Have you researched your competitors?
When planning to start up a business or enter a new market place, it is essential to research your competitors thoroughly to ensure you or your service or products can be different from your rivals, or you may want to offer something unique to potential customers that will make them buy from you rather than someone else.
So what exactly do you need to know about your competitors?
The questions below will give you some ideas for gathering information about your competitors and help you understand how they may relate your own business.
- How do your competitors’ products or services compare to yours, and how can you make yours differ from theirs?
- How do their prices compare with yours? Do they offer any special offers, discounts, guarantees or services?
- How does the quality of their products or services compare to yours is it / are they better (or worse) than yours?
- Do they offer any add-on features to their product or service that increase its attractiveness or value to their customers?
- Are they undertaking any research and development that would affect the future positioning of their products?
- How large is their customer base?
- Who are their customers? What are their demographic characteristics? E.g. where do they live? How old are they? What gender are they? What are their occupations? How much do they earn? What sort of things do they spend their money on?
- What share of the market does each of your competitors have?
- How do they promote / advertise? Where? What strategies are they using?
- How much are they paying their staff? What other benefits do they offer them?
