The COVID-19 pandemic has put e-commerce adoption and growth into an overdrive, but it can also give businesses a misguided sense that expansion in e-commerce is enough to drive revenue organically. 

You might have a clear understanding of where your business’ growth is occurring, but in the brave new world of e-commerce, it’s important to evaluate how it stacks up against your competition. And in many cases, the competitive set expands greatly online compared to traditional brick and mortar.

Ignoring the need for this critical insight can really hinder growth and revenue potential for your business. With NielsenIQ insights, you can trade mystery for opportunity and be confident in building your e-commerce program through data-driven decisions. To learn more about how you can leverage market insights to grow your e-commerce program, register for our upcoming webinar, Actionable Intelligence: A Look Into How Market Leaders Win at E-commerce.

Here’s an inside look at how you can benefit from our insights and how we can help you in making the right investment for your organization.

It’s no mystery that e-commerce is growing and is here to stay. What’s important, however, is to realize that e-commerce is a highly competitive segment and carving out a niche for manufacturers and retailers is not easy. You need to make decisions backed by insights for your long-term e-commerce growth.

NielsenIQ’s data fuels insights for CPG manufacturers and retailers across the e-commerce development spectrum to answer questions such as: 

• Who are my main competitors online today, and who is an emerging threat? How do my performance and growth compare to them?
• Should I expand into fulfillment options such as subscriptions, direct-to-consumer, or click & collect?  
• In which metro areas am I under-developed or over-developed so I can prioritize my marketing budget appropriately? 

The chart above is an example of what a pet supplies client might see when using NielsenIQ’s proprietary data software. With this, you can see how all of the various segments or brands within the pet supplies category are performing and filter the performance by merchant.

You can also filter your results by time period to see how things have changed over the last six months. This is something that is particularly valuable as brands are surveying the market pre- and post- COVID-19 shutdowns to see what’s changed.

You can change the report to show earnings in dollars or in units or orders to help you compare performance in volume instead of dollars against various merchants and brands.

You can view select merchants or all depending on whether you want a bird’s-eye view, a closer view of your direct competitors, or perhaps you just want to view your own performance.

Let’s take a look at the insights in action. This example focuses on insights from the pet supplies product grouping, though the path taken could be applied to any CPG category or brand. 

*We’re going to use fictional names for this example.

In this example, our client “Good Boy Dog Food” wants to see where their direct competitor “Ruff Ruff Pet Chow” has been selling the most dog food over the last six months. 

With NielsenIQ reporting, they can see that Ruff Ruff was selling the most, in dollars, with Fido-Mart.

Then, they can cross-reference to see why Fido-Mart is gaining in revenue dollars, and in this scenario, they find that it’s because they’re also gaining buyers.

Therefore, the next logical step would be for them to look at the demographics of their buyers. In our example, Fido-Mart is gaining female buyers that are age 35-44, with some college education, and earn $25-$50K per year.

Therefore, in this scenario, Good Boy Dog Food is going to work with their marketing department to run additional campaigns that target that segment to try to get them to buy their brand instead. At the same time, they will work on distribution to make their product available in Fido-Mart.

While e-commerce was already growing at a rate of 30% year-over-year prior to COVID-19, that growth has been accelerated now that many consumers feel more comfortable shopping from home rather than in person.

NielsenIQ is one of the largest sources of proprietary market insights that businesses can use to identify their closest competitors, study their success, and leverage that information to make informed decisions spanning marketing, sales, finance, and distribution. 

You can access NielsenIQ’s proprietary e-commerce market insights in one of two ways, ad hoc Snapshots or regular subscription to our e-commerce measurement data, to help you drive strategic decisions for your e-commerce business.