With over 9 million sellers and thousands more joining daily, Amazon is a tough place to compete. And with the rising cost of selling, protecting your profitability is only getting harder.
To outperform the competition without sacrificing your margins, you need a deep understanding of your competitors’ strategies, strengths, and weaknesses.
In this guide, you’ll find everything you need to know to execute a detailed Amazon competitor analysis and seize every opportunity to level up your content, campaigns, and pricing.
Get real-time data on competitor listings. Use our free Amazon Competitor Research Tool and instantly benchmark your sales, pricing, and promotions.
What Is an Amazon Competitor Analysis?
An Amazon competitor analysis involves evaluating and studying your competitors on Amazon to understand their strategies, strengths, weaknesses, and market positioning. This includes assessing their pricing strategies, product listings, and advertising approaches to gather insights that can be used to enhance your own merchandising strategies.
8 Steps to Streamline and Simplify Your Competitor Analysis
On Amazon, your brand and products are constantly surrounded by competing items. From the product listings pages to search results and ad placements, there’s almost never a time when a shopper will only see your product.
To win in this environment, you need your finger on the pulse of your competitors’ businesses at all times. With a strategy for regular competitive analysis, you can identify competitor movements and rapidly apply these insights to improve your profitability. Here’s how
1. Find Your Competitors
To find your competitors on Amazon, search for keywords related to your product. Make a note of the top-selling brands and categorize them into primary, secondary, and tertiary competitors:
- Primary competitors: Deal with the same products and target the same customers.
- Secondary competitors: Offer similar products but target a different audience (for example, selling luxury or budget versions of your mid-range product).
- Tertiary competitors: Don’t compete on a product or service level, but can still impact your sales.
For example, if you’re a shoe brand, you might start with a broad keyword like “running shoes,” then categorize the results into primary, secondary, and tertiary competitors.
From there, run a search more targeted to your specific product — for example, “memory foam running shoes” or “men’s running shoes.” The top products for a niche keyword are your primary competitors.
While you’ll obviously want to focus on your primary competitors, don’t ignore your secondary and tertiary competitors. Each category can provide insights into gaps and opportunities to improve your ROI.
2. Start with Broad Keyword Analysis
Keyword analysis is the process of researching and evaluating the search terms Amazon shoppers use when searching for your products. If you used the above method to find your competitors, you already have a list of broad and long-tail keywords. But that’s far from the only approach.
You can also identify and analyze keywords through:
- Manually reviewing your competitors’ product listings
- Installing free Amazon Chrome Extensions to do it for you
- Using Amazon AutoSuggest
- Invest in a keyword research tool like Jungle Scout or Helium10
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3. Dissect Competitor Product Listings
Assessing competitor product listings will help you identify strengths you can emulate, such as compelling product descriptions, effective use of keywords, messaging, and unique product features to highlight. It will also help you identify weaknesses, such as poor image quality, missing product information, or low ratings.
To start, compile a list of the top competitor products. Next, assess each product listing in the following areas.
Titles
Product titles inform shoppers and Amazon’s algorithm what the product is and whether it’s relevant to their search query. To analyze the titles, ask:
- Is there anything I can add or remove to improve the title?
- Is the title missing any information the customer needs to know to click it?
- Do any duplicate keywords need to be deleted?
- Is the title clear about what the product is? Is there any ambiguity that can be removed?
- Does the title include product quantity (e.g., if it’s a bundle or multi-pack) and other important specifications?
- Is it optimized for the right keywords?
- Does it use Amazon’s recommended format (brand + model + product type)?
- Is this title taking advantage of all 200 characters Amazon allows, without overwhelming readers or keyword stuffing?
- Is the title eye-catching and attractive to potential customers?
AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude AI can help you create better titles for your products. Or try Trellis’ Amazon Listing Quality Checker, which can optimize all your content, including your product title.
Bullet Points
Bullet points in product listings can influence a purchasing decision within seconds. As you read through the bullet points of each product listing, ask yourself:
- What features and benefits do the bullet points highlight?
- Is the unique selling point clear?
- What information is missing?
Make sure your bullet points are aligned with Amazon’s latest guidelines, including no emojis, special characters, or prohibited phrases.
Descriptions
Product descriptions are a good place to highlight benefits, features, and specifications. As you read through competitor descriptions, consider the following questions:
- How are they structuring their product descriptions?
- What is the impact on the reader?
- Is the wording clear and concise?
- Have they effectively highlighted the products’ key features and benefits?
- Do they use filler words or keyword stuffing?
- How does it differentiate their product from others?
- What product details do they overlook?
- What product details have you overlooked in your own descriptions?
Product Images
As of January 2024, Amazon has begun displaying images from multiple sellers even on product pages. That means shoppers will be shown pictures of your competitors’ products at every stage of their buying journey — even down to the moment they prepare to click the “Buy” button.
This means you need the best possible images in order to stand out. When reviewing your competitors product images, evaluate aspects like:
- Image resolution
- Angles
- Framing
- Lighting
- Overall appearance
- Visuals of accessories and product components
- Use of video
After reviewing the competition, turn your attention to your own product images. Make sure your main image highlights all key product components, and that it’s optimized for the best possible quality.
For your other images, include multiple angles, infographics, comparison charts, and other visual content to help customers choose you. You can also use the Amazon Ads AI tools to create lifestyle images of your products.
Reviews
It’s no secret that Amazon product reviews can contain a wealth of competitive insights, but compiling this information can take hours or even days.
Fortunately, Amazon AI review summaries make it much easier to quickly analyze customer sentiment about each product. You can also use a chrome extension or AI tool (like Advigator, Snoophawk, or even ChatGPT) to analyze customer reviews at scale.
Your analysis of each product review should answer the following questions:
- How many reviews does each product have?
- What is the average star rating for each product?
- What features and benefits, or complaints, are highlighted in the AI summary?
- What do reviewers dislike about the products? How can your product resolve these issues?
- What features and benefits do customers love? How can you demonstrate them in your listings?
- Does the competitor respond to reviews? How do they interact with the shoppers?
Keep in mind, it’s still a good idea to skim through both the positive and negative ratings to get a deeper sense of specific benefits or frustrations. For example, if a review says exactly what is wrong with the product, you can assure shoppers who click on your listing know that your product does not have those same problems. You can also use the information to improve r future products or address any issues your competitors may be overlooking.
Questions and Answers
On Amazon, shoppers can ask questions about a product in the Q&A section on product listings where both sellers and other customers can respond. Like reviews, these questions can provide valuable insights into their concerns, inquiries, and interests.
By analyzing the Q&A section of your competitor listing, you can:
- Identify unanswered questions, recurring issues, and areas for improvement
- Differentiate your selling points and features
- Discover keywords and phrases customers use to search for similar products
- Identify emerging needs for new product research and development
- Gain insight into the level of customer service your competitors are providing
Use these insights to address customers directly and position your product as superior, responding to queries with more depth, friendliness, and speed.
4. Social Media
Several studies have revealed the huge impact of social media on eCommerce and brand awareness, making it a crucial component of competitor analysis:
- Roughly 70% of millennials and over 50% of Gen Z shoppers have made a purchase directly through social media.
- 76% of consumers have purchased a product they saw in a brand’s social media post.
- 90% of people buy from companies they follow on their social networks.
- Compared to other social media platforms, YouTube drives the most traffic to Amazon, generating around 60% of referrals to the marketplace.
When analyzing your competitor’s social media presence, consider all angles. Your research should provide answers to questions like:
- How do they use social media?
- What platforms are they on?
- How many people follow them?
- What do they post?
- How often do they post?
- How much engagement does each post get on average?
- Do they partner with influencers to promote their products?
Beyond getting insights into best practices for your own business, a social media analysis provides valuable insights into how your competitors engage with their audience, promote their products, and build their brand image. To take it a step further, consider using social listening tools to track your competitors’ conversations, brand mentions, and other insights into how they build community.
5. Understand Share of Shelf
Your share of shelf is how much space your brand and products have on the first page of Amazon search results through organic and paid traffic. A high share of shelf indicates good conversion rates.
Analyzing your competitors’ share of shelf reveals how well their products rank organically and how effective their ad campaigns are. It provides insights into their market positioning and presence. Here’s how you can analyze your competitors’ share of shelf:
- Conduct searches for the keywords you identified in the keyword analysis step: Check to see where competitors’ products appear in the results and how frequently they appear.
- Assess the product categories where competitors’ products appear: Do they dominate their categories and subcategories? If so, this indicates a strong share of shelf.
- Note the placement and frequency of competitor ads: If they use PPC advertisements, where are they and how often do they appear?
- See what competitors are bidding on each keyword: You can also search each keyword in Seller Central’s advertising console to see what other competitors are bidding and what the recommended bidding range is.
The Amazon A9 algorithm uses conversion rate to rank products organically and determine the winner of ad space. If your competitors have a significantly higher share of shelf than yours, it could indicate that you need to improve your conversions.
6. Optimize Your Pricing
Pricing plays a big role in customer purchase behavior, especially in eCommerce, where they can access different prices in a few clicks. But you can’t just pick the lowest price to beat out your competitors. You have to find a way to maintain your margins and avoid devaluing your brand.
Pricing analysis allows you to position your products strategically in relation to the competition. You can be a price leader, follower, or offer a unique value proposition.
Analyze competitors’ pricing by:
- Comparing the base prices of your products with your competitors.
- Analyzing their pricing strategies, such as premium, value-based, discount, or competitive pricing.
- Analyzing their historical price changes with tools like camelcamelcamel, Keepa, and PriceSpy.
- Keeping track of the ongoing promotions, discounts, or special offers your competitors run.
- Noticing trends — for example, seasonal patterns, or whether your competitors might be lowering prices because sales are dropping.
To stay ahead of your competitors, try using AI-powered dynamic pricing tools like Trellis to drive more revenue, improve Best Seller Rank (BSR), and optimize your sales volume and margins.
7. Level Up Your Ad Strategy
Analyzing your competitors’ Amazon ad campaigns will empower you to create more compelling ad copy, videos, and images that resonate with your target audience. Your ad campaign analysis should focus on:
Keywords
Analyze the keywords your competitors target in their ad campaigns to reveal their product focus, audience targeting, and conversion strategies. Here are the steps to take:
- Identify the keywords competitors are targeting in their advertising campaigns: The process for identifying keywords is the same as in the keyword analysis step mentioned above.
- Evaluate the relevance of your competitors’ keywords: Do they accurately represent the products and align with the target audience?
- Assess the effectiveness of your competitors’ keywords by examining metrics like click-through rates, conversion rates, and ad positioning.
- Evaluate how competitors balance broad, phrase, and exact keyword match types: This can involve searching for these keywords and noting whether the competitor products appear in the search results.
- Investigate their bidding strategies: Identify how much they spend to bid the same or higher to achieve the same or higher ad placements.
Share of Voice
Your share of voice on Amazon is how much space your brand and products have on the first page through paid traffic. This is dependent on how much you spend on sponsored ads.
Share of voice is different from share of shelf, which depends on how well your ad campaigns perform and how well your products rank organically. To analyze your competitors’ share of voice:
- Conduct searches using the keywords you discovered earlier: For each search, take note of which competitors’ ads appear, how frequently they appear, and where they are positioned on the page (e.g., top, middle, or bottom).
- Review ad appearance, positioning, and frequency over time: Identify changes or patterns in your competitors’ advertising strategies. For example, a sudden increase in share of voice can mean they have shifted their marketing strategy or product positioning.
A competitor that frequently appears in prime positions at the top of the page has a dominant share of voice. With these insights, you can refine your keyword selection, bidding strategies, and ad placements to improve your advertising effectiveness.
Timely Presence
The timing and frequency of your competitors’ campaigns provide key insights into their strategy. Start by analyzing how often your competitors run their advertising campaigns.
Do they advertise consistently throughout the year or during specific seasons, holidays, or events? Do they employ different campaigns for each?
Use the insights you gain from analyzing the timing and frequency of your competitors’ advertising to:
- Note any changes in marketing efforts before the launch of new products.
- Schedule your campaigns when competition is relatively lower to ensure better visibility.
- Focus on low-competition products on Amazon.
- Capitalize on increased consumer activity and purchasing during peak season
- Understand how to create anticipation for a new product.
- Increase or decrease your ad spend to optimize your budget for maximum impact.
Last but in no way least, these insights can also empower you to adapt and innovate faster than your competitors to reach your target audience effectively. With powerful tools like AI-powered advertising automation, none of these steps has to be manual. You can easily automate the process to streamline your workflows and make sure you’re in the right place at the right time.
7. Refine Your Deals and Discounts
Analyzing your competitors’ discounts and deals can help you understand their pricing and customer attraction tactics. What discounts do they offer? Are they heavy on percentage discounts, tiered discounts, or buy-one-get-one-free?
Look at how frequently your competitors offer discounts and how long they last. Do they align with specific events, holidays, or product launches? Do the competitors adjust the price before offering discounts to maintain profit margins while creating the perception of a price reduction?
This analysis can help you understand not only the use cases, but also the effectiveness of different pricing changes. Here are a few other elements to consider.
Percentage of Discounts
Analyzing the percentage of discounts your competitors offer can help you understand their promotional strategies. You can do this by:
- Collecting data on the percentage and type of discount your competitors offer.
- Looking for consistent patterns in the discounts they offer, such as tending to offer a specific discount or discount range more frequently than others.
- Checking which products they frequently discount and which they rarely or never discount.
- Analyzing if the percentage of discounts varies with seasons, special events, or holidays.
- Comparing the discount percentages of different competitors in your niche to identify areas for improvement.
Timing of Discounts
Examining the timing of discounts can reveal how competitors capitalize on the increased demand of specific seasons or major events, such as holiday seasons, Black Friday, and back-to-school. This information can help you align your discounts with high-demand periods to attract and engage potential customers effectively.
Analyzing the timing of discounts can also benefit you by:
- Revealing competitors’ strategies: For example, consistently offering discounts before other competitors could indicate a strategy to capture early buyers and gain a competitive advantage.
- Shedding light on how competitors manage their inventory and product cycles: For example, some discounts may indicate efforts to clear out old inventory.
- Giving you insights into when customers are most receptive to discounts: By analyzing discount timing in relation to consumer behavior.
8. Analyze Sales
The last step of effective Amazon competitor research is monitoring monthly past sales data, to help you with:
- Benchmarking: You can compare your sales to your competitors to assess your performance against industry averages to identify areas for improvement.
- Analyzing market trends and demand: Tracking competitors’ sales can give you insight into market trends and customer demands for your products, which can help in adjusting your inventory, optimizing product offerings, and predicting future trends.
- Identifying successful strategies: Check the effect that the strategies your competitors implement, such as new marketing campaigns, product positioning, and keyword strategies, have on sales.
- Understanding product performance: Understanding which products in your niche perform well and which don’t allows you to fine-tune your product prioritization to boost sales.
- Identifying opportunities: Knowing competitor sales can help you discover underserved segments and gaps in the market, making space for product development or marketing campaigns to expand your customer base.
Competitor sales analysis is especially useful when you want to introduce new products so you can have the foresight to know how to position them and whether they have enough demand. A tool like our Amazon Sales Estimator can simplify the analysis for you.
Use an Amazon Competitor Analysis Tool
No one has time for manual analysis. It’s impractical, inefficient, and simply not fast enough to keep you a step ahead in a dynamic environment like Amazon.
With tools like our free Amazon PPC Competitor Analysis tool, you can:
- Conduct keyword research
- Automate bid management
- Manage dynamic pricing
- Track performance and other metrics
- Optimize your campaigns
- Deliver comprehensive reports
- Manage your Amazon PPC campaign
Want to see how it’s done? Just add your ASIN and email address and get data insights delivered straight to your inbox! Try it now.
Use Your Competitor’s Strengths to Your Advantage
From listing optimization to real-time pricing, a comprehensive competitor analysis is critical to your success on Amazon. Understanding your competitors’ strategies, strengths, weaknesses, and market positioning — and adjusting the moment they pivot — empowers you to stand out and thrive in a sea of sellers following the herd.
Get the competitive edge you deserve. At Trellis, we’ve created several free tools to help you streamline and simplify your Amazon competitor analysis for better profitability across the board.
Want to see what Trellis can do for you? Schedule a personalized demo today to learn more about how our platform and software can enhance your Amazon competitor analysis.
