Industry market research can help us understand the store industry environment, the market demand for the product in the target market, the market capacity and its development trend, expected price changes, etc., find some of the most promising market segments, build the correct product structure and plan a reasonable operation plan. Industry market research includes research on the target country market, buyer portraits, business opportunity potential, category performance, keyword popularity and other aspects.
(1) Target country market
Understanding the target country market can help merchants understand the geographical areas where the product is mainly sold and reduce the blindness of operation. Merchants can use industry market analysis tools to analyze and obtain the main buyer sources and market share of each country market, and then obtain the main target country market of the category.
(2) Buyer portrait
The buyer portrait is an analysis of the characteristics of the main customer groups of the category based on the platform buyers’ shopping behaviors such as purchase frequency and purchase amount, combined with the buyers’ pain points and demands. Buyer portraits can also segment market demand and let merchants understand the demand characteristics of buyers in the category.
(3) Business opportunity potential
Business opportunity potential is mainly evaluated from three perspectives: market capacity, market growth rate, and market supply. The evaluation of market capacity is divided into five levels from large to small: super large market, large market, medium market, small market, and micro market; the market growth rate is divided into five levels from high to low: super high growth, high growth, medium growth, low growth, and negative growth; the market supply is divided into five levels: extremely insufficient supply, insufficient supply, relatively insufficient supply, balanced supply, and oversupply.
(4) Category performance
Understanding the category performance of the industry helps merchants to clearly define the market segments, select the market segments with larger market capacity, and conduct precise store positioning. By conducting a two-dimensional analysis of categories and market potential, we can further derive the business opportunity potential of the market segments.
(5) Keyword popularity
Compared with categories, keywords represent more segmented markets. By analyzing the hot search terms in the industry, we can deeply understand the buyer’s demand patterns, implement store positioning, and guide the store’s specific product selection. Keywords are generally analyzed from two perspectives: keyword list and single hot search index.