Competitor Research
Who competes for your customer's money, attention and decision? Learn how to identify them, study their strategy and find opportunities they have missed.
LESSON 06 · RESEARCH → STRATEGY
What Is Competitor Research?
Understand the decision, not just the business.
Competitor research is the systematic study of the alternatives customers consider, why those alternatives appeal to them, and where your business can offer a stronger reason to choose you.
Weak question: What are competitors posting?
Better question: What makes customers choose them, and which customer needs are still unmet?
Their results may depend on brand trust, distribution, customer history, budget or operational strengths that you don't share.
- Copying a post doesn't reproduce its audience.
- High engagement doesn't necessarily mean high sales.
- A competitor's strategy may be right for their customers but wrong for yours.
Principle: Study the mechanism behind the result, then adapt it to your own business.
Who Is Actually Your Competitor?
A competitor is not always a business selling the same product.
Serves a similar audience with a similar solution.
Bookstore example: Another Bengali bookstore selling similar titles to Kolkata customers.
Study: selection, price, availability, delivery, customer service and trust.
Solves a similar need in a different way.
Bookstore example: An audiobook or reading-subscription service that serves customers who want access to literature without buying physical books.
Study: convenience, experience and the underlying reason the customer wants the product.
The customer satisfies the need without choosing your usual product category or buying from your type of business.
Bookstore example: Borrowing a book from a friend or a library instead of purchasing it.
Study: why the alternative feels easier, cheaper or more practical.
Competes for the time and attention your potential customer could have spent discovering or considering your offer.
Bookstore example: Entertainment videos, gaming content or lifestyle creators competing for a young reader's screen time.
Study: what captures attention, what creates curiosity and what earns repeat engagement.
Attention competitors matter for content strategy, but they are not necessarily direct sales competitors.
A website, marketplace, article or video competing to answer the same search query or customer question.
Example: For “best Bengali books for beginners”, the competing result might be a book list, marketplace category, publisher page or review video — not just another bookstore.
Study: the search intent, content format, usefulness and next action offered by each result.
Build Your Competitor Map
Different questions reveal different competitors.
Identify direct competitors, compare their assortment, prices, delivery and service. Start here when analysing sales competition.
Look beyond product categories. A customer wanting to learn, gift, relax or solve a problem may consider several different options.
Find businesses and creators already trusted by your target audience. Study their language, topics, communities and reasons for trust.
Search the exact queries your customers use. Record the pages, videos and marketplaces that satisfy the same intent, even if they sell something different.
No. The most relevant competitor is the one that overlaps meaningfully with your target customer, need, offer or discovery channel.
A giant marketplace might dominate product variety, while a smaller specialist business may compete more closely on curation, personal recommendations or trust.
Rank competitors by relevance to your objective, not fame alone.
What Should You Research?
Move from observation to useful business insight.
Find out: whom they target, which needs they emphasise and what makes them different.
Example: Does a bookstore focus on rare titles, children's reading, exam books, literary discovery or convenient ordering?
Insight: Identify audiences that competitors overlook or serve poorly.
Record product range, bundles, discounts, delivery terms, payment methods, availability claims and any purchase conditions.
Insight: Customers may value certainty, curation or convenience more than the lowest price. Verify which advantage is genuinely relevant to your audience.
Examine recurring topics, formats, hooks, posting patterns, comments, saves or shares where visible, and how content leads to the next step.
Don't conclude: “They post Reels, so we should post Reels.”
Ask instead: Which customer question does each format answer? Does it attract relevant people, build trust or generate enquiries?
Check the search queries they appear for, the type of page or video ranking, titles, headings, topic coverage and whether the content matches the query's intent.
Insight: A competitor may be visible because it answers a specific question better, not simply because it has a bigger brand.
Search results vary by location, language, device and time. Treat your observations as a snapshot, not a universal ranking.
Study public reviews, testimonials, response quality, policies, delivery clarity, returns or complaint handling where applicable.
Insight: Repeated customer questions and complaints can reveal friction that your business could solve more clearly.
Do not assume that a visible review pattern represents every customer. Check how recent, relevant and representative the evidence is.
Trace the public customer journey: discovery → product information → enquiry or checkout → purchase information → follow-up.
Insight: A competitor may attract attention but make buying difficult. Another may have less visible content but a clearer route to purchase.
You can observe public touchpoints, but you generally cannot know their actual conversion rates or repeat-purchase figures without reliable disclosed data.
Competitor Data vs Competitor Insight
Collecting facts is not the same as understanding them.
DATA
“Competitor A published five short videos this week.”
POSSIBLE INSIGHT
“They are repeatedly using short videos to introduce books to new audiences.”
Next test: Inspect the videos' topics, opening seconds, audience response and purchase pathway. Posting frequency alone does not prove that this approach works.
DATA
“A competitor's post has many comments.”
POSSIBLE INSIGHT
“The topic may encourage questions, discussion or recommendations.”
Next test: Read the comments. Separate genuine buying questions from general conversation, tags and unrelated reactions.
DATA
“A competitor promotes a bundle of books.”
POSSIBLE INSIGHT
“A curated bundle might reduce the effort involved in choosing individual titles.”
Next test: Check the audience, theme, value, stock requirements and customer response before developing your own version.
Your Competitor Research Matrix
Use this checklist for every relevant competitor.
| Parameter | Question to answer | Evidence to collect |
|---|---|---|
| Audience | Who are they trying to attract? | Messaging, products, public comments |
| Positioning | Why should customers choose them? | Homepage, bio, repeated claims |
| Offer | What exactly do they provide? | Products, bundles, terms |
| Price | What does the customer pay? | Published prices and extra charges |
| Content | What attracts attention? | Topics, formats, visible engagement |
| Search | What questions do they answer? | Queries, pages, titles, videos |
| Trust | What reduces buying anxiety? | Reviews, policies, clear information |
| Conversion | How does a customer buy? | CTA, enquiry route, checkout steps |
| Retention | How might they encourage repeat business? | Public loyalty offers, follow-up options |
Look for the intersection of three things:
- Customer importance: Is this problem meaningful to your target customer?
- Competitor weakness: Is the need poorly served or poorly explained?
- Your ability: Can your business solve it reliably and profitably?
A gap is not automatically an opportunity. It may be missing because demand is low, costs are high or the solution is difficult to deliver. Validate before investing.
Apply It to a Bengali Bookstore
Example: Chuckervertty Chatterjee & Co.
1. Search competitors: articles, videos and pages that recommend suitable books for teenagers.
2. Direct competitors: bookstores selling relevant Bengali titles to the same market.
3. Marketplaces: online book listings where customers can compare price, availability and delivery.
4. Recommendation sources: book reviewers, educators, reading communities and trusted creators influencing the choice.
5. Substitutes: libraries, borrowed books and digital reading options where relevant.
These are research categories, not a claim that every option competes equally. Rank each by relevance to the customer's actual decision.
Suppose your research shows that customers struggle to choose age-appropriate Bengali books, while many available pages list titles without explaining who each book suits.
Potential response: create a curated recommendation guide explaining reading difficulty, themes, interests and suitability, then invite customers to enquire about availability through WhatsApp.
Validate first: check customer questions, actual stock, staff capacity to recommend titles, and whether the content produces qualified enquiries.
This is a hypothesis to test, not a guaranteed sales result.
Final Challenge
Choose the strongest research approach.
From Competitor to Opportunity
Competitor research should help you make a better decision, not produce a longer spreadsheet.
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