Success with eBay dropshipping hinges on many factors, but none more so than being able to stand out from the competition. Dropshipping is a rapidly growing business model that many online sellers are jumping on the bandwagon, especially with the allure of starting an online business with zero investment.
Therefore, one of the secrets to having success with your dropshipping eBay store is to outdo your competition. It goes beyond identifying the best-selling trends and hottest products if you cannot set yourself apart, as your target buyers could easily buy these eBay products from competitors.
Before I learned how to use an eBay spy tool for competitor and product analysis, too, I struggled with setting my eBay business apart and making sales.
Sure, I dedicated plenty of time to researching top product categories and best-selling items. So it frustrated me even more that I wasn’t generating the sales I wanted.
It turns out I lacked the competition analysis aspect of managing my eBay business. I will share my best strategies with you here so you won’t commit the same mistake and speed up the learning curve!
This guide will show you how to identify the most crucial competition data, analyze, interpret, and utilize this information to gain a competitive advantage!
Key Takeaway
- Identify your competitors within the eBay dropshipping scene.
- Analyze the important competition data, such as the average price, sell through rate, successful listing rate, and sold items.
- Evaluate your competition listing and optimization strategies to improve your own eBay listings.
- Use eBay product research tools to save time in gathering data about your competition.
- Monitor and track competitors’ performance to identify trends and adapt your strategy accordingly.
How to Do Competition Analysis on eBay Dropshippers
Most eBay sellers know that doing competitor research is necessary to achieve your highest sales potential. But how and where do you start?
Here are the steps to do competitor research and increase total sales on eBay.
Step 1: Know Your Competitors
Who are your competitors?
Identifying your competitors is the first and most crucial aspect of competitor analysis on eBay dropshipping. This tip applies not just to dropshipping on an eBay store, but to all businesses.
Knowing your competitors lets you identify what products or services they offer and how. Using this competition data, you can devise your marketing strategy and identify your unique value proposition that will stand out from the competition.
Your competition will vary depending on your niche and target market. Not all businesses in the same industry are competing against each other. Some businesses within the same industry are not necessarily competitors as they cater to different markets.
Conversely, some businesses complement each other instead of being in direct competition. Hence, you must identify your competitors so you can identify what makes you stand out and focus your resources on maximizing your sales potential and increasing your market share.
Step 2: Analyze Their Products
Once you know who your competitors are, the next step in spying on them and conducting competition analysis is to examine their products.
The dropshipping model for an eBay business relies heavily on your products on your eBay store. Therefore, it makes sense to focus your research and analysis of the competition through their dropshipping products.
When you analyze your products, focus on the key competition data:
Average price
The average price will give you an idea of how the particular product is listed. It also gives you an idea of the value buyers place on that product, which is why they’re willing to pay that much to buy it.
Active listing
You must know how many listings are active for a product, as it can directly determine your competition level. It can also indicate if a product is in high demand; the more eBay sellers list that product, the more buyers want to purchase it.
Sold items
The number of items sold is significant competition data because it hints at the actual conversion rates for your competitors. The more sales on eBay, the higher the demand for the product.
Sell through rate
Sell-through rates are an important metric for a dropshipping business on eBay, especially when analyzing competitors and profitable products to add to your store. They refer to the percentage of the inventory sold versus the percentage of inventory received from the manufacturer.
Higher sell-through rates help dropshipping business owners reach their sales targets.
Successful listings
As the name implies, this competition data is crucial because it determines the percentage of product listings successfully converted into sales. A higher percentage is a good sign.
These are just a few of the main data points you must examine when conducting competitor research on eBay’s dropshipping business.
Step 3: Know Your Competitor’s Strengths and Weaknesses
Once you know your competition and their products, you have the essential data points to evaluate their strategy.
While this might not give you a full picture of their sales and marketing strategy, it will give you the most crucial points that will enable you to tweak your own strategy for hot selling items on your eBay store to achieve their sales performance or outdo them.
You can use various tools to analyze their performance and strategy—it’s up to you. You can compare their pricing strategies and see which sellers are able to make more sales based on their pricing strategy.
Knowing the average price of their products will give you a fair estimate of a good price that you can set for your dropshipping products on your eBay store, also known as competitive pricing.
In addition, you can perform title analytics and their search and optimization strategies. Find out what keywords they target for a particular product or product category.
Think about how you can improve your eBay optimization techniques to rank higher than your competitors on search engines. Employ keyword research tools so you can validate the keywords you’re using based on the most popular search terms, and then optimizing that with a well-written title and product description.
You must rank higher on the search results and make your title and description useful for potential buyers.
The competitors’ payment, shipping, and refund policies are next considered. Do your competitors offer free shipping or require a minimum order value to qualify for one?
What is their refund policy?
Do they offer a 30-day free return?
Gathering data on your competitors about these policies for your eBay business will inform how you write your own business policies to ensure that you can offer something better than what your competitors currently have on their business.
Step 4: Constantly Monitor and Analyze Competitor Performance
Competitor research and analysis is not a one-time task. It is an ongoing process that involves continually tracking your competitor’s performance and top-selling items.
Continuous monitoring and tracking of performance help you identify changing trends and sales patterns that you could implement into your own eBay store strategy. Furthermore, you can identify profitable products and niches that would greatly enhance the performance of your eBay listings.
Therefore, you need an eBay product research tool built with a competitor analysis feature. This feature helps you save time gathering information about your competition and leverage areas that offer you a competitive advantage.
Click to download the eBook and master eBay product research for winning items.How to Use eBay Competitor Research Tool
As mentioned, using eBay product research tools can give you a significant advantage over the competition when finding the top-selling eBay products for your store. ZIK Analytics is one example of an eBay product research tool with a competitor analysis feature that allows you to spy on your competition.
At the ZIK Analytics dashboard, you will find the Competitor Research tab. When you click on that, you can input the competitor you want to analyze further.
Researching your top competitors beforehand is essential so you can focus on obtaining the most vital competition data that will inform your dropshipping business strategy.
For this example, we’ll look at the top seller for the ‘storage shelf rack’ product category. The first competitor seller is US-based – gadgettown.
The product research tool immediately tells you it is an eBay dropshipper from the US. This seller has a sell-through rate of 73.77% and 530 successful listings. In the last 30 days, this seller has sold 2,537 items and earned $203,605.
You can also use this eBay product research tool to analyze the seller’s top-selling product: heavy-duty metal rack or shelving storage. The seller listed this product for $59.99 and sold over 400 items.
If you look at other sellers who have listed this same product, you can see why this seller has managed to outdo its competition.
First, the selling price is lower than average prices among other eBay sellers offering the same product, particularly among US-based sellers. The seller gadgettown lists the product for $59.99 while other top sellers list it for $88.79 and $65.90.
Meanwhile, the well-optimized product data, and description provided clear information about the product, shipping, and return or refund policies.
Takeaway with the eBay Spy Tool
Learning about your competitors is important to any good business marketing strategy. Study your competitors and analyze what they’re doing. It is essential in your quest to succeed with eBay dropshipping because you can identify products in high demand and the strategies sellers implement to maximize sales.
Spying on your competition doesn’t mean you must emulate their marketing strategy. Instead, use it to tweak your strategy to optimize what’s already working for you and further boost sales by utilizing missed opportunities.
Get a Competitive Edge with ZIK’s Competitor Research Tool
Want to see what your competition is really selling? ZIK’s eBay Competitor Research Tool helps you uncover exact sales data from any eBay seller, including sold items, sell-through rates, and top-performing listings. No guesswork, just real-time data you can use to build smarter pricing strategies and stock profitable products. Start analyzing competitor trends today and turn insights into sales.
