mFilterIt
Contact Us
mfilterit

Digital Shelf Analytics

eCom-Stores

3 Dreaded Reasons for Order Cancelation on eCom Stores

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

Canceled order means canceled conversion and loss of potential revenue post-transaction. Brands dread canceled orders because, unlike exchanges, it means that the customer no longer wants the product. So, even though brands increase their likely customer base, they lose out on building an authentic connection by offering a product-based experience. Also, customers that cancel orders might share their remorse of delayed delivery or delight in finding a similar item at lower costs with faster delivery in alternative stores as feedback on eCom platforms. As a result, brands lose their grip on scalability while losing money on acquiring customers through marketing and advertising channels. Also, if the customer buys a similar product on an alternate eCom platform, a competitive brand has managed to boost its customer base, get a higher market stake, and generate more significant revenue. According to a Statista, 17% of online shoppers cancel orders frequently, whereas 24% have done the same “at least once.” Customers commonly terminate their ongoing shipping due to long delivery durations, reviews & ratings, promotions/discounts/offers, etc. In many cases, the remorse of order cancelation is not limited to brands but also to customers, as they incur shipping charges if the order has been shipped/dispatched. Moreover, if the customer shares a bad review, it would contribute to the negative sentiment intensity of the listing and tarnish the brand/product reputation. 3 Common Reasons for Order Cancelation on eCom Stores Late/Delayed Delivery Late or delayed shipments build a bad reputation for the brand and seller in the consumer’s mind. The most common reasons for late deliveries can include delayed shipment by the retailer, location search problems by the courier, incorrect delivery address, etc. According to a source, 34% of deliveries get delayed due to the retailer. While the cause is an issue for the brand, the frustration is felt by the customer, who is facing the consequences of ordering online. Another report states that 35% of consumers cancel orders due to delayed deliveries. One of the most common reasons for the delay in delivery from the retailer is “out-of-stock,” which means the unavailability of the product in the store. During the peak COVID-19 outbreak in the US, 40% of the consumers faced a delay in grocery items. So, the state of delayed delivery has not significantly diminished even after the pandemic (as it is still at 35%). Revisit to Reviews and Ratings Besides price after coupons, offers, promotions, or discounts, and free delivery, reviews play a vital role in product purchases. 35% of online shoppers make the final buying decisions after reading product reviews. The share of online shoppers that read between 1 and 3 reviews before buying a product is 36.4%, whereas consumers that read more than 10 reviews for the same is 14.6%. So, reviews play a vital role in product buying. Imagine if these customers read the online reviews after placing the order. 45% of consumers often cancel orders if they change their minds, and reviews have that capacity. Better Promotions, Discounts, and Offers Online shoppers often search for promotions, discounts, rewards, cashbacks, and offers, even after placing an order. 92% of eCom product buyers ‘always, sometimes, and usually look for offers or deals before making the final purchasing decision. Another report states that 52% of consumers research percentage off, whereas 22% get convinced with flat discounts as the best options while shopping online. Such a scenario could even happen after placing the order. Consumers don’t want to pay for too high shipping or service charges and would likely change their minds if a similar product comes with better options. According to a source, 40% and 22% of customers cancel orders due to these two reasons. For example, if a brand is offering a washing machine without additional cost for setting up, e.g., Rs 1,000 and Rs 200 for service cancelation. On the other hand, if another eCom store has the same washing machine with free service and setting up cost, whom do you think consumers would prefer if the price is nearly the same? Reducing Order Cancelation with eCom Competitive Analytics Brands dread the three common reasons for order cancelation; however, they can take action based on real-time insights and alerts. eCom Competitive Analytics tracks stock availability, reviews & ratings, sentiment analysis, pricing, discounts, etc. By checking their SKUs across eCom stores, brands get to learn consumer behavior and demystify the commonly faced problems. The positive and negative word cloud of the sentiment analysis highlights keywords recurring in reviews. So, brands can deal with listing issues upfront and provide a better user experience. Similarly, the availability section displays the percentage-wise segregation of stocks, which means stock availability versus stockouts. Upon deep diving and reviewing insights, brands can check reasons and actionable measures for decreasing ‘out-of-stock’ problems. Takeaway Order cancelation is frustrating, painful, and saddening for brands and sellers as it comes with multiple disadvantages. However, brands can decrease or resolve cancelations by figuring out common issues causing them through eCom Competitive Analytics, a.k.a., mScanIt. mScanIt offers a chance to brand for tracking sentiment intensity as KPI or threshold and gives a chance of receiving real-time alerts with actionable insights. Using eCom Competitive Analytics, brands get a fighting chance of potentially increasing their revenue, building a bigger pool of customer base, and delivering a better customer experience/shoppers user journey. Connect with us to learn more about the advantages of insights and real-time alerts offered by mScanIt for your brand.

3 Dreaded Reasons for Order Cancelation on eCom Stores Read More »

Cart-Abandonment

4 Common Reasons for Cart Abandonment on eCom Stores

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

Cart abandonment means a customer added your product to their cart but never completed the transaction. It is frustrating for brands because they are so close to a sale, yet all efforts fall flat when the carts are deserted. Brands calculate cart abandon rate by dividing overall transactions by total initiated conversions. The global cart abandonment rate has fluctuated between 68.07% and 69.8% between 2014-and 2020. So, nearly 70 out of 100 customers leave the eCom store without conversion. Regionally, the online cart abandonment rate is the highest in Middle East & Asia at 90.88%. Brands work relentlessly to figure out the reasons for cart abandonment and have discovered that high shipping costs, price comparison, out-of-stock, etc., are some of them. But, the severity of cart abandonment is more significant for businesses, as they spend tremendous hours and money on optimizing marketing and advertising efforts. A high abandoned cart rate makes all these efforts wasteful. Why Consumers Abandon Carts on eCom Stores? Unexpected Shipping Costs Online shopping is a matter of convenience. One can shop at their time in the comfort of their own space. The catalyst that makes it an even more enticing option is the brand’s pricing and discounts online to lure its customer base. However, while this leads to impulsive add-to-cart actions, it doesn’t assure a guaranteed sell. It has been observed across ecommerce platforms that many listings do not display shipping charges upfront, which is instrumental in making or breaking a sale. This happens to be the last leg of completing a transaction. According to sources, most consumers that don’t make bulk purchases often face heavy shipping charges if they don’t meet the minimum basket cost. So, while the consumer is delighted with the product price, the shipping cost becomes a deciding factor for looking at other sources, even nearby brick & motor retail stores. On the other hand, some consumers might not worry about the shipping cost until it is a substantial percentage of the order value. A survey reveals that 41% of customers abandoned their carts for this very reason. Imagine paying nearly half the price of the book as delivery charges. Would you pay? Many customers would look away. Nowadays, shipping costs are mentioned on the product pages; however, even stores like Amazon India do not display them in their product listing. Low Price on Alternate Stores Digital shoppers have the flexibility of reviewing multiple seller prices on different eCom platforms. Low price on the alternate store has also become a reason for cart abandonment before checkout. According to a survey, 18% of consumers don’t make a transaction because of price comparison. eCom store app notifications and emails to consumers might not prove effective once the consumer has abandoned the cart after finding a lower price on alternative eCom stores. This scenario is more likely to happen for quick commerce. Simultaneously, loyal customers might try to find the same quantity of their lovable brand at alternate stores while abandoning the cart. Therefore, the silver lining here is that the brand doesn’t lose its customer base and gets a deeper understanding of pricing, one of the essential pillars of digital commerce. Out-of-Stock During Checkout “Lightning deals” or “only two more available” indeed sound enticing, especially while shopping online, as they display hefty discounts or products at unbelievable prices. However, many consumers, including me, have faced another message, “this product is no longer available,” during checkout. According to a 2019 report, 28% of consumers have reported “out-of-stock” as the reason for abandoning their cart. Unavailability due to mismanagement of stock-keeping units (SKUs), tracking systems, seller issues, etc., are no longer news to brands. Besides this, out-of-stock during checkout often highlights the seller and makes both brand & seller unfavorable in the eyes of potential consumers. As a result, OOS during checkouts doesn’t only lead to drawbacks associated with it but also creates long-term disadvantages associated with cart abandonment. Better Discounts on Alternate Stores While low price is an incentive for online shoppers, promotions and discounts play vital roles. Consumers often use multiple resources to find additional discounts, offers, or promotions on products already available at a low price. In 2018, one of the common reasons for 46% of U.S. consumers abandoning carts was a “non-working discount code.” However, even if the discount code works, the consumers are likely to compare prices on alternate eCom stores and include pricing intelligence in the buying decision. Therefore, tracking competitor prices, discounts, promotions, and offers becomes vital for brands that want to reduce their cart abandonment rate and increase revenue. Other reasons for knowing all four factors are understanding your brand’s competitive edge in the market, consumer behavior, and highest/lowest values. Diminishing Cart Abandonment with eCom Competitive Analytics Cart abandonment has been a significant reason for losing eCom revenue or building a smooth consumer journey. Shopify states that eCom stores face a potential loss of $18 billion in annual revenue to cart abandonment, which states that brands often fail to build actionable marketing strategies. eCom Competitive Analytics, a.k.a., mScanIt, enables businesses to navigate this dynamic space with detailed insights and actionable items. Simultaneously, brands can track competitor performance across eCom stores and build strategies around real-time inputs. Takeaway Cart abandonment would never decrease on eCom platforms. However, businesses can certainly diminish the cart abandonment rate with valuable insights and simultaneously increase the online conversion rate using mScanIt insights. While insights offer multifold advantages, knowing the competitor’s intelligence in the market also provides many advantages. These include understanding consumer behavior, finding scalability alternatives, comparing analytics with company sales to know marketing conversions, etc. Leave us a comment, or connect with us to learn more about the benefits of eCom Competitive Analytics for your brand.

4 Common Reasons for Cart Abandonment on eCom Stores Read More »

Out-of-Stock

Out-of-Stock: The Most Dangerous Phrase in eCom

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

Online shopping has experienced a significant boom with the increased number of web users in the last two years due to COVID-19. Finding the desired product and discovering new ones have also contributed to the increased conversions on eCom platforms. The new peaked velocity of transactions has made managing out-of-stocks challenging for brands. Stockouts mean the product is no longer available on the eCom platform and has multifold brand implications, not just limited to purchases/transactions. Out-of-stock leads to switching to another brand, checkouts on another platform, finding an alternative solution, diminished customer base, and more. Loyal customers may no longer stay associated with the brand if they can’t buy its products and might share their grief in reviews. Experiencing it during lightning deals can increase the chances of such negative feedback. Some eCom platforms may offer better product rankings to listings with higher sales/conversion. The ongoing and occasional sales, competitor offers, and availability of similar products on the eCom platform makes managing out-of-stock an essential factor for businesses. Reasons and Implications of Out-of-Stock The factors for product unavailability on the eCom platform can get segregated into mismanaged inventories, wrong product demand forecasts, supplier-side issues, etc. Whatever the reason, the customer becomes dissatisfied with the brand/seller and even more challenging to re-acquire, assuming all the problems get resolved, which is an impossible scenario. Our eCommerce Intelligence Solution reviewed the change in the brand for grocery products and found that the switch is almost immediate. Customers don’t wait to buy “atta” until it arrives at the specific store and is available through the particular seller. Instead, they find alternatives for purchasing the product. Our research states that customers who want to stay loyal to a brand or buy a specific product would go to lengths to switch apps or websites that are readily available and make transactions. Stockouts can also diminish the product demand, which directly decreases SKUs and even causes delayed purchases, as the brand continuously faces issues increasing the customer base. Furthermore, the brand would have to boost the advertising budget to achieve the previous customer base and cultivate marketing spending to increase the loyalty base. Fortunately, managing stockouts is possible for brands through eCom Competitive Analytics powered by mFilterIt. mScanIt Helps Brands to Manage Stockouts Our solution analyzes the stockout of your brand and your competitors. It offers a clear picture of the brand ranking. Reviewing these results offers numerous other benefits. For example, brands can identify and alert the responsible teams when the stock status changes. The solution also scans average availability demand across city, pin code, brand, sub-brand, variant, etc. Figuring availability and unavailability can offer many more advantages. For example, the brand can review the best platform for a particular product. Similarly, the brand can check the demand percentage of a single product across eCom stores. Moreover, a competitive analysis can give the scope of demand for such products on different eCom platforms and change SKUs. Additionally, the brand can discover the hero product that meets the availability criteria across eCom marketplaces. mScanIt offers daily, weekly, and monthly to manage availability across prominent eCom platforms like Amazon, Big Basket, Flipkart, BlinkIt, etc. Managing out-of-stock can help brands understand the regions or warehouses with the highest/lowest availability problems and work on solutions to resolve them. By managing and diminishing stockouts, brands can increase customer satisfaction, sales, seller engagements, and market visibility. Takeaway No customer likes to read “The product is currently unavailable,” and keeping the customer satisfied is a brand priority. Out-of-stock causes severe damages to a brand and leads to a higher cost of recovering from them. Therefore, using an availability tracker like mScanIt can benefit a brand. The solution also analyzes competitor performance and offers a complete picture of the brand’s product rankings across stores. Such a solution offers multifold advantages to a brand on a single dashboard, making it easier to review and make decisions. Moreover, brands can make retail execution easier with a comprehensive solution scanning the web marketplaces and delivering customized reports.

Out-of-Stock: The Most Dangerous Phrase in eCom Read More »

eCom-Brands

Negative Reviews: How Should eCom Brands Respond?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

Any brand’s reputation relies on the feedback of its consumers, and most eCom brands have at least a few measurable sarcastic and derogatory reviews across Amazon, Big Basket, Flipkart, or other ecom stores. As per Statista, 48% of fashion consumers in India purchased a product after seeing reviews and ratings. On the other hand, another survey revealed that 36% of ecommerce shoppers have stated that their low online product ratings were rejected, whereas 30% of the buyers couldn’t say if they were rejected/accepted. A major portion of negative ratings gets eliminated from the ecom store product listings, while a significant proportion of the buyers rely heavily on reviews and ratings, and impact of negative reviews’ seems grave. Although negative reviews paint a horrible picture in the consumer’s minds, they also offer a positive edge, i.e., bring trustworthiness or genuineness to the product listings. Too many ratings and reviews with positive responses often make the consumers believe that the feedbacks are fake/influenced. According to a survey, 65% of consumers don’t trust the product’s ratings. Simultaneously, 68% of online shoppers consider reviews as valuable as recommendations and lay their trust in them. Implications of Negative Reviews A buyer reads at least ten reviews before trusting an online business. Moreover, 62% of eCommerce brands feel that their reputation is threatened by negative online reviews regarding products or services. Other major areas of concern for these brands include loss of revenue, diminished product visibility, decreased add-to-cart actions, low engagement, lower SERP, decreased consumer base, etc. Also, some industries like fashion (mentioned above) depend upon reviews and ratings for conversions and can suffer heavy losses and overstocking issues. Here is a summary of the implication of negative reviews and ratings: Reputation Damage: High number of negative reviews creates distrust of the brand and/or product. Also, recovering from a damaged reputation becomes a costly affair. Decreased Revenue: According to a source, U.S businesses with 1 to 1.5- star Google ratings incurred 33% lower profit than others. Bad feedback leads to low trust and lower conversions. Gives an Edge to the Competition: Customers often avoid products with negative reviews and ratings. They become tempted to opt for alternative or similar options. Diminishes SERP: Google searches often show the best results with positive reviews and ratings. According to a source, product listings with negative feedback decrease their rankings on search engines. Is There a Need to Respond to Reviews? According to a source, consumers that read reviews also paid attention to the responses. While shopping for a product, buyers want to check if the brand values its customers and the actions the brand is willing to take in case of an issue related to the product or retailer. By knowing these facts, ecommerce shoppers can make appropriate buying decisions. Moreover, responding to negative, neutral, and positive reviews enhances the brand’s impression in the eyes of the consumers, as they can see the efforts they are making. Another perspective from a source is that 70% of consumers would become more willing to re-engage with a brand or retailer if there is a response to negative reviews. Besides this, the Harris survey shows that 33% of buyers post a positive review if they receive a response to their negative feedback, and 34% of the shoppers delete their negative reviews. So, brands uphold the responsibility of responding to reviews as a priority, and most focus more on the reasons for negative and neutral reviews. What Guidelines Should Brands Follow While Responding to Negative Reviews? Negative reviews impact brand reputation and decrease the potential customer base and sales/revenue. Also, we have cleared that responding to reviews is necessary for brands. But, brands should follow a few guidelines religiously while responding: Monitor Reviews & Ratings on eCom Stores and Social Media The best method for knowing about the rising customer issues across Amazon, Big Basket, Flipkart, or other online shopping stores is through eCom Competitive Analytics or mScanIt. The solution helps to learn more about the customer experiences by highlighting the positive, neutral, and negative words commonly used under the reviews and ratings. Simultaneously, an extended solution of mScanIt is a deep dive into sentiment intensity, which tracks instances of brand mentions on the open web using AI, even when the brands are not hash-tagged. By using these solutions, brands can ensure that they can instantly view a spike in negative review intensity and reduce the response time using the insights provided on the mScanIt dashboard. Customize Your Crafted Responses Giving a bad response to pressing issues mentioned in reviews states that the brand is not diving deep into the buyer’s concerns. Moreover, many customers would look for brands that give personalized responses, addressing their problems. The easiest method to achieve this goal is to continue using the scheduled responses but customizing the responses. It would give the brand a good impression and increase loyalty/re-engagements. So, you should acknowledge the problem, provide assistance for addressing the concerns, and give assurance of response time & resolution. According to Statista, 47% of customers from the U.S. and 59% of global shoppers have a favorable view of the brands if they respond to customers’ complaints or service questions on social media. Decrease the Response Time Upset customers tend to share their experiences on social media platforms, aside from e-commerce’s review and rating section. According to a source, consumers also wait for a response for their review for up to a week. However, health and safety issues can cause dramatic issues and require quicker responses even while investigating the problem. Assuring an upset buyer that the brand is looking into the problem and will get back to the customer could diminish lawsuits and bad publicity. Conclusion Negative reviews will remain never-ending, as would positive or neutral ratings and feedback. Therefore, tracking customer experiences through social media and the e-commerce review & rating section has become crucial. The best method for monitoring the brand or product reputation is through eCom Competitive Analytics, highlighting the commonly used words. Simultaneously, brands should address the customer’s pressing matter through personalized and quick responses. By doing so, brands have a greater chance of improving their

Negative Reviews: How Should eCom Brands Respond? Read More »

eCom-Brands

What Consumers Expect from eCom Brands During the April Fools Month?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

Customer engagement is at the top of the list for all brands. April is the perfect month to share some laughter with your customers and get to know them even better. Brands also use social media, outdoor advertisements, and other means to capture the eyes of new consumers as marketplaces become highly competitive. eCom brands have often witnessed massive sales during April. According to a source, the sale of non-food items in eCom stores grew by 21.1% in April 2016, whereas the Jan-March incurred an overall growth of 8.2%. In addition, another source stated that the eCom store’s traffic surpassed Black Friday sale traffic every day in April 2019. As per Adobe’s digital economy index, eCom sales were boosted by 49% in the U.S., compared with Jan-Mar 2020, before the restrictions of shelter-in-place. This report also stated that grocery sales on Instacart reached nearly $700 million in sales by the end of the first two weeks of April. Holy Moly! The surge in traffic and boost in sales was certainly a game-changer for brands. However, their attribution could go to the change in consumer behavior during the month. For example, consumers often search for gift or prank options on eCom stores during April fools month. Therefore, brands often try to provide the most suitable choices to their consumers during festivities or occasions. So, consumers often expect the following from eCom brands during April: 3 Things Consumers Would Expect from Brands in April More Mischievous Recommendations Consumers would undoubtedly expect product recommendations from brands just like any other day. However, they would want pranking, jokes, or humoring products, especially during April. Brands that offer the best mischievous recommendations would undoubtedly attract a goofy customer base, and the majority of them would engage with brands wholeheartedly. Even if consumers buy FMCG products, a laughable message card or coupons like “Haha” offering a discount would undoubtedly increase their loyalty to the brand. Bulk Availability of Foolish Products Gifts can be for an individual or a group of friends. On April fools day, people are more likely to spread laughter or pranks with more than one person. Therefore, consumers in eCom stores are likely to seek products with higher availability in their pin codes. Unavailable will cause a severe blowback to the brands, as consumers would find alternate options or eCom stores for making online purchases. Sponsored listings that meet the criteria of such consumers will also become favorable towards higher SKUs. Honest Response to Sarcastic Reviews and Ratings Brands should not become weary in the presence of higher sarcastic reviews or ratings that don’t match the review, as consumers are likely to plat it as a prank. At the same time, consumers would expect a swift response from retailers or brands on the reviews if it is not a prank and an honest review with a mistaken rating. Consumers checking product reviews and ratings are likely to read such reviews and make the final buying call. Therefore, brands are expected to provide a much more engaging response than “we are sorry to hear, or your concerns are duly noted,” Scaling the Business with mScanIt As mentioned before, April is a month for scaling business every day. Therefore, it requires a solution that can present a real story of the consumer sentiments, deep-dive into real-time insights, and provide accurate results across different eCom stores. mScanIt covers all such areas and more by offering analytics daily, weekly, and monthly basis. Moreover, it is the best eCommerce Competitive Analytics solution because it provides deep-dive into pricing insights, share-of-shelf, SKU availability, etc., which would come in handy even after the April fools month. Businesses across continents use the solution for mapping their and competitor products across eCom stores, pin codes, and cities. Conclusion April fools month is not just a business opportunity but also a chance for brands to increase engagement with their consumers. Moreover, customers expect eCom brands and retailers to bring exciting products, recommendations, sponsored listings, etc., on marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, Big Basket, etc. On the other hand, meeting the increasing consumer demand is one of the objectives of an eCom organization. Therefore, scaling the business would require a solution that can deliver meaningful insights and trends with peaking accuracy. mScanIt is the aptest eCom Competitive Analytics solution that can meet these requirements. So make your brand appointment with us to learn more about mScanIt.

What Consumers Expect from eCom Brands During the April Fools Month? Read More »

Share-of-Shelf

Share-of-Shelf: What Should Matter?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

Easing consumers’ shopping experience begins by making efforts to get discovered even when there is no awareness about the product/brand. Discoverability is building a successful search and exploration journey for the consumer to achieve this result. Brands use keywords to enhance findability and visibility on eCom platforms like Amazon, Big Basket, Flipkart, etc. The brand’s success in achieving these goals is measured by comparing the search results with competitors, and it is commonly called Share of Shelf (SOS). A study suggests that search engines build 62% of eCom journeys. Consumers come across new or potential products on eCom stores because brands customize discoverability based on their search behavior deciphered through analytics and keyword analysis. For example, brands have insight that consumers could be unaware of the latest bestsellers of the year and use keywords like “best books to read best sellers, best books to read, best books 2022,’ etc., based on eCom results on Google, and eCom marketplace search results. SOS measures the percentage of product visibility compared to competitors based on specific keywords. Measuring SOS offers numerous advantages to brands, such as generating awareness if competitors target the same keywords, identifying keywords with low competition, brand/product rankings, etc. Share-of-digital-shelf on eCom stores is measured for the competitor, sponsored, and organic keywords to get a complete picture of the brand presence. Moreover, platforms with higher positioning enhance visibility and tend to garner higher add-to-cart actions and greater chances of transaction. Therefore, brands acquire more revenue and an extensive customer base with a higher SOS percentage. Understanding the competition’s SOS helps the brand plan the future course of business. In addition, SOS helps brands determine their market positioning. Evaluating a brand’s overall, ranking-based, and category-specific SOS can deliver a full picture of the product presence across eCom stores. 3 Things to Consider While Evaluating eCom Share of Shelf Total SOS Measuring the overall presence of a brand’s product across eCom stores gives a simplified view of the market positioning based on select keywords. Brands with high SOS percentages have successfully eased the consumer’s discoverability journey. Such listings would acquire higher reachability, and enhanced visibility, witness more add-to-cart actions, and ultimately acquire more revenue. Comparing the percentages every month would provide insights into the change in SOS performance of your and competitor brands while displaying the change in performance. Such insights play a crucial role in creating brand strategies and marketing spending decisions across eCom platforms and require continuous monitoring. Reviewing product SOS across stores would also help understand the highest performing eCom platforms, distinguish between the share of sponsored, competitor, and organic keywords, etc. mFilterIt’s eCom Competitive Analytics conducts a deep scan of e-commerce platforms to analyze drivers of sales. Moreover, mScanIt helps brands compare their platform coverage with the competitors and find the top performers for product/brand searches, SKU ranges, and variants. The overall share of the digital shelf is calculated and displayed on a single dashboard portraying a score based on these categories. SOS by Category Brands use categories for product listings on eCom stores which significantly impacts discoverability. For example, Amazon enlists “press” under “dry iron, steam iron, iron, and other categories. Brands add keywords on their product and company page of the eCom platform that match the categorical search results. Evaluating category-wise share of digital shelf can offer promising deliverables. For example, brands can learn the category with the highest SOS and decide to change the categories of their products. The eCom competitive analysis of categorical SOS displays the share acquired by the brand and its competitors. Therefore, brands can decide to enlist products under categories with higher chances of discoverability, visibility, and consumer reachability to boost add-to-cart actions and conversions. Moreover, the brand understands its categorical presence across eCom platforms. Another advantage of using keywords based on categorical segregation is ranking on the bestseller page. Brands often evaluate their and competitor’s SOS percentages on bestseller pages under different departments/categories. However, the full scale of SOS results by category can be derived by evaluating visibility based on brand, sub-brand, pin codes, variants, and SKU range. mFilterIt’s eCommerce  Analytics uses these categories to provide an in-depth view of the SOS. Moreover, mScanIt informs brands of any KPI deviations. Therefore, you stay updated about product health and data. As a result, you always keep an eye out for KPIs and don’t lose hold of market trends unless you change your marketing or advertising strategies. Top Results of Products by Searching Specific Keywords Measuring the share of a product under a category on an eCom platform is valuable, but so is knowing the page rank of the products using various keywords. As per our research, consumers are more likely to see products, add them to a cart, and even successfully place an order if the product is listed in the top ten results or on the first page. For example, if a consumer searches for the keyword “Shampoo”, the brand with the highest ranking and visibility on the first three pages will most likely achieve consumer interactions. mScanIt beholds the capability of finding the keyword-level share of brands based on rankings. Another research stated that many consumers might even decide the product’s traits, such as features, options, etc., based on the listings visible to them ahead of the line. Therefore, brands that will enlist their products on the eCom store or already have listings present on the e-commerce platforms would use this to their advantage by adding keywords of such listings on their product/company pages of the eCom platform. The consumer sentiment of product ranking based on the most researched keywords changes the playing field of eCom store brands. Acquiring a higher ranking on search pages has become a competitive game and requires careful analysis using a solution that recognizes consumer behavior based on search results. Most brands also spend on promoted/ sponsored listings which keep their product listings at a desirable position on the search page. However, winning the search rank organically is what brands strive for since that gives them relatively permanent

Share-of-Shelf: What Should Matter? Read More »

top-keywords

Top Keywords: It all begins with Identifying them, Correctly!

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

Generally, consumers find new products on eCommerce platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, Shopee, etc., by navigating or searching on the platform itself. Whenever users type an alphabet or word in the search query, it displays head/short-tail, long-tail, and LSI keywords, which most users have used to find their desired product and the brands bid to rank their products. Brands also optimize their product pages by using the top searched keywords in their product page so that the listings display on the top. According to a source, 38% of global customers use Amazon to find their desired products. Top keywords are the ‘most popular searches’ under a category of an eCommerce platform. The popularity is based on the keywords with the highest search volume. Ranking high on such words or phrases ensures a higher share-of-shelf on the top pages as well as higher visibility, brand awareness, click-through rate, add-to-cart, and conversions/sales. Today, brands need to measure the search performance of their product’s top generic, brand, and competition keywords under a category to achieve a higher market share. Searches on eCommerce marketplaces have navigational, commercial, transactional, or informational intent. For example, navigational intent keywords consist of brand names with the product type, enabling consumers to find their desired product faster, e.g., ‘MIVI earbuds.’ Similarly, transactional intent could mean ‘t-shirt under 799’ or ‘shoes under 15000,’ wherein the online shopper is searching for products under a defined price tag and could desire a specific brand too, e.g., ‘Levis t-shirt under 1200’. Likewise, commercial keywords refer to comparative searches, like ‘Batman t-shirt’ – here, the brand is non-specific, but the intent to buy a specific product type is clear. Informational keywords refer to ‘best shoes for football’ or ‘best gaming smartphones.’ Identifying Top Keywords Using AI and ML Keywords can entice, hook, or allure consumers to check out a product on the eCommerce platform. Finding the top keywords of your brand can offer insight into the consumer’s mindset while searching for your product and that of your competitors under a category. Many marketers might suggest that traditional methods of using URLs, suggested keywords, consumer intent keywords, etc., could help to find keywords, but these methods have limitations. Now, brands can easily identify and analyze their performance on top generic, competition, and sponsored keywords and the competition using our eCommerce Competitive Analytics tool, mScanIt. This tool enables the brands to see their share at a deeper level compared to their competition by using the multiple filters given in the tool such as brand, sub-brand, variants, SKU, etc. Moreover, the brand could also use a keyword planning tool to find the keywords with the highest share and optimize the Product Detail Pages (PDPs) accordingly. On the other hand, the highest-grossing competition keywords would help the brand find areas of improvement across platforms or ask whether the product needs to have this keyword. A few common questions that brands can answer using mScanIt capabilities: What is the overall SOS of your brand compared to the competition on the top keywords of the eCommerce platform? Are the ongoing page optimization delivering successful SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SERP (Search Engine Results Pages) on e-commerce platforms? Can/Should the brand add new keywords to its product page copies? Which keywords are the competition brands more focused upon, and what is its impact on the brand’s SOS on the eCommerce platform? Are any keywords with high competition share more relevant than your existing ones? Is there any other keyword that is more consumer intent-centric than your existing ones? Which keywords are most of your competitors using – long-tail, short-tail, or LSI? Are the competitors spending more on paid or relying on organic searches? Discoverability becomes vital to brands as eCommerce platforms are built for purchasing products. Understanding the relevance of the top keywords by measuring your brand’s Share-of-Shelf becomes crucial for enhancing the product discoverability. Some marketers suggest that monitoring reviews offers insights into the pros and cons of a product, which is certainly true and simultaneously enables one to find long-tail keywords. Unfortunately, identifying keywords relevant only through a single source doesn’t offer perspective. Therefore, brands need to identify the top keywords from every possible source. Using multiple filters, the solution also sights the most promising/critical aspects of a brand and its competitors. (Read here) A single category page on Amazon could consist of up to 50 product listings, which means your brand’s single variant competes with 49 other listings, some of these could be of your brand as well. Analyzing the top keywords on the eCommerce marketplace’s digital shelf helps the brand increase its page positioning/ranking and enhance visibility. Bottom Line Targeting top keywords has become necessary for increasing the brand’s discoverability and thus, sales on e-commerce platforms. Our solution, mScanIt, makes it possible for brands to weigh the relevancy of their relevant keywords on eCommerce marketplaces, especially when paid searches get involved in the business. Today, brands need to focus on the top keywords for measuring their SEO and SERP, making the PDPs more consumer-centric, assessing the keywords the competitors are focused upon, and more. Get in touch to learn more about the advantages of eCommerce Competitive Analytics for your business.

Top Keywords: It all begins with Identifying them, Correctly! Read More »

price-monitoring

Why is Price Monitoring Important for eCom Brands?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

Price is one of the most crucial factors contributing to the final buying decision on e-commerce platforms. According to research, 60% of customers would shop for a product online based on the best price or value. Seeing that price is a leading reason for most customers and has the potential of driving customers towards or away from your brand, monitoring price is no longer a brand’s choice. Price monitoring is the practice of continuously keeping an eye on the price of your products as well as similar listings of your competitors. However, the analytics of e-commerce marketplaces like Amazon, BigBasket, BlinkIt (formerly Grofers), etc., don’t offer this choice to the brands. What could happen if you don’t monitor competitors’ prices? You would miss out on chances of increasing sales, develop imperfect pricing strategies, never know the difference between your and competitors’ prices of similar listings in real-time, etc. On the other hand, a price monitoring solution can give you an overview of the market scenario, deep-dive into buyer personas, explore new target audiences, etc. The scope of price monitoring extends beyond these reasons. During a conversation, our mScanIt Vertical Head, Ankush Arora, stated “Tracking online prices helps to know who started the price war. and, What was the price? – which are definite factors in creating pricing trends, sighting MAP violations, changing discounting strategies and analysis, and more.“ 5 Major Advantages of Price Monitoring Enhances the Pricing Strategy Margin is an important part of deciding the product prices. It is essentially the amount achieved after deducting the purchase cost from the retail cost. However, most brands have the lowest price they can offer, even though they might lose a significant proportion of the profits. eCom brands often lower the price to acquire a higher customer base, build loyalty, sell out multiple products, avoid expiration, etc. Therefore, the brand might not make the highest profits on its single product but has the potential to acquire higher basket purchases. Such a scenario becomes impossible without knowing the ongoing prices of the competitors in real-time. Analyzing the rival’s product prices also gives a perspective of your product’s market positioning and makes you aware that a competitor has begun a price war for a similar listing. When such an opportunity presents itself, offering a price that keeps the market reputation intact but increases the conversions/sales could significantly impact your rivals across search engines and e-commerce platforms. Reviewing prices of competitor listings also offers a chance to know the lowest/highest costs daily, weekly, and monthly across e-commerce platforms and enables your brand to create individual platform-wise price strategies. Recognizes the Pricing Trends Price is often correlated with discounts and sponsored ads on e-commerce platforms. Monitoring competitor prices and comparing them with discounts gives an overview of a trend of distinct periods. For example, Brand A is offering a 10% discount on a smartwatch and is offering the product at Rs 3,500. On the other hand, your brand has a similar listing priced at Rs 3,200. So, money-savers would often opt for Brand A versus yours. Herein lies the opportunity to offer a 10% discount and still offer the product for Rs 3,350, if possible. Similarly, mScanIt or eCom Competitive Analysis can help to compare pricing intelligence with stock availability. By knowing the prices at which the competitors faced stockouts and the duration, you have the opportunity to identify trends and create new strategies. Likewise, pricing analysis compared with share-of-shelf would decipher buyer preferences based on higher search rank and visibility as well as lower prices. Such a trend would help identify the share of sponsored ads of your competitors within the top three page results, which is also effective for channeling sales/conversions. Herein, you can identify the pricing trends based on the top keywords used by the competitors. Helps to Avoid MAP Violations The Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) is the lowest price at which a product can be sold. However, e-commerce sellers often indulge in MAP violations for clearing stocks, building a market presence, attracting new customers, etc. Doing so damages the brand’s reputation in the eyes of the consumers and creates a bad price perception. Moreover, legitimate sellers and resellers associated with the brand lose their faith and seek products of their competitors that can keep their reputation and price perception intact while maintaining their share of the sale. Moreover, price perception is one of the leading reasons consumers can lose faith in a brand. Imagine an iPhone 13 available for Rs 30,000, which is less than half its existing market price across e-commerce platforms. If consumers no longer have faith in the brand, the product demand shifts towards the competition, and resellers/sellers would want to get associated with them. Implementing pricing intelligence through automated technology like eCom Competitive Analytics helps to sight instances of MAP violations in real-time and fight back against them by flagging, reporting, or revoking them on e-commerce platforms. Identifies Counterfeit Sellers A pricing insight solution such as mScanIt shows in-depth reports on prices and types of sellers across e-commerce marketplaces like Amazon, BlinkIt, BigBasket, etc. Tracking prices helps your brands to know if a new seller has recently launched your product listing at discounts, causing a MAP violation. Your authorized partners would lose their profits due to unauthorized or counterfeit product sellers. The bigger impact would fall on the brand reputation and create negative publicity on the e-commerce platform towards your brands, losing out even a loyal customer base. eCom Competitive Analysis also offers the chance to set alerts or notifications to identify similar instances and take measures against counterfeit sellers. Revoking fake products is necessary and an everyday task that requires a solution that can deliver real-time reporting, a feature offered by mScanIt. Boosts the Customer Base Recognizing the pricing mistakes and building pricing strategies using real-time competitor & brand data can certainly help to boost the customer base. For example, tracking competitors’ prices can reveal the best prices across e-commerce stores for promotions such as deals, offers, discounts, etc.,

Why is Price Monitoring Important for eCom Brands? Read More »

sentiment-analysis

What is Sentiment Analysis?

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

Sentiment analysis answers one vital question – “What is the consumer saying? A study suggests that 57% of consumers buy a product after reading reviews across e-commerce sentiment portals. According to our research positive reviews and ratings uplift sales by at least 18-20%. Alternatively, bad reviews can cause a substantial loss. Consumers share their sentiments about the product/ service through these reviews and ratings. The Sentiment is essentially a consumer’s trust/confidence in a brand that influences their buying behavior. It is easy when a brand has a countable number of reviews as it is easy to read and assimilate the findings. Unfortunately, popular brands have reviews and ratings running into thousands, which is difficult to process. That is exactly where Sentiment Analysis comes into play. Cataloging emotions through customer reviews, a.k.a., sentiment analysis, plays a vital role in this field. Essentially, it is helping brands to gather scattered consumer opinions into positive, negative, and neutral categories. It uses an AI to monitor the textual content of reviews and categorize consumer opinions. Sentiment analysis is a technique through which brands can work on their product offering, understand customer expectations, fine-tune customer service, increase sales, and fine-tune their marketing strategy. In today’s competitive world, delivering an exceptional customer experience accredited with sentiments has become important. A Gartner report states that “customer experience is a primary objective of 89% of companies. Sentiment analysis helps in narrowing down on issues faced by the brand, which helps brand owners make decisions targeted and faster. So, it is the best tool to monitor reputation, performance, and customer experience. 3 Benefits of Sentiment Analysis ● Word Cloud – Sentiment Score & Analysis Reviewing sentiments through the word cloud helps brands understand the areas of improvement and the most appreciated features. It helps the brand identify the exact consumer emotions based on themes like quality, health, delivery, etc. The outcome of an analysis like this helps brands make specific decisions to improve their ratings and reviews under a defined theme. Generic reviews or analyses are inconclusive. Keeping track of Sentiments month-on-month helps the brand owners measure and map their performance vis-à-vis competition. The Sentiment score helps in understanding how favorable or unfavorable a brand is in comparison to the median average in its category. Hence, the score can be used across e-commerce platforms to understand a Brand’s overall customer acceptability. Categorizing reviews by positive, neutral, and negative, helps a brand owner get a real-time understanding of customer responsiveness towards the brand. The monthly aggregated results are a brand’s guide to navigating the e-commerce landscape. ● Valuable Intelligence to Drive Market Strategies Sentiment analysis data helps a brand evaluate its standing against its competition. It helps understand consumer expectations and improve customer engagement. Additionally, it also helps in identifying problems and taking corrective actions in a shorter turnaround time. The valuable intelligence drawn over some time by analyzing the sentiments helps the brand custodian formulate targeted marketing strategies to entice its customer base. This is the foundation for creating a hyper-personalized experience for their customers. ● Future Planning & Overall Competitive Edge Sentiment analysis helps understand the consumer pulse. It is one of the fastest ways of understanding consumer needs and expectations. As a result, it paves the way for new product development and gives them an overall idea about customer reactions. The sentiments can also be used to improve the customer journey in real-time. Faster response time builds a loyal customer base. Gauging and comparing the brands and their competitor’s performance via sentiment analysis gives one an edge over the competition. This can be used as a real-time feedback mechanism to change consumer perception towards being more positive. Takeaway mScanIt powered by mFilterIt has cutting-edge technology that consolidates reviews and ratings across the platform on a single dashboard for easy access and action. It summarizes all positive, negative, and neutral sentiments of the brand along with its competition and equips the brand custodian to decide in real-time. eCom Competitive Analytics helps in deep diving into sentiments/opinions and drawing actionable insights to improve overall performance in the eCommerce landscape. Therefore, it simplifies the complexity of the customer journey by aiding decision-makers with measurable data at various stages of the purchase funnel. 70% of shoppers admit that the price of the product influences their buying decisions across categories. Another study says a prospective buyer will visit 3 or more sites to be assured of the pricing competencies before making the buying decision. Trigger-happy customers are also price-sensitive customers. If 60% of the decision-making process is purely a price-play, brands should take this into cognizance and start treading this landscape meticulously. Determining the right product price is vital for e-commerce brands, as consumers’ buying behavior alters significantly through it. Most consumers compare similar products on the same or different e-commerce stores before making the final buying decision. Their decisions are influenced by promotions, offers, referrals, preferred retailers, etc. Some consumers might even try to reach out to a brick-and-mortar store and compare the price with online stores for buying products at the lowest price. Pricing intelligence is a technique retailers use to stay ahead of the competition. It helps brands monitor and analyze factors like consumer behavior, price trends, and response to price changes. These factors enable brands to develop pricing strategies, boost sales, grow market share and consumer base, and increase revenue. Because of the dynamic nature of e-commerce as a business, pricing intelligence becomes one of the vital tools to combat competition and increase revenues. Research reveals that Amazon changes product prices almost every 3rd minute on average to better sales. 4 Important KPIs for Developing Pricing Intelligence ● Gauging Average Price Vs. Competition The overall average price determines the estimated SKU price of a brand compared to its competition. In other words, it helps to understand the “price market share” of a brand versus its competitors. Additionally, brands get an idea of the top “price performers” based on the total sold units. The Average Selling Price (ASP) is a

What is Sentiment Analysis? Read More »

pricing-intelligence

Pricing Intelligence in eCommerce

Leave a Comment / Blog, Digital Shelf Analytics /

70% of shoppers admit that the price of the product influences their buying decisions across categories. Another study says a prospective buyer will visit 3 or more sites to be assured of the pricing competencies before making the buying decision. Trigger-happy customers are also price-sensitive customers. If 60% of the decision-making process is purely a price-play, brands should take this into cognizance and start treading this landscape meticulously. Determining the right product price is vital for e-commerce brands, as consumers’ buying behavior alters significantly through it. Most consumers compare similar products on the same or different e-commerce stores before making the final buying decision. Their decisions are influenced by promotions, offers, referrals, preferred retailers, etc. Some consumers might even try to reach out to a brick-and-mortar store and compare the price with online stores for buying products at the lowest price. Pricing intelligence is a technique retailers use to stay ahead of the competition. It helps brands monitor and analyze factors like consumer behavior, price trends, and response to price changes. These factors enable brands to develop pricing strategies, boost sales, grow market share and consumer base, and increase revenue. Because of the dynamic nature of e-commerce as a business, pricing intelligence becomes one of the vital tools to combat competition and increase revenues. Research reveals that Amazon changes product prices almost every 3rd minute on average to better sales. 4 Important KPIs for Developing Pricing Intelligence ● Gauging Average Price Vs. Competition The overall average price determines the estimated SKU price of a brand compared to its competition. In other words, it helps to understand the “price market share” of a brand versus its competitors. Additionally, brands get an idea of the top “price performers” based on the total sold units. The Average Selling Price (ASP) is a good place for brands to start their price benchmarking and take a clear stand on their pricing strategies. Pricing higher than the category ASP can classify a brand as premium and pricing lower can make it a mass category. These decisions impact the marketing and advertising strategies and decide the brand’s future. mFilterIt’s e-commerce intelligence solution determines ASPs across pin codes, locations, platforms, sub-categories, SKU-wise, sub-brand-wise, and variants. Using this information, brands can increase/decrease the production of a variant, alter investments in the marketing budget, or increase/decrease distribution in a specific region. ● Average Price Per SKU Unit The average price per SKU is the price per unit (gm/ ml etc.) for a product vs. its competitors in the same category. A brand needs to look closely at this data and correlate it to its performance. The average price per SKU unit helps to understand the market dynamics. It gives a brand a fair idea about how their different SKUs perform on the pricing aspect and helps them understand the customer’s point of view and how price-sensitive the market is. Accordingly, they can decide the type of pricing that works in the market and understand pricing trends. ● Average Price – Platform Wise The estimated price of a brand’s product on different eCommerce stores is called platform-wise average price. Reviewing the ASP across eCommerce stores helps brands find the best platform for boosting their marketing investments and acquiring higher revenue. Moreover, brands can keep a check on competitor prices accordingly and monitor unauthorized reseller prices. mFilterIt’s eCommerce Competitive Analytics helps analyze the ASPs across platforms and allows a brand to maintain its competitive stand in the overall market. ● Average Price by Variant Price by variant allows the brand to monitor the price of a particular product variant across different platforms and understand performance. They can compare their variant’s pricing vs. the competition’s variant and monitor their performance. mFilterIt eCommerce Competitive Analytics also divides it into brands, sub-brands, sub-categories, and variants. The prices can offer an in-depth review of the highest and lowest-performing products across platforms. Moreover, brands can compare the average price of similar variants and draw insights into their pricing strategies. Similarly, brands can acquire a price-based performance overview for their sub-brand categories. Conclusion eCommerce pricing intelligence is no longer an option for online retailers. Pricing delves deep into a consumer’s mind and helps a business understand and survive the crowded landscape. A business’s survival has a lot to depend on the value its customers derive from their brand, the incredible market forces, and the competition that follows it. Pricing as a component is a complex piece of a puzzle. There are no straight answers anywhere. Experience and continuous experimentation are required to deliver the correct consumer value. mScanIt helps brands to dive deeper into the journey by providing results based on real-time data. Brands using the mScanIt pricing tool are no longer required to conduct secondary research for determining pricing trends. Moreover, brands get a single-page price-based overview that helps optimize product pricing across platforms, categories, sub-categories, and variants.

Pricing Intelligence in eCommerce Read More »

Scroll to Top