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How to Use Competitor Research
How to Use Competitor Research
Aaron Matthew Ang avatar
Written by Aaron Matthew Ang
Updated over a week ago

With Competitor Research, you can access and see millions of product listings.

Make laser-targeted searches and find out which stores sell the products you're researching.

🛈 Info: You can directly import products to your Shopify store or AutoDS account, provided our system identifies a supplier on AliExpress or AutoDS. Please ensure you are connected and have active accounts on each platform.


How to Use Competitor Research

This is a quick overview of how to use Competitor Research.

Step 1: Set the Parameters

To begin spying, click on the Competitor Research link at the left, and then add your keywords in the boxes.

There are several options you can fill out:

  • Include Title Keywords – the system will only include competitor products that have these keywords based on the product title.

  • Include Description Keywords – search for products that include the keywords you type based on the products’ descriptions.

  • Include Domain Keywords – these are keywords in the URL of the store

The other three are exclusions. If you type keywords in these boxes, the tool will not include them in the search results. These are:

  • Exclude Title Keywords

  • Exclude Description Keywords

  • Exclude Domain Keywords


Step 2: Advanced Filters

The next step is to narrow your search by using the ADVANCED FILTERS feature. Click the blue link, and you will see this:

As you can see, there are other boxes that you can toggle. These are:

  • Minimum to maximum product price

  • Minimum to the maximum number of products in a competitor's store

  • Minimum to maximum number of product images in a listing

  • Minimum to maximum product variation

Below that, there are dropdowns that you can toggle. Once done with the selection, click on the SEARCH button at the bottom right:


Step 3: Product Selection

Here is a screenshot of the search results:

You are now responsible for selecting the product that interests you. After reviewing this data, you can track the store and analyze its secrets. To do that, click on the TRACK button and select START TRACKING STORE.


Step 4: Store Analysis

The next step is to click on SALES TRACKER > MY TRACKINGS. Then, you will see something like this:

The next step is to click on INSIGHTS. For this tutorial, we will study SwellPro. If you look at the screenshot, we have a snapshot of SwellPro’s sales in different periods. Once I click on INSIGHTS, this is what we get:

For this analysis, let us start at the content at the top:

  • Store Tracked By – this is the number of Dropship users tracking this store

  • Store Creation Date – the launch date of the store; this tells you the seniority or tenure of this seller in the industry.

  • Store Theme – this is the website theme that the store uses in Shopify. You can use this information to find out who sells the theme and for how much.

The store language refers to the main language used on the page. It does not mean that there is only one language used in the store.

The Store Products and Store Apps are links. If you click on the number below Store Products, you will see a pop-up window like this:

You can scroll down to view more products. If something catches your eye, click VIEW PRODUCT, and a new browser tab will open. The system will redirect you to the product page.

Now, you can click on VIEW LIST under Store Apps, and you will see this:

This pop-up window shows all the apps installed in the store’s Shopify back end. As you can see in this screenshot, this seller uses several apps for marketing, which is one of the reasons they are successful.

The Social Channels section contains the store's social media accounts. To access them, click an icon, and the social media page will open. From here, you can assess your competitor's marketing and customer relations efforts.

Finally, the charts below will show you sales stats.

For this example, the stats are from the last 30 days. You can change this timeline at the upper right side of the chart. Here is how it looks:

For this demonstration, I selected one year, and this is what I got:

As you can see, the store's sales spiked twice in March. Why?

This is where you can begin to analyze the store and its activities. For example, you can go to the social media pages and see what posts they made.

You can also use our Ad Spot tool to view what ads they launched.


💡 Tip

Need more help? Get support from the Dropship team. We’re here to help with any questions you may have.

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