database
Open-source
Easy-to-use interface
Customer behavior and website traffic analysis
If you’re already using Google Analytics and you want to migrate to Matomo, you can conveniently import everything to it directly and within minutes.
#6 Wiser
Having been in the ecommerce space since 2013, Wiser has established itself as a reliable data source. It gives you deep insights into current market trends and your competitors' pricing strategies. This way, you can get an opportunity to market your product based on these parameters and create a solid foothold in the industry.
Here are some of the best features of this tool:
Price analysis of your competitors
Market trends and customer purchase behavior analysis
Real-time monitoring of prices
Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) monitoring
Customer-focused market awareness and feedback acquisition
Wiser uses customer preferences and spending habits to help you put your best foot forward when it comes to promotions. Besides, it’s also a great solution for when you don’t know what kind of product to add to your store, as it gives you a peek into your competitors’ product assortment.
Leveraging ecommerce market intelligence the right way
The way to succeed in the ever-competitive ecommerce landscape is by utilizing market intelligence to the fullest.
Here are three key steps to harness its power effectively:
#1 Identify your objectives
Firstly, you must establish the goals and objectives of your ecommerce business. Once you have a clear picture of it, you can start defining specific targets like areas of improvement, be it increasing the product catalog, improving pricing strategies, or boosting user satisfaction. Having clear goals will assist you in making a game plan and prioritizing certain actions to achieve them faster.
#2 Gather and analyze data
Once you have an action plan, it is time to gather and analyze data. Based on your priority actions, gather relevant data and utilize one of the market research tools that have been listed above to get relevant data and insights.
Ideally, you need to grab a hold of data like:
Funnel insights
Conversion rates
Feedback and reviews from users
Website traffic
Time spent on a page
Competitor prices
Marketing strategies
Once you have these in hand, you must analyze them to make informed decisions. For example, if your goal is to study your competitors and their actions, focus on competitor metrics like revenue estimate, reputation, weaknesses, and market position.
However, this is not to say that your competitors would not be analyzing your online store as well. In fact, according to Forbes, 57% of companies say that gaining a competitive advantage is one of the top three priorities in their industry. [2] That’s something to keep in mind!
#3 Implement for business growth
After thoroughly studying the data, you can implement these insights into your action plan to yield maximum visibility, customer satisfaction, and profitability. However, it’s important to remember that the market is ever-changing, and customer behavior is no different. No strategy will work forever, so you must constantly monitor the impact of your actions and make changes where needed.
Best practices for effective market intelligence
You must follow certain practices when implementing insights gained from market intelligence.
Here are some of them:
#1 Keep data fresh and relevant
Outdated data is useful when trying to study historical patterns, but not current ones. As mentioned above, the market changes constantly, and staying updated is incredibly important. Regular audits and data analysis are necessary to understand current market trends and look for growth opportunities.
Ecommerce market research tools can be utilized to gather up-to-date data and monitor them in real-time. While there is no pre-defined timeframe, a monthly or weekly audit can be beneficial to stay ahead of the curve.
#2 Integrate cross-functional insights
For the best possible results, the different departments within your ecommerce business must come together and work as one. Cross-functional insights are extremely valuable and must be shared with all departments, such as sales, marketing, product development, customer service, etc.
Furthermore, with open sharing, all the departments can inform each other. For example, the marketing team can inform the product development team about a product that could potentially bring in a lot of sales. This approach makes the decision-making and action implementation process much smoother and more effective.
#3 Use a variety of sources
The key to effective market intelligence is to use various data sources and not stick to just one. For example, if you’re only relying on your data analytics to gather information, you might want to add other sources as well, such as social media and forums.
This approach ensures you’re not missing out on any valuable insights that could potentially give you the winning edge. It’s always about curiosity and not just relying on traditional market research. The more diverse your data sources, the richer your insights will be.
How Shopware can maximize your profit
Shopware is D2C, B2C, and B2B ecommerce software that can help you build an exceptional online store and scale it to its full potential. Our platform gives you maximum flexibility, scalability, and support to run a successful ecommerce business on your terms.
It’s packed with features, such as:
Flow builder
Premium themes
Social commerce capabilities
Content management
Order management
Return management
3,000+ extensions
AI copilot
You also get numerous ecommerce automation features to simplify your entire business workflow. Plus, you get full access to the source code, and your data remains only yours. There are no lock-ins, no compromises, and definitely no limits.
So, what are you waiting for? Start today by taking a product tour and explore all our features.
FAQs
What is the role of market intelligence in e-marketing?
Market intelligence is crucial for e-marketing, as it provides customer insights. More specifically, by understanding customers' needs and wants, marketing strategies can be planned and implemented accordingly. In addition, it helps in understanding what your competitors are up to and how you can keep up with them stride for stride, if not overtake them.
What is commerce intelligence?
Commerce intelligence is the process of gathering, analyzing, and leveraging data or information about ecommerce. In simple terms, it is information that helps you understand how online stores function and sell their products. It includes evaluating various aspects of an ecommerce platform, such as sales performance, market trends, competition analysis, and customer behavior.
What is market analysis in ecommerce?
Market analysis in ecommerce refers to monitoring and analyzing the online marketplace to make informed decisions that boost your online store’s performance. It includes factors such as market size, customer segments, consumer preferences, long-term growth potential, and competition analysis.
