Strategic Marketing - ShopNiche – Competitor Analysis

You are expected to create a new company relate to : “”Online Shopping Site for a variety of consumer products” same company as #00121507. Please also create a name for this company.
Then do the Competitor Analysis about this company
Please read all the articles attachments in detail first , then according to these articles’ materials do the Competitor analysis about this company you create.
Identifying the Competition
Looking for the Less Obvious
• Determine what the competitor has to do to be successful in its own core business. Are there any core competencies that it must acquire?
• Determine which of the competitor's core competencies are transferable to the entrepreneur's business.
• Determine whether the competitor has a competency in the same area as the entrepreneur.
"Competitor Analysis Checklist:
1) Who are current and possible future competitors?
2) What are the trends in market share among competitors?
3) What are the barriers to entry and exit in the industry?
4) What are each rivals unique competitive advantages, and are they sustainable?
5) What are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of each rival?
6) How are pressures such as the balance of power between suppliers and buyers affecting competition within the industry?
7) To competitors have the resources to exploit opportunities and strengths?
8) What substitutes or new products are likely to affect the competitive situation?
9) How have competitors mounted challenges in the past -- and with what results?
10) What other competitive issues are critical in your industry or markets?
11) How is the competition likely to affect the organization and its marketing plans?"
A competitive intelligence exercise enables entrepreneurs to update their knowledge of competitors by answering the following questions:
1) Who are your primary competitors? Where are they located? (The Yellow Pages is a great place to start.)
2) What distinctive competencies have a developed?
3) How do their cost structure is compared to yours? Their financial resources?
4) How do they market their products and services? What do customers say about them? How do customers describe their products or services; their way of doing business; the additional services they might supply?
5) What are their key strategies?
6) What are their strengths? How can your company surpass them?
7) What are their major or weaknesses? How can your company capitalize on them?
8) Are new competitors entering the business?
Some questions that should be answered about competitors, and examples of tools that can be used in this analysis, are providing the following section.
1) Who are the present competitors? How they rank in order of threat to our market position? What strategies are they pursuing? What are the success factors?
2) The potential competitors? What are their strategies and objectives? What barriers to entry exist to protect our position?
3) What new products or technologies are gaining a competitive age?"
QUESTIONS TO BE ADDRESSED
1) Describe your competitor's products or services. What benefit do they provide your customer?
2) What are your competitor's product's strengths?
3) What are your competitors products weaknesses?
4) Does your competitor's product have any potential manufacturing, environmental, technological, or economic constraints that your product does not have?
5) What are the growth and expansion plans for your competitor's product?
QUESTIONS TO BE ADDRESSED
Market Share
1) What is the trend in your company's market share and sales relative to key competitors? What is the market share growth/decline for your company or product over the past five years? What is the competitive set and relative market share overall, in your primary geographic area, and from market to market?
Target market
1) What is your primary target market? What percent of sales does it account for? How does this compare to the industry and your key competition?
2) Is the description of your heavy users the same as that of the industry’s or your key competitors’?
Marketing objectives/strategies
1) What are your company's marketing objectives and strategies? How do they appear to differ from your key competitors?
Positioning
1) What is the positioning of your company and your competitors? Is your positioning preemptive? Do have strong positioning relative to your competitors?
2) Does your positioning dominate an attribute that is important to your target market?
Awareness and attitude scores
 If available from primary research, what are the awareness levels and attitude scores of your company relative to the competition?
Product
 What are your product's strengths and weaknesses relative to the competition?
Pricing
 Are your prices the same as, lower than, or higher than the competition?
Distributions/Store Penetration/Market Coverage Strategy
 How does your distribution strategy differ from that of your competitors?
Personal Selling
 How far does your company selling philosophy differ from that of your competitors? I their different methods that you may want to consider in the future? If so, why?
Customer Service Policies
 What are your company's customer service policies? Do they differ from the competition's, If so, how?
Promotion
1) Do you rely more, the same, or less on promotion as compared to your competitors?
2) What were the results of your company's promotions and those of you are competitors last year? What was successful or unsuccessful? Why? How do your company's promotions differ from those of your competitors?
3) What promotions does your competition execute that are particularly successful?
Advertising message
 How does your advertising compared to that of your competitors? Is it similar or different? What is the message of your advertising as compared to your major competitors?
 How successful as your advertising been relative to your competitors advertising? Based not just on your judgment but one objective research, what are the strengths and weaknesses of your advertising and that of your competitors?
Media Strategies and Expenditures
• Where, when, and how do you and your competitors use the media?
• What is the media spending both overall and by medium for your company and your competitors? Do you dominate any one medium? Where are your competitors the strongest? How does this situation compare from market to market?
Internet Media
• How is your web site compare with those of your key competitors by the number and type of users? Does your site have more meaningful information? Is it easier to use? How successful is your web site relative to the competition based on "hits" and "conversions"?
• If you're into e-commerce, how does your sales backup to the competition and to the industry average?
• How often does your organization appear in search engine results compared with the competition?
Merchandising
 What is the merchandising philosophy of your competitors? Is your merchandising similar to or different from that of the competition? Why? Does your merchandising helped communicate your positioning? Which specific merchandising executions by your company and the competition appear to be most effective?
 
Public-Relations
 Do you have an active public-relations program? Does your competition? How much publicity did your product receive versus competitive products? What was effective?
Testing/Marketing and Research Development
 What tests did your company and the competition execute in the past year? Were they successful? What did you learn from the tests?
Summary Of Strengths and Weaknesses
 Based on the information here, what are the strengths and weaknesses of your company as compared to each major competitor?"
NEED TO SUMBIT ON THE Turnitin. Will check similarity.
Submission will be sent to Turnitin to be electronically reviewed for plagiarism.
Make sure you did your own work, use your own language to answer all the questions CORRECT.