How to use market analysis to find comparative data

Episode #8 of the Tiny Graphics Advent Calendar, published by Marius Popescu for De Amicis.

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It is a paradox, but the smaller is a company, the more it works to adapt to various customers, to automate the business, and to fix all the issues.

Imagine a situation where a team needs to handle and translate 15 country versions. It looks obvious that a bigger company should be better at handling this situation, right?

The same way, it seems logical that an open-source or free product should be better than yours. Until the first problem and the moment where the client realises that the last time the open-source product was updated was 7 years ago.

To take an example, let’s look at ZentoShop, an online e-commerce solution using a subscription model. The difference with the classic solutions in this market is the dynamic capacity adjustment following the actual demand for each online shop.

You don’t have to show that your product is the best in the world, just that it is best for your customers

Comparing your services with the competition can be a tricky business. When you put up a table with columns for each competitor and your product, you implicitly say that:

• your company is not the only one providing similar services
• listed competitors are the most important ones for you (or for customers)
• you are focused on the market addressed by the table

Even though your company is unique, it still exists in a context given by the domain, by your typical customers or by your competition. However, you must clarify in your graphics or in the surrounding text for which points your solution is unique.

Use the competition data to your advantage

Instead of comparing directly with your competitors, you should rather show the reasons why you’re the right choice.

Competition is a free or open-source project?
Show how your product answers the following points:

• the satisfaction for your customer support services
• the continuous update of the product following customer requests
• the onboarding customer procedures (your customers are not alone)

How about if the competition is a big company?
You can focus on your strengths:

• reactivity
• agility
• dialogue with customers

PS

The example above concentrates on one thing: the better handling of ecommerce website visitors using a cloud solution. You can add a second dimension by showing periods of time where the other server types are not used.