When introducing a product to a new Amazon marketplace, competitor analysis ensures its compatibility with the new marketplace. This compatibility includes both the marketing content and the branding of the company. This article discusses the different aspects of competitor analysis needed to successfully enter a product in a new Amazon marketplace.

Read more about the Benefits of Selling on Amazon and Expanding to Amazon Europe Markets. Read our 3 part article series based on this post on LinkedIn: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Competitor Analysis Level 1: Critical Analysis of Basic Product Information

The Product Design Brief

The very first step in a competitor analysis is to look at the product design brief. Why was this product made? In some cases, it was made to compete (and beat) a rival product line. Price will be one of the selling factors with these products. In other cases, the product is a completely original design. With these products, it will be important to hype up the content to catch the eye of browsing shoppers.

Don’t have access to the product’s design brief or value proposition? Look at the public information on the company website and the product sheets for the product. Your aim is to identify key features and benefits of the product. How does it differ from those of competitors? How does it fill a gap in the market?

Make notes about what stands out about the product, its selling features, potential keywords and Amazon product categories. These initial impressions are important. They will also be the impressions of browsing shoppers when they come across this product on the Amazon marketplace. As you move through these steps, it will become clear how to improve the content to best showcase the product.

Critical Analysis of Competing Product Pages

Using your list of keywords and categories from the previous step, look on Amazon for products similar to your product. Check the basic product listing page—the product title, images, and bullet points (read more in this post).

Really analyse how they produced their content—what kind of language did they use? How did they set up their bullet points? What kinds of images did they use? How effective are these images for displaying the key features of the product? Make notes of good points and bad points. Perhaps the bullet points are much too short and do not sufficiently highlight the product’s features. Perhaps the images do not show, for example, how the user can interact with the product.

These notes will give you a much better idea of what to include (or not) on your product’s listing page. This will become the first step in developing your own set of best practices for designing a strong listing page. These best practices will vary from marketplace to marketplace due to language and cultural differences.

Recap

The first step in a competitor analysis is to understand your own product from the brand’s perspective. This is followed by a critical analysis of the basic product listing pages of competing products. These first steps in the competitor analysis will help you determine how to set up your product’s product listing page.

Competitor Analysis Level 2: Customer Feedback

Reviews of Competing Products

Looking at the same products you found in the previous section, read the reviews. Make notes of what was positive about the product(s) and what shoppers found lacking. Why were they returning the products? Are these gaps/lacks filled by your product? Ensure that your content reflects this.

Anticipating Customer Complaints

The reviews of other products will give you a sense of what shoppers are looking for. Customer complaints will help you understand what made them unhappy with the product and/or with the purchase. Perhaps they complain about sizing discrepancies. In other cases, they may have issues with the instruction manual. You will want to prevent negative reviews about your new product by providing accurate content in both text and images. By being as clear as possible in your content, shoppers know exactly what they are buying.

Determining the Style of Writing

Know the marketing language in your marketplace. How do your target shoppers want to be talked to? It is more common in the US market to use personal appeal and an adjective style of advertising language. The UK and EU markets place less emphasis on this style of marketing communications. In the UK and EU markets, shoppers want to know the product features and how the product works.

For brands with multiple markets, the language of the content should avoid idioms and sarcasm, which are culture- and language-specific. These do not translate well in other language and cultural marketplaces, requiring a lot of rewriting of content across markets.

Recap

Beyond the basic product listing page, it’s now important to do a critical analysis of the reviews of competing products. What do shoppers like or not like about their products, their brand, or even customer service provided by the brand? How does your product fill a gap or lack in the market? Ensure that your content reflects this. Anticipate customer complaints by writing clear content, so your shoppers know what they are buying. Know the language and culture of your marketplace, how do your shoppers want to be talked to? Make sure your content reflects this so shoppers will pay attention to your marketing.

Competitor Analysis Level 3: Keyword Search Volume, Content and Ads

Keyword Search Volume

The use of keywords can make or break your product’s success on Amazon. With your list of keywords taken from the product design brief, use Amazon search to find the top competitors. What competing products are the first, second and third choices for a specific keyword? Once you have collected this information for all of your keywords, you will see the top competitors for your product.

Looking at competing product titles can give you useful keywords you may have missed in your own product’s title. Do the search again. Look at all of the product listing pages for anything useful (see the first section of this article).

You may also use a third-party software to match the most successful ASINs to certain keywords. The combined information from the searches will help you update your own keywords and advertising.

Targeted Ads

With the research results from the keyword search volume analysis, you will have a list of products for targeted ads. For targeted ads, it is important to focus the advertising on product line names and ASINs of top competitors. Examples of product lines can be a line of power supply units for computers, themed clothing, or even beverage types. Targeting brands or categories can cause spending to get out of control, and the ads won’t reach the specific audience that will be most interested in your product.

Review and Revise your Content

In the previous section, we talked about anticipating customer complaints about your product by writing accurate content. Keep an eye on the reviews after your products are on the market. If people leave negative reviews based on missing information, fix that quickly. For example, add (UK Plug) to the product title, if possible. Another way to resolve this is to ensure the content reflects this information, such as the bullet points. If the issue is with the shipping and delivery of an FBA product, follow up with Amazon right away. Amazon is liable for issues related to FBA, and they can remove the negative review.

Reviews can provide useful information for the design team and manufacturer if they make a newer version of the product. Such information might provide important technical and aesthetic insights for the updated design.

Recap

The final layer of competitor analysis discussed in this article focuses on keyword search volume. This information helps fine tune the list of keywords we made in the first step of the analysis. It also helps us see which competitors and competing products will be the most important to focus our attention on. How can you modify your basic product listing content and ads to target competing product lines and individual products themselves? As you start selling your product on Amazon, watch the reviews your shoppers leave on the product listing page. Can you, and should you, modify your content to anticipate these issues?

Conclusion

Doing competitor analysis for products before selling them on Amazon is a crucial part of creating a successful marketing strategy. We talked about the basics, such as looking at the core features of the product, identifying keywords and selling points. Competing product listing pages are insightful for creating best practices for your own product listing pages. Product reviews provide information about what shoppers are looking for and what leads them to dissatisfaction with a product. Doing an analysis of keywords will enhance your product’s visibility on the Amazon marketplace in organic search. Incorporating the keywords in ads will ensure visibility in paid search. All these tips will help enhance your product’s visibility on the marketplace and higher conversions.