Market Research Software for e-commerce That Can Help Your Business Grow
- 24 October 2022
Have you ever wondered how to find a competitive advantage for your e-commerce business? Finding new consumers or launching new products may seem easy, but when it comes to practice – you just need to be unique. Distinctive offer is straightforward when your e-store delivers niche products. However, as e-commerce is growing rapidly, the competition is fiercer than ever finding a profitable niche is becoming more and more difficult. However, all is not lost. The only thing you need to do is to conduct Market Research. In this article, we will present you with detailed information about what Market Research actually is and how you can carry it out successfully by using professional software. Ready? Let’s go!
What is Market Research in E-commerce?
Market Research is a broad term. However, in nutshell, it is collecting and analyzing data about your competitors, consumers, and the entire market. That comprehensive knowledge helps retailers in making profitable business decisions, choose proper strategies, and improve their products or services. Market research depends on your goal – whether you’d like to increase sales volume or launch a new product. The goal determines actions. Mostly though, merchants use Market Research to:
- identify new business opportunities,
- discover new markets,
- keep up with emerging trends,
- examine the demand for new products,
- analyze customer behavior,
- improve business results.
There is no one and only ultimate purpose for doing Market Research, so you can use it freely according to your e-store needs.
What are the types of Market Research? – old and new methods
If you are already familiar with marketing, you’ve probably heard about 4 main Market Research Types:
- Primary Research – basically, that’s first-hand data gathering where the researcher collects information directly from the source.
- Secondary Research – also known as desk research, means interpreting data that has been already collected and published due to your own specific purpose.
- Quantitative Research – numerical data collection and analysis.
- Qualitative Research – is mostly conducted to understand non-numerical data, such as opinions, beliefs, and experiences within a target group.
Of course, all these methods are well covered and you can still use them to know your market better. However, the techniques mentioned above are a bit outdated, especially when it comes to e-commerce. As e-commerce is an extremely changeable environment, it requires a much more advanced approach, ideally based on AI and Machine Learning support. Data accuracy is a key factor in running a successful e-commerce business. Thus, you cannot rely on uncompleted or old reports. What’s more, according to the latest survey, in 2021 there were between 12-24 million online stores worldwide. So, if you’d like to track your competitors, manual research is just a mission impossible. That’s why nowadays e-commerce companies are willingly reaching out to 5 modern methods of Market Research.
Competitor Research
Competitor Research gives you a detailed picture of your biggest business opponents, so you can easily identify their market advantages and weaknesses, and compare them to your market position. The main purpose of this research is to find a way to stand out from your competitors and take a leading position. Competitor Research also allows you to choose the most suitable business strategies, e.g. in terms of product pricing.
Customer Research
Thanks to Customer Research you can know your clients better. By learning more about your clients, you may increase their satisfaction, improve customer loyalty, and as a result – boost your sales volume. Also, discovering customer behaviors and preferences expand your e-store campaign effectiveness, hence you also maintain the budget.
Content Research
Content Research involves your store or Social Media search performance. As there are literally billions of websites online, you need to make sure, your content will be found by potential buyers, and then – encourage them to make a purchase. Content Research is not only associated with SEO, but it’s a process of much higher importance. After all, better performance means more visitors, more conversions, and more sales.
Brand Research
Beginner or advanced – either way, you probably want your store to evoke a good experience. Brand recognition concerns businesses at every stage, as it helps create and scale brand awareness. Although clients primarily choose the cheapest products (except luxury items), they are much more willing to buy from a trustworthy retailer. That’s where Brand Research comes in handy. But what’s more important – a consistent brand enables you to be distinct from your competitors. Thus, business owners often do Brand Research to increase the value of their company or e-store.
Product Research
Running an online business relies on selling products and services. However, as the e-commerce market is already saturated and highly competitive, you must verify if a product or service is worth launching. The same rule applies to already introduced commodities – retailers should always track their products’ performance, whether it comes to pricing, stock levels, or packaging. By conducting product research merchants collect information on how their offer is perceived by customers and where is room for improvement.
How to do online Market Research?
Of course, first, you need to define why you actually need Market Research. As you know already, there are numerous types and goals of such surveys. Correctly predefined objectives will protect your business from wasting time & money.
Secondly, you can certainly create a persona, hire new marketing employees or spend dozens of hours searching for information online. You can also use Market Research Software. Thanks to an advanced data-driven tool you don’t need to worry about data gathering anymore. It’s not only a convenient solution but also a reliable, up-to-date method even for those on a budget.
What software is used for Market Research?
Well, currently you will find dozens of Market Research Tools – from those available for free to the pricey ones. As far as choosing software is concerned, the key is to define objectives. The number of Market Research apps is increasing every year, and probably you will not find one, perfect tool that solves all e-commerce problems. Market Research tools offer various solutions and diverse features. It’s your goal that makes them a perfect match.
However, to make it a bit easier, we compared, analyzed, and chose the 10 best Market Research Software for E-commerce that can help your business grow. Check it out to find yours!
10 best Market Research Software for E-commerce
Dealavo
With Dealavo outsmarting your competitors is guaranteed. The app is famous for its exceptional data accuracy thanks to its twofold structure (for brands and retailers) that helps differentiates users’ needs and accomplish them. Dealavovo focuses mostly on competitors and pricing monitoring and analysis, so retailers can always keep up with emerging trends, unpredicted market changes, or price fluctuations. The software enables you not only to conduct Market Research but also to plan long-term pricing and distribution strategy due to various functionalities such as Dynamic Pricing. What’s more, the tool provides numerous integrations, e.g. with Amazon, IdoSell, and WooCommerce, so what you need to do is simply request a demo. A superior Customer Success Team will take care of the rest. All required data is shared in form of customized reports, both in Excel or CSV formats.
SurveyMonkey
SurveyMonkey specializes in providing retailers with various analysis tools, such as quizzes and polls. Users may use a survey template or create their own tailored survey to examine their customers or employees. A pretty unique option is SurveyMonkey Audience – a respondents’ panel that you can use to quickly conduct the market research you need. The platform also delivers an ultimate market research guide you can use too. The software is mostly brand & customer-oriented but also shows a general market overview. However, if you are also interested in Price Intelligence solutions, you may find SurveyMonkey insufficient.
The pricing is divided into 3 plans: Team, Individual, and Enterprise with plenty of subcategories.
SurveyLegend
Like SurveyMonkey, SurveyLegend allows merchants to create appealing surveys in seconds just by drag & drop. You can build numerous polls or questionnaires using your tablet or even mobile phone saving a lot of time and effort. To make it faster, retailers may use one of 70 predesigned themes that will suit their brand. What’s more all collected data may be shared or exported in Excel or CSV form.
SurveyLegend is an outstanding tool for both: small retailers and enterprises who’d like to know the market better. However, it also doesn’t provide advanced Price Intelligence solutions.
Typeform
This Spanish Saas company will make your customers adore online surveys. Do you want to be creative? Make your own interactive and alluring quizzes and polls. You can also use some predesigned templates if necessary. What definitely differentiates this software from others is the developed integrations offer. You can easily integrate Typeform with Google Analytics or Salesforce.
The basic pricing plan starts from 21 EUR/month. However, a free plan is also available.
Alchemer
Alchemer, also known as SurveyGizmo, is a survey and feedback software that helps companies of all sizes with better market understanding. With Alchemer you will create an entire customer ecosystem by identifying, accessing, and managing your target audience. The core of this tool is its flexibility. Are you looking for some more? Try Alchemer Risk Assessment solutions and automate risk management in your company.
The cheapest pricing plan, including simple polls and surveys for individuals, costs 49$/month. Free trial available.
SurveySparrow
Maybe a sparrow, but not a little. SurveySparrow software is a powerful experience-oriented app with multiple possible integrations. Being far more than a survey creator, the tool enables its users to create engaging conversations with respondents. Want to be internet-independent? Check Offline Surveys. Are you unsure about your brand reviews? Try Reputation Management.
Last but not least – Survey Sparrow offers as well a comprehensive Market Research plan that allows e-commerce business owners to examine the market thoroughly: from market trends to price optimization.
Within multiple pricing plans, retailers will find free versions as well as free 14-day trials.
QuestionPro
QuestionPro is another Saas software focusing on managing Customer Experience & Employee Engagement. Users can choose between 40+ question types along with over 350 ready-made templates. An intuitive interface gives the app an advantage over other Market Research tools. With QuestionPro you can distribute your surveys via email or your website, and get the results quickly. As far as enterprises are concerned, QuestionPro offers a unique product – Research Suite. This solution enables the users to create advanced, real-time insights to leverage custom points.
The software provides a free version for beginners up to customized pricing for experienced businesses.
SEMrush
Being one of the most popular e-commerce software, SEMrush probably doesn’t need to be introduced. Whatever you need: SEO, content marketing, competitor research – SEMrush has it all. In total, the software offers more than 55 marketing tools that will help your business grow. The huge advantage of SEMrush is Advertising solutions. In terms of Market Research, users may find 10+ dedicated tools focusing on competitors & market analysis.
The pricing starts from 119$/month, so some may consider it a con. However, with such a wide range of products SEMRush is definitely worth considering.
Media Radar
The app like no other – that’s in our listing Media Radar. This advertising-oriented platform offers cross-format insights to increase your business revenue. Apart from Brand & Cross-media trends analysis, the software provides you with recommendations, so you will not have to manage raw data on your own. However, it’s not a good option for small retailers interested in Market Research. The main target of Media Radar includes Media, Ad & Tech Companies as well as Marketers.
To discover new business possibilities you can try a demo version. No other pricing information is provided though.
Survio
Let’s get back to beginner-friendly platforms. Along with SurveyLegend and SurveyMonkey, Survio is another choice for those who’d like to create easy & alluring surveys. The software provides also 100+ survey templates as well as 19 types of questions on Consumer behavior, Employee performance, or Product Pricing. After conducting research the users may download reports in one click in form of comprehensive charts and tables. Thus, if your goal is to return traffic to your e-store or create a sales volume increase, you should definitely go for Survio.
Also, Survio pricing seems to be reasonable and starts at a few dollars per month.
Summary
We hope after this article you will no longer struggle with Market Research. Collecting and analyzing data in e-commerce is truly a must. Luckily, considerable software may come in handy. The E-commerce industry is simply too competitive and dynamic to put your business at risk of human-made errors. Therefore, pick and use software that will meet your needs, as they should come first.
Old, well-known methods slowly consign to history, and the new digital era needs new solutions. With Dealavo you will obtain highly accurate market data on your competitors, their products, and pricing. Thanks to the twofold structure you may be sure that all information you get is up-to-date, verified, and trustworthy.
Contact us and try Dealavo to employ modern Market Research methods.