Competitor analysis
Competitor analysis or the monitoring of competitor use of e-commerce to acquire and
retain customers is especially important in the e-marketplace due to the dynamic nature
of the Internet medium. This enables new services to be launched and prices and promo-
tions changed much more rapidly than through print communications. Activity 4.2
highlights some of the issues in competitor benchmarking, and this topic is referred to
in more detail in Chapter 2.Intermediary analysis
Chapter 2 highlighted the importance of web-based intermediaries such as portals in
driving traffic to an organisation’s web site. Situation analysis will also involve identify-
ing relevant intermediaries for a particular marketplace and look at how the
organisation and its competitors are using the intermediaries to build traffic and provide
services. For example, an e-tailer needs to assess which comparison services such as
Kelkoo (www.kelkoo.com) and Pricerunner (www.pricerunner.com) it and its competitors
are represented on. Do competitors have any special sponsorship arrangements or
microsites created with intermediaries? The other aspect of situation analysis for inter-
mediaries is to consider the way in which the marketplace is operating. To what extent
are competitors using disintermediation or reintermediation? How are existing channel
arrangements being changed?Assessing opportunities and threats
Companies should conduct a structured analysis of the external opportunities and threats
that are presented by the Internet environment. They should also consider their own
strengths and weaknesses in the Internet marketing environment. Summarising the
results through Internet-specific SWOT analysis (internal Strengths and Weaknesses and
external Opportunities and Threats) will clearly highlight the opportunities and threats.
Appropriate planning to counter the threats and take advantage of the opportunities can
then be built into the Internet marketing plan. An example of a typical SWOT analysis of
Internet-marketing-related strengths and weaknesses is shown in Figure 4.7. As is often
the case with SWOT analysis, the opportunities available to a company are the oppositesSITUATION REVIEWActivity 4.2 Competitor benchmarking
Purpose
To understand the characteristics of competitor web sites it is useful to know how to
benchmark and to assess the value of benchmarking.Activity
Choose a B2C industry sector such as airlines, book retailers, book publishers, CDs or
clothing, or a B2B sector such as oil companies, chemical companies, construction industry
companies or B2B exchanges. Work individually or in groups to identify the type of information
that should be available from the web site (and which parts of the site you will access it from)
and will be useful in terms of competitor benchmarking. Once your criteria have been
developed, you should then benchmark companies and summarise which you feel is making
best use of the Internet medium.visit the
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