Ecommerce competitor analysis: what to track

Choose your competitors

• Direct competitors: stores selling the same kind of product to the same customers, at similar prices.
• The store your customers mention: the one they compare you with, or came from.
• One step up: a bigger brand in your niche, to see where the market is heading.
• Three to five is plenty to start with. More than that is hard to keep up with by hand.

1. Prices

• The prices of the products that compete directly with your best sellers.
• Whether they show a crossed-out "was" price, and how often.
• Price changes over time: a steady creep up, or frequent drops.

2. Promotions

• Sitewide sales, discount codes, bundles and free gifts.
• How deep the discounts go, and how long each one runs.
• When they run them: holidays, end of season, or all the time.

3. Shipping and returns

• The free-shipping minimum, or whether every order ships free.
• The return window, and who pays for return shipping.
• These terms change less often than prices, but they shape where shoppers buy.

4. New products

• New products and collections, and how often they launch.
• Products that disappear, which can show what didn't sell.
• Launches announced ahead of time, with a date.

Turning it into decisions

• Don't match every sale. Check what a discount costs you first, and decide which ones are worth answering.
• Plan your own promotions around theirs, so yours aren't lost in the noise.
• Compare your shipping and returns with your niche's typical terms, and with what your margin allows.
• Look at what they launch to spot gaps they leave open.

Keep it to public information

Some call this spying on competitors. In practice, it means reading the public pages any shopper sees: their prices, offers and policies. It doesn't involve logging in to their accounts, buying from them to read private emails, or anything that isn't public.

How EcomWatchdog helps

EcomWatchdog reads each competitor's homepage, sale, new-arrivals and shipping pages, plus the product pages you choose, once a day around midnight US Central. It compares each page with the night before, and a short update is written for each meaningful change: what it was before, what it is now, and the exact wording from their page. Every update is checked against the page before it is saved. It covers prices, promotions, shipping terms and new products: the commercial side of competitor analysis, not search rankings, advertising or traffic.

What it can't see

• It reads public pages only: not prices behind a login, in a cart or at checkout, or offers sent only by email or text message.
• Some stores block automated visits. Their pages can't be read, and the app says so instead of reporting "no change".
• Prices are what a visitor in the US sees, for the product option in the link you add.
• Checks run once a day, so a change made and undone between two checks can be missed.
• History starts when you add a store; it can't show what changed before that.

Questions

How many competitors should I analyse?

Three to five direct competitors is a good start. EcomWatchdog's plans cover 5 competitors on Starter and 20 on Pro.

How often should I redo a competitor analysis?

Prices and promotions change weekly, so keep an eye on them continuously; shipping and returns terms are worth reviewing every few months.

Does this cover SEO, ads and traffic?

No. This guide is about what competitors offer shoppers. Search rankings, advertising and traffic need different tools.