Strategic e-commerce intelligence is essential to the success of all businesses, especially those operating online.
If you’re an e-merchant, the performance of your online store depends on it, because it’s a fast-changing market.
The more sophisticated your e-commerce intelligence strategy, the more you’ll dominate your competitors.
If you don’t, you run the risk of missing out on sensitive information, which can not only affect the reputation of your e-commerce site, but also cause you to miss out on market trends.
So how do you set up effective strategic intelligence for your e-commerce site? 
Definition and objectives of an e-commerce watch
E-business intelligence is a strategy that involves seeking out information about your business environment.
This data is processed and exploited to anticipate market developments and stay one step ahead of competitors.
It encompasses concepts such ase-commerce market research, competitive intelligence, and supplier and distributor monitoring.
E-commerce monitoring enables you to track the prices applied by competitors to the same products you sell.
This enables you to adopt a policy of price readjustment if necessary.
It also gives you an overview of the characteristics of the products sold by your e-commerce competitors, enabling you to assess their capacity for innovation.
E-commerce monitoring has several objectives.
These include
- discovering new markets,
- adapting offers to customer expectations,
- control of the supply chain,
- customer loyalty and better prospecting,
- better knowledge of suppliers and the development of new partnerships.
It is indispensable in the e-commerce field, as it gives you more information on products even before your competitors do.
Its aim is to detect threats to your e-commerce site’s reputation in real time, and systematically find ways to eradicate them. 
Information to monitor in an e-commerce watch
When monitoring e-commerce, it’s important to keep an eye on a range of information to stay ahead of the competition.
E-commerce legal watch
Like all physical companies, e-commerce sites are subject to legal constraints.
A legal watch keeps you informed of your rights and obligations as an e-commerce operator.
It also enables you to comply with them, so as not to be penalized.
Thanks to legal intelligence, you’ll be able to settle any disputes you may have with your competitors without losing your feathers.
To do this successfully, you need to keep abreast of the latest legal developments, especially in the field of e-commerce.
This way, you’ll be aware of all the bills affecting the e-commerce sector, and can take steps to anticipate any legislative decisions that may follow.
If you’re planning to extend your e-commerce site to other countries, you’ll need to adapt your legal watch to an international scale.
Strategic e-commerce watch
Strategic e-commerce intelligence is one of the most formidable weapons in the fight to dominate and crush the competition.
It enables you to implement sharp, cutting-edge competitive and sales strategies.
So, as an e-tailer, you need to keep a close eye on the prices charged by your competitors and detect new market players.
Similarly, you need to have an idea of your competitors’ distribution methods, so you can copy what they’re doing better than you, or try to overtake them.
As marketing intelligence is a component of strategic intelligence, it will help you conquer new markets.
In this way, you’ll be the pioneer in the distribution of these new products.
With e-commerce becoming increasingly competitive these days, it’s important to adopt intelligent competitive intelligence.
This means subscribing to your competitors’ social networks and official pages.
This will enable you to keep a watchful eye on their activities.
E-commerce price watch
Many retailers and brands do just that.
They carefully monitor price trends for the products they sell on other websites.
Variations in the prices of these products automatically prompt them to make decisions to redress the balance.
As you know, customers also like to compare product prices before they buy.
This can work to your disadvantage if you offer your products at higher prices than your competitors.
Today, there are many tools available to simplify the task of price monitoring.
These tools are used by all major e-tailers to obtain the prices offered by competing sites several times a day.
E-commerce technology watch
Technology watch is an effective way of keeping abreast of trends in your field.
It allows you to stay one step ahead of the competition in your sector.
Indeed, the e-commerce environment is vast and undergoing enormous change.
This forces e-commerce site owners to constantly develop solutions to best meet customer requirements.
In e-commerce, it’s no longer enough to just have a store on the Internet.
You need to be constantly on the lookout for new features and adopt them in good time.
That’s how you’ll be able to meet your customers’ expectations and not let the competition outstrip you.
E-commerce monitoring tools and software
E-commerce monitoring tools enable web-entrepreneurs to analyze the competition and obtain relevant information on the market and the strategies implemented by their competitors.
They also enable you to monitor your own performance.
So if you’re lagging behind despite your best efforts on your online store, you’ll know what decision to make. 
There are hundreds of monitoring software packages to choose from, depending on your needs.
Price Observatory and Pricing Assistant, for example, are used to monitor prices.
With these tools, you can easily monitor the prices your competitors are charging.
To conclude on e-commerce monitoring
Strategic intelligence is important for the development of your e-commerce site.
It enables you not only to master the competition, but also to dominate it, thanks to e-commerce intelligence tools.
If you need help with your e-commerce project, don’t hesitate to contact me. As a Prestashop and e-commerce developer for over 10 years, I’ll be able to advise you on how to develop your online business.
