One of the industries that had very good reception by consumers in the e-commerce business is the sports industry. Due to this good reception among consumers, the number of online stores also increased considerably in the last few years. That is why making a brand tracking can be crucial to differentiate from other competitors.
Internet and the sports culture
According to Eurostat, already in 2014, approximately 40% of the EU adult population practiced aerobic sports at least once a week. This percentage varies depending on the country, while the average stays around 70% of Norway’s population; in Romania, it is only 4.9%. However, in most countries, it is an upward tendency.
Sports and healthy life culture has expanded to almost every social stratum; partly, thanks to the internet. Watching videos on Youtube, googling online training, downloading sportive apps, or buying specialized material in e-commerce stores, have fostered the increase of healthy lifestyles.
That is why digital stores dedicated to the sports industry have flourished around the world. It started with a general catalog of the most common sports. Nonetheless, the tendency progressively changed to more specialized stores. Thus, one of the keys to succeed in the sports industry is specializing inside your vertical and finding possible market niches.
Make your sports industry analysis, stand out and win
Competitive prices
Even though the sports industry is pretty exploited, there are new technologies that allow e-commerce stores to improve their digital performance. These are the commonly known monitoring tools; that is, solutions that constantly keep track of competitor’s products and monitor brands as well.
You might be asking yourself why brand monitoring is so helpful. By watching your rivals, you can obtain relevant data that help you improve your pricing strategy and optimize your product’s performance.
Understanding the market you are working in, and the strategic movements employed by your rivalry can be essential for your store. From the Acquisition Department’s point of view, you can improve your purchase conditions by analyzing your sports industry. But how come?
By tracking the brands your competitors are selling and observing the prices of their products, you can detect if they get better acquisition costs than you. If their prices are lower than yours, they probably have a more extensive profit margin than you do because they got a more economical purchase cost. That can work as a guide to better manage your suppliers, obtain a higher theoretical margin, and optimize your product’s performance.
Besides, another attractive feature of these monitoring tools is that you can detect whether there is any pattern that regularly repeats in the prices of your vertical. If you can anticipate those changes, you can adjust much more competitive prices for your online store and optimize the inventory of your stock.
This represents a significant improvement in your purchasing costs and sale prices, as you will be able to purchase the right amount of inventory you need, and you will make sure you have enough stock to improve competitiveness.
Brand tracking
As we already explained, the specialization of your e-commerce is one of the strong points that might get you an increase in your conversions. By tracking competitor’s products, you can watch what brands and what products they offer. This can work as a guide to managing the brands properly you are working with and identify possible market niches.
Furthermore, as well as focusing on your pricing strategy, you ought to invest time improving your positioning in platforms like Google Shopping. There are tools with which you can keep track of competitors’ products. That will provide you with data about their situation and will let you make more justified decisions. With these tools, you can also optimize and take out the most of your Google Shopping campaigns, maximizing your sports industry analysis’ results.
