Ozone company internet solutions competitor analysis. Encyclopedia of Marketing

Almost any company needs an analysis of competitors on the Internet: both those that have already occupied their niche in the market, have debugged Internet marketing processes, and are consistently making a profit, and those that are just planning to go online.


Considering the role this instrument V general scheme Internet marketing processes, then online competitor analysis is at the level of strategy development. This means that it makes sense to use such an analysis only after the company has clearly defined business goals, worked out the positioning and the selling proposition. It is also important that responsible managers already have an understanding of how communication with each segment will take place. target audience.

By bringing all this marketing data together, you can develop a company's e-marketing strategy.

Let's return directly to the subject of discussion. You need to know that in Internet marketing there is no typical competitor research that would help every company. In each case this individual set parameters that are studied by competitors.

Let's consider the main ones. So, what can competitor research give us?

  • Positioning of competitors- understand what image they form among the target audience. In particular, we can find out: who is the target audience, how competitors present their product (product or service), what unique features they focus on.
  • How customer service is built- understand how you can improve your service.
  • Pricing policy and assortment- what competitors offer, and how much the set of options and price differ.
  • Competitors website (points of contact)- how they involve the target audience in communication on the site, how they convert it into customers and fans of the brand. This also applies to other points of contact - groups in in social networks, emails, blog, company pages in organization directories.
  • Internet Marketing Strategy- what tools competitors use, what budgets are invested in promotion.

Positioning of competitors. What to pay attention to?

What are competitors focusing on? Examples of positioning types:

  • Distinctive characteristics“Our company operates around the clock, 7 days a week.”
  • Focus on benefits / solving customer problems- "If you buy a roof from us, we will professionally install it for free."
  • Unusual way to use- "This mobile phone can also work as a flashlight."
  • For a narrow segment- "Our online store only sells shoes for running."
  • Comparison with a competitor- "We also offer a set of winter tires as a gift, unlike competitors."

There are other ways to classify positioning, but almost always it comes down to the fact that we choose one or more elements of our business model and convey to the client why we are unusual in this particular aspect.



Positioning research is usually carried out by analyzing the site (and other points of contact) of competitors and a mystery shopper.

Service analysis. What to pay attention to?

Very often, in competitive markets, it is necessary to invest not so much in the number of attracted potential clients how much in the quality of interacting with them. In this case, it is possible to ensure that as many visitors as possible turn from potential into real customers. Therefore, it would be useful to analyze our colleagues in the workshop according to the following criteria:

  • The speed of response to contacting the company- how quickly they pick up the phone, respond to a request from the site, to order a callback, sent email.
  • Do the conditions indicated on the site correspond to the real ones?- Is the product in stock, what is the cost and terms of delivery.
  • Managers communication style- whether they are polite, trying to solve the client's problem or sell anything at any cost, whether they keep their promises.
  • Compliance with work schedule- call 5 minutes before the start and end of the working day.
  • Is CRM being used- try to place an order, posing as a buyer who has allegedly already placed an order and refer to the fact that there is no time or it is inconvenient to fill out the form on the site.
  • Provision of services/delivery of goods- whether the promises given to the client are kept.

Such research is carried out by a mystery shopper.

Assortment analysis and pricing policy. What to pay attention to?

It is important to understand what your competitors are selling and on what terms. If this is a company that provides services and sells several products, then there is nothing complicated. But if this is e-commerce, then for analysis it is necessary to study their product matrix. They usually check:

  • scroll trademarks;
  • how many and what categories of goods are represented by each brand;
  • categories into which competitors segment their products- for example, for a gift shop, segmentation can be used not only by brands, types of goods, but also by the occasion when this gift is relevant;
  • cost of goods and the reasoning of the price, if it is higher than the market average.

Such an analysis is carried out by a marketer on a competitor's website or with the help of a mystery shopper (perhaps competitors do not correctly display everything on the website).

And for online stores, various scripts may be relevant, allowing you to simultaneously collect information from many competitive sites. For this, trade aggregators such as Yandex.Market are used. Use ready-made scripts or scripts specially developed by programmers for the needs of the company.


You can also make trial purchases from competitors, for example once a month, and see which number is assigned to your order. By comparing the two numbers, we get the number of orders per month. Knowing the average check for the industry, we can assume what is the approximate turnover of competitors. But, unfortunately, some already know about such tricks and generate a unique order number every time.

A website is a place where the final conversion of the target audience often takes place. In the ideal case, the client immediately buys on the site desired product or a service. Either he turns to the company, and then it’s up to the managers to bring the deal to a victorious end.

What you need to study on the sites of competitors?

  • Elements of making contact- phones, application forms, online consultant.
  • Website engagement mechanism - text content(articles, reviews, blog, news), graphic content (photos, instructions, infographics), video content (reviews, training videos, presentations), interactive elements (calculators, room wallpaper selection module).
  • The functionality of the site and personal account.
  • Trust elements- photos of employees, diplomas, letters of recommendation, customer reviews.
  • Ability to recommend- integration with social networks, recommendation by mail.
  • Integration with external services.
  • Everything that is "knocked out" of the general trend.

If your competitors have been using the Internet as a marketing channel for a long time, it is useful to find out how their site has been modified, how the positioning, the list of services and goods have changed. To do this, you can use the www.archive.org service, but, unfortunately, some sites do not fall into this archive. You can also find out about changes on the competitor's website using the www.changedetect.com service.


Internet marketing strategy. What to pay attention to?

Knowing how competitors convert the target audience, it would be useful to know what channels they use to attract the target audience.

What can you learn about our competitors?

  • SEO promotion- there are a considerable number of useful tools and sites for analyzing competitors. They will allow you to find out the queries by which your competitors and positions are visible, what links and where they place, how much such placement costs, the quality of the text content, and other data important for SEO. Here are some of these tools: Yazzle, Megaindex.ru, RDS-bar, Solomono, KeyCollector, PageWeight, Xenu.
  • Contextual advertising. A useful service for analyzing competitors in contextual advertising is www.advse.ru. The www.spywords.ru service deserves a separate word, allowing you to analyze competitors from the point of view of contextual advertising, and in terms of promotion in search engines.
  • Email Marketing- in order to understand what content colleagues send to the target audience, it is necessary to analyze them mailing list. If this is an online store, then by making a test purchase, you can track the algorithm for sending emails and their content. It is also useful to ask commercial offers and see how letters, commercial offers, presentations are drawn up.


  • PR activities. Here at first it is necessary to understand, what information we will search for. Usually they search by the name of the company, trademarks, brand, goods, services (in all languages, with typos, abbreviations). They also search by site address and other contact information (phones, emails) and by names key personnel companies.

Where to look for information?

  • Search engines- it is convenient to use the www.nigma.ru search engine aggregator to find information that already exists in the search engine index. For getting new information, falling into the index search engine Google, you can use the service https://www.google.ru/alerts .
  • News aggregators- https://news.yandex.ru/ and https://news.google.com/ .
  • Sites with reviews and testimonials- market.yandex.ru, www.irecommend.ru, www.yell.ru and others.
  • Social networks and blogs- For free search For mentions on Facebook and Twitter, you can use www.siteheart.com and www.tweetalarm.com . For blogs analysis - blogs.yandex.ru. There are paid professional systems analysis of competitors in social networks - www.youscan.ru, www.iqbuzz.ru, www.babkee.ru and others. It also makes sense to be friends with your colleagues in social networks in order to be aware of various industry events, the success of colleagues and the emergence of useful information. To search for colleagues in social networks, it is convenient to use the www.people.yandex.ru service.
  • Video channels- search for those www.youtube.com, www.rutube.ru and similar.
  • Photo Services- search for information in www.instagram.com, www.flickr.com , www.pinterest.com , fotki.yandex.ru and similar.
  • Vacancies and reviews about employers- analysis of vacancies on www.hh.ru, www.rabota.ru and others. Search for feedback from employees on www.orabote.net and similar.
  • Articles and news on thematic portals- search for information on industry portals.

And now let's look at examples of how useful marketing research on the Internet can be for a company.

Case 1

Client- Russian domain registrar and hosting provider.

What was studied and what was found out:

  • An analysis of the services offered by colleagues in Russia and abroad showed that the company can help clients solve related problems on the Internet, in addition to domain registration and hosting.
  • Based on research and usability testing, new sections were added to the site for different representatives of the target audience, and new functions were added to the site and personal account.
  • The core of search queries has been expanded for promotion in search engines and for contextual advertising campaigns.
  • Adjusted work on other activities - PR, SMM, media advertising.

The data obtained allowed us to improve the company's Internet marketing and increase sales.

Case 2

Client- online store of building materials.

  • The analysis of competitors' advertising was carried out. Advertising channels that were practically not used by competitors were identified.
  • Expanded product matrix.
  • The database of search queries for SEO and context has been expanded.
  • Changed work schedule.
  • Website modernized.
  • The company's customer retention policy has been developed.

As a result, the company's profit growth due to repeated sales and attracting new customers.


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Case 3

Client - Russian manufacturer siding, operating in the b2b segment.

What has been studied and what has changed:

  • Changing the promotion strategy, connecting new Internet marketing tools.
  • Selection of the most complete semantics in the industry.
  • Adjustment of contextual advertising campaigns.
  • A new approach to working with dealers.

As a result, sales are growing due to an increase in the number of applications from new dealers (by 2 times) and adjustments in work with current dealers.

Summing up, I would like to draw attention to the following points:

  • You can’t just take and do competitor research once. It must be periodic marketing event. Depending on the business model, research on some aspects may be conducted at different intervals. For example, daily - monitoring of competitors' prices for online stores, annually - research for highly specialized products or services where there are few competitors.
  • To obtain high-quality data, analyze and derive correct recommendations based on them, experienced specialists should conduct research. Often, specialists have their own developments and their own programs. In some cases, without a specialist, the information received from various services is not of high value.
  • It is important to remember that these studies will never give a 100% picture of all the actions of competitors, but will allow you to form a general vector of their movement.
  • Competitors are also people and do not always do everything right, so you should not immediately run to introduce innovations “peeped” from competitors, but you need to pay more attention to this information and study it in more detail. But the decision should not be delayed either.
  • Competitive research is not an end in itself. The main thing is to build an effective e-marketing system, and research is just one of the marketing activities.
  • Most likely, while you are reading this article, there is a competitor on your site, and he is studying you 🙂

If you are faced with the task of how to analyze competitors, we recommend watching Andrey Gavrikov's webinar "

Competitors lie in wait at every turn, in the niche of Internet marketing their density is maximum. Any company - both the one that has already occupied its niche in the market and debugged the processes of Internet marketing, and the one that is just planning to go online - will have to carefully analyze the activities of competitors in order to stay afloat and receive a stable profit.

If we consider the role of competitive analysis in the overall scheme of e-marketing processes, then we need to think about it at the level of developing the Strategy.

This means that it makes sense to use such an analysis only after the company has clearly defined business goals, worked out positioning and a selling proposition. It is also important that responsible managers already have an understanding of how communication will take place with each of the segments of the target audience.

It is only by bringing all these marketing data together that a company's e-marketing strategy can be developed. You need to understand that in Internet marketing there is no and cannot be a typical competitor research that would help every company. In each case, it is necessary to form an individual set of studied parameters. Let's consider the main ones.

So, what can competitor research give us?

  • Positioning of competitors. It is necessary to understand what image they form among the target audience. In particular, we can find out:
    • who is the target audience;
    • how competitors present their product (product, service);
    • what unique features they emphasize.
  • Client service. We can figure out how competitors' customer service is built and understand how to improve ours.
  • Pricing policy and assortment. We can find out what the competitors offer and how much the options and price differ.
  • Website of competitors (points of contact). We can figure out how they involve the target audience in communication on the site, how they convert it into customers and brand fans. This also applies to other points of contact - groups in social networks, emails, a blog, company pages in directories of organizations, etc.
  • Internet marketing strategy. We can find out what tools competitors use and what budgets they invest in promotion.

Positioning of competitors. What to pay attention to?

What are competitors focusing on? Examples of positioning types:

  • Distinctive characteristics“Our company operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”
  • Concentration on consumer benefits- "You will not only buy a roof from us, but we will professionally install it for you."
  • Unusual way to use- "This mobile phone can also work as a flashlight."
  • For a narrow segment“We only sell shoes for running.”
  • Comparison with a competitor- "Unlike our competitors, we also offer a set of winter tires as a gift."

There are other ways to categorize, but it almost always comes down to choosing one or more business model elements and telling a compelling story about why the offer is unusual in that particular way.

Positioning research is usually carried out by analyzing the site (and other points of contact) of competitors and a mystery shopper.

Service analysis. What to pay attention to?

Very often, in competitive markets, it is necessary to invest not so much in the number of potential customers attracted, but in the quality of interaction with them. In this case, it is possible to ensure that as many visitors as possible turn from potential customers into real ones. Therefore, it would be useful to analyze our colleagues in the workshop according to the following criteria:

  • The speed of response to contacting the company- how quickly they pick up the phone, respond to a request from the site, to order a callback, sent e-mail, etc.
  • Do the specified conditions on the site correspond to the real ones?- Is the product in stock, what is the cost and terms of delivery.
  • Managers communication style- whether they are polite, trying to solve a customer's problem or sell anything at any cost, whether they keep their promises, etc.
  • Compliance with work schedule- call 5 minutes before the start and end of the working day.
  • Is CRM being used- try to place an order, posing as a buyer who has allegedly already placed an order, and refer to the fact that there is no time or it is inconvenient to fill out the form on the site.
  • Provision of services/delivery of goods- whether the promises given to the client are kept.

Such research is carried out by a mystery shopper.

Assortment analysis and pricing policy. What to pay attention to?

It is important to understand what your competitors are selling and on what terms. If this is a company that provides services and sells several products, then there is nothing complicated. But if this is e-commerce, then for analysis it is necessary to study the product matrix. They usually check:

  • List of trade marks.
  • How many products and what categories are represented by each brand.
  • Categories by which competitors segment their products - for example, for a gift shop, segmentation can be used not only by brands, types of goods, but also by the occasion when this gift is relevant.
  • The cost of the goods and the reasoning of the price, if it is higher than the market average.

Such an analysis is carried out by a marketer or with the help of a mystery shopper on a competitor's website (it is possible that competitors do not correctly display everything on the website).

And for online stores, various scripts may be relevant, allowing you to simultaneously collect information from many competitive sites. For this, trade aggregators such as Yandex.Market are used. You can use both ready-made and scripts developed by programmers for the needs of the company.

You can also make trial purchases from competitors, for example, once a month, and see which number is assigned to your order. By comparing the two numbers, we get the number of orders per month. Knowing the average check for the industry, we can assume what is the approximate turnover of competitors. But, unfortunately, some already know about such tricks and generate a unique order number every time.

Competitor website. What to pay attention to?

A website is a place where the final conversion of the target audience often takes place. In the ideal case, the client immediately buys the product / service he needs on the site. Either he addresses the company directly, and bringing the deal to a victorious end is already a matter for managers.

What you need to study on the sites of competitors?

  • Elements of making contact- phones, application forms, online consultant, etc.
  • Website engagement mechanisms- text content (articles, reviews, blog, news), graphic content (photos, instructions, infographics), video content (reviews, training videos, presentations), interactive elements (calculators, room wallpaper selection module, etc.) And so on.
  • Trust elements- photos of employees, diplomas, letters of recommendation, customer testimonials, etc.
  • Ability to recommend- integration with social networks, recommendation by mail, etc.
  • Integration with external services.
  • Everything that is "knocked out" of the general trend.

If your competitors have been using the Internet as a marketing channel for a long time, it is useful to find out how their site has been modified, how the positioning, the list of services and goods have changed. To do this, you can use the www.archive.org service, but, unfortunately, some sites do not fall into this archive. You can also find out about changes on the competitor's website using the www.changedetect.com service.

Where are they looking for this information?

  • Search engines. To find information that already exists in the search engine index, it is convenient to use the search engine aggregator www.nigma.ru. To get new information that gets into the index of the Google search engine, you can use the www.google.ru/alerts service.
  • News aggregators- news.yandex.ru and news.google.com. Sites with reviews and reviews - market.yandex.ru, www.irecommend.ru, www.yell.ru and others.
  • Social networks and blogs. You can use www.siteheart.com and www.tweetalarm.com to search for mentions on Facebook and Twitter for free. For blogs analysis - blogs.yandex.ru.
  • There are paid professional systems for monitoring the activity of competitors in various social networks - www.youscan.ru,

Summarizing

You can’t just take and do competitor research once - it should be a periodic marketing event. Depending on the business model, research can be conducted at different intervals. For example, daily - monitoring of competitors' prices for online stores, annually - research for highly specialized products or services, where there are few competitors.

Competitive research is not an end in itself. The main thing is to build an effective e-marketing system, and research is just one of the marketing activities.

To obtain high-quality data, analyze them and make the right recommendations, experienced specialists should conduct research. Often they have their own developments and their own programs. And sometimes the information received from various services without the analysis of a specialist is not of high value.

It is important to remember that these studies will never give an exhaustive picture of the actions of competitors, but will allow you to understand the general vector of their movement.

Competitors are also people and do not always do everything right, so you should not immediately introduce innovations “peeped” from them: you need to pay more attention to this information and study it in detail. But the decision should not be delayed either.

Most likely, while you are reading this article, there is a competitor on your site, and he is studying you.

The material was prepared by Tatyana Polovichenko, Chief Editor Ashmanov and Partners.

“Tell me, tell me the whole truth: Am I the sweetest in the world?”, V modern world Few businesses doubt their ideality.

By default, most people think that competition is for wimps, or as women say: “Are you jealous?! So I'm not sure of myself."

But seriously, the analysis of competitors hides all the most important things in itself, because after all, we are fighting for the same customers. Therefore, you need to know everything about the activity of competitors in order to do better.

Know by sight

With the idea that the analysis of competition in the market is good, you have already come to terms. Now the next step is to find those very “enemies of the people”.

And as practice shows, a lot of companies place accents incorrectly, and as a result, they join the race with companies that will never stand next to them.

To truly understand who your competitor is, you need to start with a definition.

You need to find people with potential for you. You then determine between which companies these customers choose.

And only then you will truly see which companies are fighting for the same customers as you. These will be your key competitors.

I draw your attention to the fact that if you are not a federal company of the level of “M-video” or “Ozon” (such our blog is rarely read), then you should NOT set yourself to defeat all-Russian monsters.

I do not want to offend you, but most likely your entire advertising budget (like ours) for federal companies is a miscalculation.

You need to be smarter and aim at your client, and not try to fight them for one market.

In addition to key competitors, you have direct and indirect ones. For you, the direct ones are just federal networks and other companies for which or for which you are too tough.

Indirect - those companies that, by coincidence in the world, can become your direct competitors, or those businesses.

Who fight for the same budget of your client, but at the same time work in a different area (for example, you are a restaurant, and your indirect competitor is a cinema).

Important. The frequency of analysis is formed based on the dynamics of the market. The more and more often changes occur in your field, the more often you will have to assess the situation of competing businesses.

Systems approach

“I know everything about them” is the most common phrase we hear when collecting information about competitors in or.

In this case, we have dozens of questions that will solve the client like bullets and show that he is not immortal and his overconfidence only harms him.

Comparative analysis of competitors is not a “know-don't-know” game. This systems approach, consisting of methods, tools and a huge number of tables and graphs.

Therefore, we throw the school approach into a corner and talk about analysis like adults. And for this we need to separate the two concepts that we will use in the process.

  1. The subject of study is part of the analyzed business.
  2. The study method is an approach when analyzing a part of a business.

Roughly speaking, you must separate the concepts between yourself - “What are we analyzing?” and “How do we analyze (criteria for evaluating competitors)?”.

To complete the picture, we will consider both. So get ready for a huge amount of boring-interesting (yes-yes) words and sentences. And we will start with the subject of analysis, since the method is formed on the basis of it.

Subject of study

Depending on the goal of the analysis of the competitive environment, you will have different areas of assessment.

It is quite possible that literally one subject of study from the entire list will come in handy for you, but for sure, if you study more, then it will not be superfluous. Of course, no one will pat you on the head, but there will be more money.

How touching

1. Basic information

At the beginning of the analysis, everything is like in the army: “Weight, height, year of birth?”. We study the background information to form general idea about the players on the battlefield.

Most likely you already know all the information if you have been working for more than a year, but we recommend that you remove these thoughts, as the world is changing, just like competitors are changing.

The more serious the competition, the more introductory information you need to collect, since every detail can become a path to differentiation.

To make it easier for you to understand what I'm talking about, check out the list of recommended basic information to collect:

  1. Year of foundation;
  2. Region;
  3. Management;
  4. Number;
  5. Market share;
  6. working money;
  7. Key clients;

As a separate point, I would like to draw your attention to the companies. When analyzing, we need to look beyond the “now”.

Of course, it is more important for everyone to get money right now. But we must not forget that business is not a sprint, it is a marathon, where the winner is determined by the end of a long journey.

And if you do not foresee this, then maybe everything will be fine for you now, but in a few years it will go down the drain.

2. Product matrix

The first thing you need to start learning is the company's product, as everything grows from it. Not marketing, not sales, but the product.

People go for a service and a product, and only then go to the company. Having studied their offer, we will be able to understand how competitive the foundation of your company is.

2.1. Product

You must study the product from all sides, paying attention even to details. This will help you find yours not only on a global level, but also in great detail.

If you make a basic list of areas that you should pay attention to, then it will look like this:

  1. Range;
  2. Size;
  3. Appearance;
  4. Package;
  5. Characteristics;
  6. Warranty support;
  7. Color;
  8. Implementation format;
  9. Term;
  10. degree of fame.

Moreover, it is necessary to evaluate not only the main category of products, but the whole.

You need to understand what are the main products, upsells, premium products, and so on.

You study everything you can get your hands on. After all, if you spent at home, then you know that there are situations when the main profit is made by products from which you do not expect this.

To make the analysis of goods and services of competitors more effective, it is recommended to draw up the whole thing in a table or graph.

But again, everything is at your discretion, because how it will be framed in the end does not matter. You do everything for yourself, not for thesis(remember the institute, right?).

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2.2. Pricing

Each product has its own value. Of course, it consists not only of the cost, as is commonly believed.

How bigger company, the more other costs are included, including the overpayment for the brand. Therefore, first of all, you need to find out what is included in their cost and what is the profit.

Then you need to go over to the client side and evaluate the very fact of the final cost, because the cost price is not important for the consumer, he sees the final value and already determines by it - yes or no.

Most likely, you analyze the prices of competitors at the exit quite often, since for many this is an analysis of competition in the market.

If there is no way to fight the cost, try to beat them with other differences, or use one of the strategies described in our article.

3. Marketing

Marketing is a huge topic for analysis. You won't learn it 100% for sure. This is due to the fact that you never know exactly where the budget from a competitor is now directed.

However, marketing is Entrance door business, and how well it is packaged and formed, depends on whether the client will go to you or to them.

3.1. Basic Marketing

The first marketing analysis of competitors should begin with a study of the foundation of their approach.

You need to understand how they present themselves and “what they breathe”. In other words, you analyze .

Even if it doesn’t exist at first glance, you still need to understand at least where they are going. After all, we must remember that analysis provides a vision not only tactical, but also strategic.

These are the 5 aspects that we pay attention to first of all after the strategies of competitors.

For the rest of the points, it makes no sense to continue, since the topic is obvious and does not require disclosure.

But if I'm wrong, then you can write a comment under this article and we will help you in identifying your competitors' basic marketing questions.

And all this is completely free, because we do not charge money for small advice. This is our investment in you for the future.

Cool!

3.2. Customer acquisition

We had a client who had a competitor take away buyers right from under his nose.

He did not exceed his budget, he went around his mind. Namely, he was always one step above our client.

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Strategy
promotion

Differences from
competitors

Types of clients and their
election criteria

dynamics and
market trends

And a lot of other information

3.3. Retention, monetization and return of customers

The most beloved part of the business of all entrepreneurs is attracting customers. In 7 out of 10 cases, during consultations, we hear the question: “Where to get new clients?”.

It feels like a wedge of light has converged on them. And this erroneous opinion wanders from year to year.

But in vain, it is possible to increase the capitalization of the company without attracting customers. To do this, you just need to work correctly with the customer base.

And most likely your competitors do not miss this opportunity and use everything to the fullest.

Therefore, you need to study all possible additional actions in the field of marketing of your colleagues in the shop. As usual, I provide you with a basic list of zones for analysis:

  1. SMS sending;
  2. Additional gifts.

This item should be the most voluminous for you, since it includes all marketing activities that are aimed at customers.

And since marketing has more than 5,000 tools among them, I admit that you won’t be able to find everything.

However, you need to go through all the major ones and figure out what's good about their marketing.

4. Sales

Marketing is just a tool to attract customers and increase their desire to buy. Everything else in a classic business is done by people and sales tools.

Therefore, you need to know everything about sales in a competitor's company. And, like marketing, this part is roughly divided into several parts.

4.1 People

It is very bad for a business when customers work with people and not with the company. But from the point of view of analysis, you need to approach from this side.

To really see what is so special about employees that consumers work with them, and not just with us. Here the list of analyzed items can be as follows:

  1. Positions;
  2. Regalia;
  3. Personal qualities;
  4. Appearance;
  5. manner of communication;
  6. Education.

You need to learn everything about their team. It is possible that their entire business is based on people.

For example, because specialists with very famous names work for them. For you, this means that if you do not strengthen yourself with no less famous people, you will have to sweat in the struggle for a place in the sun.

4.2 Sales tools

In paragraph 3.3, we looked at tools that also help sell to employees.

But here we will talk about something else. In marketing, these are tools that directly contact customers, and in this case we are talking about actions and materials that function only within the company and the client does not see them.

In simple language, I will call this “audit of the sales department”, in the most classic sense of the phrase.

You learn everything that makes their sales managers as effective and motivated as possible. I recommend starting with the following points:

  1. Reports;

You can evaluate only sales scripts without any problems. It is practically impossible to study the rest without a mishandled Cossack, a Trojan horse or other cunning ways of infiltrating behind enemy lines.

You will simply not be allowed inside the company, and the answer to the question - "Why?" is quite obvious - "Because".

But if you really want to, then you can fly into space and get this information. Proudly say, tested on our clients.

5. Conditions and business processes

When you know everything about the product, marketing and sales, then you are literally missing the last piece of the puzzle, these are their conditions and business processes.

In part, you will receive this information when studying the previous parts of the business, but here again (or again) you need to look at the whole thing from the other side.

Study their logistics, study their production, study their ability to provide deferrals, installments, products for sale.

You need to study all their working conditions from a needle to a rope. Even if some of them are not so important for the client, but if a company does this (especially one that is better than us), then it understands why it needs it.

The most obvious way to study the conditions and business processes is to go through the entire customer journey from A to Z, from call to purchase, and even better, to return / abandonment of the product, if possible.

And you must be the most meticulous client, so that you are fully served and you see all parts of the business.

In this way, you will be able to understand how to improve your working conditions. For example, you will implement faster delivery than theirs, or introduce interest-free installments for 24 months, when everyone has 12.

You can also improve your business processes to make them different (this is one way to differentiate), or increase efficiency, or reduce costs.

Study method

In the modern world, there are dozens of methods to conduct competitive analysis market.

There are even those that are held for several months. We will study the simplest, and at the same time the most effective, methods of competitor analysis for an ordinary classic business.

Leave complex and voluminous processes to us, because this also needs to be learned. For one article, besides without a mentor, it is very difficult to do this.

Bad news. Within the framework of this article, we will not be able to consider in detail all methods of analyzing the market of competitors, since each of them will take more than one thousand words.

Therefore, we will analyze the concept, and if you are interested in one of them, then read more in other articles.

1. Benchmarking

The simplest and most large-scale (in terms of pages) way to analyze the competitive environment.

You define evaluation criteria (and based on the text above, you realized that there are hundreds of them) and compare yourself with each competitor in the form of a table or graph.

You can rate on the basis of “Yes / No”, “Yes / No” or in a numerical value from 1 to 10. I prefer the second option, as it is more transparent.


Comparative analysis

The main disadvantage of this method is that some aspects of the business cannot be objectively assessed by categorical or numerical criteria.

Also, you can only evaluate the present situation at the moment, and not see what might happen next, what threats and risks might be. And you also need to know this, since you obviously plan to work for more than one year.


Comparative analysis of companies

Comparative competitive analysis can be carried out both within the whole company and within a certain instrument in order to obtain the most reliable information.

But at the same time, it will take several times more time, perhaps even dozens of times, so prioritize correctly.


Comparative analysis of instruments

2. SWOT analysis

The most popular method of analyzing the market and the main competitors. A classic of the genre among analyzes, which is still taught in institutes.

Its meaning lies in the fact that you compare yourself with a certain competitor in 4 parts: strengths, weak sides, threats and opportunities.

These four parts are divided into external and internal. This way already sees the bigger picture for the future.

Launch of interactive mailing together with Mail.ru

On September 27, 2019 it became known that Ozon and Pochta_Mail.Ru started interactive mailing.

Now Ozon customers will be able to activate coupons, take part in surveys right in email, the technology also allows you to create sliders with photos and download information about current products and promotions at the moment when the user opens the letter - which means that the offers in it will not lose their value after a couple of days. This is the first such experience for Russian services.

Interactive mailings are based on AMP technology (Accelerated mobile pages). Unlike regular messages, in AMP emails, the user has the ability to manage the content received and give feedback sender. To do this, widgets, buttons and other multimedia tools are embedded in interactive emails. All interactive elements are automatically updated so that the user receives up-to-date information at the time of opening the letter. In addition, personalized settings can be added to AMP emails so that the emails reflect relevant offers for each user.

As part of the test period, interactive letters from Ozon are received by 900,000 users who have Mail.ru mail. In the first letters, the company used two functions of the service - a slider with images and an interactive survey, which can be completed right in the letter. This allows you to place more information on the first screen, and increase the clickability of the content in the letter. Already the first tests showed that the number of clicks on photo banners in an email with a slider is 26% higher than in emails with static images, and the questionnaire in the email collects 10% more responses.

As of September 2019, 5 million users across Russia receive letters from Ozon, and e-mail is one of the ways for us to tell about promotions and great offers. In mailings, we use various personalization mechanics - from selections of relevant products to reminders that it is time to order, for example, washing powder or diapers, if the user regularly buys them and enough time has passed since the last order. And, of course, when new services appear that make this communication channel even more attractive to users, we use them. In the future, we see many interesting opportunities using AMP technology in Ozon mailing lists,


Mail.ru mail has long ceased to be only a means of communication. With its help, you can solve a variety of tasks: you can call a taxi directly from letters, pay fines and mobile communications, in the future there will be even more opportunities. Thanks to interactive elements, Mail.ru mail will become an even more convenient tool for helping you with your daily activities.

Integration with the Russian Post digital service otpravka.pochta.ru

The integration of the Ozon fulfillment management system, a multi-category e-commerce platform, with the Russian Post digital service otpravka.pochta.ru has made online shopping more accessible for residents of 85 constituent entities of the Russian Federation. Thanks to the integration of the systems of the two players, the delivery time to 42,000 branches of the Russian Post was halved. Thus, residents of the most remote territories of the country received prompt access to 2.1 million trade names, reported on August 21, 2019 in the federal postal operator. Read more.

Data leak of 450 thousand users

On July 10, 2019 it became known of large leak of data of clients of Ozon. The database, which contains more than 450 thousand e-mail addresses and passwords of users, was in the public domain.

Ozon assumes that the data of the company's customers got into the network because they either used the same passwords for different services, or their computer was hacked. Having received the database with data from the account, fraudsters could find out information from personal accounts, the interlocutors of RBC noted.

According to him, the lack of timely warning about such a situation jeopardizes the safety of all users of the service.

Roskomnadzor noted that access to the client's account allows unauthorized access to Additional information about the user, as well as perform various actions on his behalf. In this regard, the service will send a letter to the online store for clarification.

Ozon has not previously reported leaks, but at the end of 2018, the company's technical director, Anatoly Orlov, said that the password recovery system had changed. According to him, additional encryption was added to the system.

Increase in the share of AFK Sitema

The transaction was carried out through the "daughter" of MTS - offshore Dera Retail Holding. Payment will be made in three tranches, the last of which is due in July 2021.

After the deal, AFK Sistema will directly own a 19.3% stake in Ozon. Another 16.3% of the shares belong to the venture fund Sistema_VC, controlled by AFK Sistema. Thus, the corporation controls 35.6% of the shares of the online store.

2018

MTS increased its stake in Ozon to 16.7%

MTS bought two minority stakes in authorized capital company, the company's press service explained to TASS: 0.35% of the shares were bought from the former Ozon executive director Bernard Luque, another 2.65% from the Index Ventures fund.

In early March, MTS increased its stake in Ozon from 11.2% to 13.7%, spending 1.15 billion rubles. for the redemption of an additional issue of shares of an Internet retailer.

Ozon received 3.5 billion from MTS and other shareholders

Online store Ozon raised 3.5 billion rubles. ($61 million) of new investments from its current shareholders - Baring Vostok and MTS funds. The agreement reached provides that the amount of financing can be increased to 5.25 billion rubles. ($92 million), depending on the wishes of Ozon.

The funds will be provided through the issuance of additional Ozon shares. With the money received, the store intends to develop the logistics infrastructure, expand the range and implement new projects.

Of this amount, MTS will provide 1.15 billion rubles, Interfax reports in February 2018, citing an MTS message. This will increase the share mobile operator in Ozon from 11.2% to 13.7%. Another 2.35 billion rubles. will come from Baring Vostok. According to the option agreement, Ozon has the right to require MTS to repurchase additional shares in the amount of up to RUB 582 million over the next 12 months, which will increase MTS' share to 14.7%.

2017: Sistema VC redeemed 10.8% from AFK Sistema

In 2015, the retailer processed 5.18 million orders and sold 22.74 million items. Average check amounted to 2.52 thousand rubles

On average, 750,000 unique users visit Ozon.ru every month.

The Ozon group, in addition to the Ozon.ru retailer, also includes the O-Courier delivery service, which, in addition to the online store, serves about 100 organizations, as well as the Ozon Travel ticket and hotel booking service.

Ozon.ru launched in the US

On April 2, 2015, the Ozon.ru online store announced the start of work in Ozonru.com as a resource.

Screenshot Ozonru.com, 2015

This is the fourth showcase launched by the company outside of Russia, after Kazakhstan, Europe and Israel. The showcase offers Russian-speaking customers an assortment of 590,000 books. Delivery of goods to the buyer is planned within 1.5 weeks.

2013: FAS approved the petition of AFK "Sistema" about purchase of approximately 10% of Ozon.ru

A source close to MTS shareholders previously specified that we are talking on the purchase of approximately 20% of Ozon.ru - in equal shares in MTS and Sistema.

"The Board of Directors of MTS approved the feasibility of the transaction based on the possible synergy with MTS online sales and the potential for market growth. At the same time, there is certain doubts in light of recent legislative initiatives affecting online payments. There is no final decision on the deal, everything will depend on the price," he explained.

2011

The company's turnover in 2011 amounted to 8.87 billion rubles. Net revenue - 4.7 billion rubles.

ru-Net and other funds invest $100 million in the company

In September 2011, it became known that Elena Ivashentseva funds invested $100 million in Ozon.ru. She says that all investors in the new round received minority stakes.

"The company is valued higher than we expected," says Gavet, but does not give an estimate. Based on a turnover of 4.5 billion rubles. in 2010 and multipliers of similar companies (Amazon, eBay, Salesforce) Ozon.ru can be estimated at $564 million, Finam's expert Leonid Delitsyn calculated. But if Ozon.ru is unprofitable or not profitable, then the deal could go through with a discount of up to 30% - at a price of $395 million. A source in one of the Internet companies told Vedomosti earlier that Ozon.ru is counting on a $400 million valuation.

$100 million - the largest private investment in the Russian e-commerce, Gave says. The founder agrees trading platform Wikimart Maxim Faldin: the last major investment of $55 million in April 2011 was received by the online shopping club KupiVIP.

Japanese Rakuten is one of the best companies On the market ecommerce in the world, it is very aggressive in terms of expansion into international markets says Faldin. This is a strategic investor who usually does not exit the acquired assets, but only increases the share. Rakuten will share its online commerce experience with Ozon.ru, Gave said. For example, she has built a whole partner training system, the implementation of which would also help Ozon.ru.

According to Gavet, Ozon will invest the raised funds in the construction of logistics centers, equipment; the company will increase stocks, expand the range (for example, it can start selling clothes). Also, investments are required for the Ozon Travel project.

Mael Gavet succeeds Bernard Luquet as CEO

In April 2011, Ozon.ru changed its CEO. Instead of Bernard Lukey, who returned to Switzerland with his family in 2009, this position was taken by Maelle Gavet, who has been working at Ozon.ru since March 2010 as marketing director.

Until July 1, 2011, Luke will manage the holding as a whole, which, in addition to Ozon.ru, includes the second travel store Ozon.travel and the O-Courier courier service. After this date CEO the entire holding "Internet Solutions" will also become Gavet.

2010

Revenue store Ozon.ru not disclosed. In 2010, the total revenue of three business areas (Ozon.ru, Ozon.travel and courier service) amounted to 4.15 billion rubles. The main store shipped 1.95 million orders or 8,472,222 items. IN monetary terms 37.9% of its sales were books, 32.1% electronics. Separately, the turnover of the online travel store Ozon.travel in 2010 amounted to 898 million rubles.

The company's revenue in the first half of 2010 amounted to 1.8 billion rubles. For the same period in 2009, Ozon.ru's income was 1.4 billion rubles. According to the company's calculations, revenue growth amounted to 36% (from last year's income, this is about 500 million rubles), the discrepancy in the numbers in Ozon.ru is explained by the error in rounding off the values.

A year earlier, the company's turnover growth rate was lower and amounted to 20%. In the pre-crisis years, the store's revenue grew at a more significant pace: in 2008 - by 55%, and in 2007 - by 93%.

The share of books in the income structure decreased to 36.8% of the total turnover, in the first half of 2009 the same figure was 39%. However, books managed to maintain their first place in terms of share in the store's revenue. In absolute terms, their sales look good - in the first half of 2010, more than 2.2 million copies were sold. If we compare not the share in revenue, but the number of books sold, then the growth compared to the first half of 2009 is 33.8%.

The share of electronics (laptops, photographic equipment, Cell phones etc.) in the turnover of Ozon.ru continues to grow. This category is in second place in terms of revenue. Over the year, its share in the company's income increased from 28% to 32%. At the same time, the share of films on all types of media sank from 13% to 10.2%, while music sales remained at the level of 4% of the company's total turnover.

The fastest growing areas of Ozon.ru were " Child's world” (plus 109% of their sales revenue for the first half of 2009) and home and interior goods (88%). The total number of online store orders in the first half of 2010 increased to 841 thousand from 722 thousand in the first half of 2009. In terms of the number of goods shipped in the first half of the year, the store grew from 2.9 million to 3.7 million over the year. delivery of goods in the regions is 3-5 days, and in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the parcel can be received the next day after the order.

2008: 2.4 million items sold

The turnover of the online store OZON.ru in the first half of 2008 increased by 78% compared to the same period in 2007 and amounted to 45 million dollars. OZON.ru sent 560,000 orders to its customers, containing 2.4 million items. Books make up 36% of the total turnover of the OZON.ru online store, 30% - electronics, photographic equipment and mobile phones, 14% - movies on all types of media, 5% - second-hand books and rarities, 3% - music, 12% - others product groups.

2007

According to a quantitative study conducted by IPSOS in the fall of 2007, 82% of book buyers and Internet users know online store OZON.ru, more than 50% of respondents buy constantly on OZON.ru.

"Yandex" with Sberbank opened an online store

Sberbank and Yandex have launched a beta version of the Beru online store, RBC reports citing the press service of Yandex.


New shop was launched the other day, I would like to wish it to enter the masses and be in demand, it will be necessary to spend a lot of energy, effort, and budgets on promotion. I like Ozon.ru, it has proven itself better than others today. Whether Beru.ru can become as cool as Ozone, time will show. As long as they experiment with the product grid, look for their niche, they have everything for this. I noticed that delivery is free if the order is from 3500 rubles, I have free shipping today or I can pick up the goods at a convenient place for me. It is clear that you can pay online from Beru.ru, but is it convenient to pick up the goods and where? As long as it's not clear! I hope that within a month they will open pickup points and launch a convenient customer loyalty system. Yandex has best service and a team that can surely create the best shop in RuNet and not only.


In my opinion, after such cooperation, a good online store can turn out. Yandex has no problems with technology, and Sberbank has no problems with money. But this can hit the business of other online stores in Russia hard and change the e-commerce industry in general.


At the moment, the project is known quite a bit, although it has already been dubbed the "Russian Amazon". Earlier, in August 2017, Sberbank and Yandex already announced plans to create a joint marketplace. Then this project was estimated at 60 billion rubles. At the same time, Sberbank invested 30 billion rubles in the project. through the purchase of Yandex.Market shares. The project is a joint marketplace called "Beru", where about 25 thousand products are currently available in various categories ranging from baby products, electronics and household appliances and ending with goods for home and garden and so on. It is assumed that in the next few years the number of commodity items is planned to expand to a million. Currently, the resource is undergoing beta testing, but later it will have applications for Android and iOS operating systems, as well as access directly through the marketplace website. For all users, the services will be available after the official launch, which is scheduled for autumn 2018, the release says. The press service of the company said that the turnover of Beru should reach 500 billion rubles within five years. On the Beru.ru website, where the beta version of the marketplace is located, it is reported that the delivery of goods in Russia will be free for orders over 3,500 rubles. The official launch of the service is scheduled for autumn 2018. After that, the companies intend to attract a partner from Russia or China.