Competitors Evaluation
COMPETITORS EVALUATION
Your competitors are the source for information about the general market. You should benchmark your product features to that of your competitors.
Competitors can be of two type:
Direct : Those selling the same product as yours. For eg: if you are selling spices, other companies selling spices are your direct competitors.
Indirect : Those not in your industry but can effect your sales by offering parallel products. For eg: If you are selling dairy products like paneer those selling vegetables are your indirect competitors because when a customer thinks of having lunch he can choose between either paneer or vegetable.
How to get information about your competitors?
For eg: if you want to get information about competitors selling spices you can go to the local market and ask the retailer these questions(not exhaustive):
Which brand of spices is sold most?
Which type of spices are sold most?
Does the leader offers higher margin to retailer to sell its spices?
Do customers complain about the spices of competitors? What are the complaints?
What sort of sales promotion gimmicks does your competitors use?
Why the retailer thinks the competitor is doing well?
What sort of pricing strategy is the competitor following?
Get out on the street and study your competitors. Visit their stores or the locations where their product is offered. Analyze the location, customer volumes, traffic patterns, hours of operation, busy periods, prices, quality of their goods and services, product lines carried, promotional techniques, positioning, product catalogues and other handouts. If feasible, talk to customers and sales staff.
Conduct a survey within your target customer group to have a better knowledge of your competitors. Refer to the annexure for competitor analysis survey.
With the help of these two study you should be able to reach the following understanding of your major competitors
Identify major competitors features
Understand why customer prefer existing market leader(strengths of market leader)
Understand its pricing strategy
Understand its marketing strategy
Understand its sales promotion techniques
Understand its distribution network
Understand