How to Conduct Market Research for Your eCommerce Business

Market research implies learning about customer needs, preferences, and discovering the target market of a product or service. The process involves collecting, recording, and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data. Researching the market environment and competitor analysis are also included in market research.

 

Why do market research before web development?

Doing market research for eCommerce websites is vital as every business has a retail website today while more and more people are shifting to online shopping as it is convenient. This elevates the competition, which cannot be successfully dealt with without thorough market research.

Market research helps a business identify and assess customer behavior, market environment, and how the changing elements of the marketing mix influence consumer behavior. It helps recognize the gaps in customer expectations. So, a business gets to understand 

– Consumers’ pain points and preferences

– Buyers purchase pattern

– Identify competitors

– Strengths and weaknesses of the competitors

– And the latest marketing tools.

The thoroughly analyzed information helps determine the best ways to market a product or service. To price them right, and minimizing risks when making key business decisions. Therefore, it is invaluable that an online business makes informed decisions by utilizing updated information from the market.

 

 

How To Do Market Research For eCommerce Website?

eCommerce market research includes the following steps:

 

Define Your Market Research Objectives

First thing first, a business must define its research objectives. There can be many reasons to conduct market research, such as assessing business risks, creating new opportunities to increase ROI, or cost-effective online marketing. The purpose can be internal, external, or both, which is the first step of defining research objectives. 

First of all, knowing and defining the research aim is vital, as the entire analysis plan depends on it. The objectives drive all aspects pertaining to the market research. It determines core aspects such as methodology, witch further ensure that the entire process will yield relevant findings.

In simple words, a set of well-defined research objectives is the first step towards a successful eCommerce business plan.

 

Sources And Types Of Information

There is a wide variety of sources to get data to research the competitors, industry, and consumers, etc. Here are a few to name;

– Consumer Spending – The US BE or Bureau of Economics has personal consumption expenditures resources that you can utilize for learning about pricing the business products. 

– American FactFinder – The US Census Bureau comes with an extensive collection of facts that are particularly helpful in finding the targeted clients’ demographics.

– FedStats – It is another resource based in the US for finding out statistics and the trends that cover a diversity of findings and topics from trustworthy sources.

– Nielsen: Nielsen is a well-known name for studies and research reports on customer behavior across more than 100 countries.

– D&B Hoovers: D&B is a company that has researched and 1,000 industries, 100 million people, and 85 million corporations. A business can purchase reports from them and expect to find insights ranging from industry trends to consumer behavior to competitive analysis.

– Consumer Price Index: This program generates monthly data on variations in the prices paid by urban shoppers for a representative basket of services and goods. This is an excellent way to learn how to fix prices for products.

When it comes to information type, the data a business can get can be primary, secondary, and tertiary, depending on the study objectives. No matter the information type, the data can be in the form of factual, subjective, or analytical information.

 

 

Read about the Market

Concerning the specific market industry, a business must get to know all about trending marketing trends. 

In the analysis, the company must outline the industry’s current state by utilizing metrics such as trends, size, and projected growth. For instance, the analysis may tackle the direction in which the industry is heading. In order to obtain pertinent results results, one has to ensure there is consistent, relevant data backing them up. 

It would help with convincing the investors (if any) and allow the company to really understand the essence of the industry, including expectations, demands, and competition.

 

Perform Customer Research

Consumer research revolves around efforts to identify attitudes, motivations, preferences, and customers’ buying behaviors. 

Knowing how to perform excellent consumer research is therefore vital for a retail website’s survival and success. A company can do it itself or hire professionals to do it. Usually, secondary research is more manageable, and all a company needs to do is collect research reports, leading publications, and case studies in the specific industry.

Some of the ways a company can carry out primary consumer research include: 

– Conduct online surveys through email or polls.

– Appoint an agency to carry out in-depth research through focus groups.

– Consumer interviews.

 

Interview Potential Consumers

Surveying and gathering factual data through primary research is excellent to help a website drive in a positive direction when it comes to getting more information about the clients. 

However, for more in-depth information, an interview is the strongest weapon. Identify at least a dozen of consumers the company could interview from every segment within the market. Naturally, these individuals should be the ones who are already using similar products. This will help get qualitative data concerning customer preferences, pain points, and expectations.

 

Understand the Competition

Understanding the competition requires a deeper analysis of the competitive environment. Competitor analysis gives insight into competitors’ services or products and how these are marketed to the customers. There are a handful of other aspects. For instance, the analysis also considers the prices charged, how these are distributed and delivered, the strategies employed for enhancing consumer loyalty, as well as the backup services being offered. In order to achieve that, the company could make a list of their competitors, and then create an outline of their respective strengths and weaknesses. This is called a SWOT analysis. It oversees gaps and threats, so that a company can develop a responsive eCommerce business plan.

 

 

Collect, Analyze, and Act on the Results

The last step of market research is collecting, analyzing, and acting on the results in the form of an excellent eCommerce business plan, distribution strategy, and investment plans.

 

Final Words

Doing market research is vital for an eCommerce website. It helps the business determine and optimize the parameters for efficient growth. For that matter, consumer research, competitor analysis, and market information are necessary to develop the right business strategy.

 

Market research is hard, but Mejix can make it easier for you!

You can get professional help to conduct market research through Mejix, a web development and research agency that provides digital solutions to startups and large corporations aiming to intensify their online business growth. Check out https://mejix.com/ to get a detailed insight into the market analysis and research support services we provide to our valued clients.