Why most competitive analyses go unused
The usual competitive analysis is a long document made once, presented once and never opened again. By the time anyone needs it, the prices in it are wrong.
This template is built to avoid that. It’s one page per competitor, it only records things you’d act on, and it separates what rarely changes from what changes every week.
Before you start
Pick three to five competitors. If you haven’t settled on them, our guide to finding your real competitors covers how. Then set aside about 45 minutes per store. Everything below comes from public pages.
The template
Six sections. Copy the left column into a document or spreadsheet and fill in one for each competitor.
| Section | What to record | Where to find it |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Who they sell to | Their one-line promise and the customer in their photos | Homepage, About page |
| 2. Catalog | Number of products, main categories, price range | Store snapshot, main menu |
| 3. Top products | Their five best sellers and your closest match to each | Best sellers page, review counts |
| 4. Pricing and offers | Prices on the matched products, share of catalog on sale, usual discount | Product pages, sale page |
| 5. Buying terms | Free shipping threshold, returns window, subscriptions, bundles | Shipping and returns pages |
| 6. How they reach people | Email frequency, main social channel, what their ads feature | Their emails, Meta’s Ad Library |
For section 2, the free store snapshot gives you the product count, the price range and how much of the catalog is on sale for any Shopify store:
Store snapshot
See any store’s catalog size, sale share and prices. Free, no sign-up.
For section 3, see our guide to finding a competitor’s best sellers.
A filled-in example
| Section | Dewlane |
|---|---|
| Who they sell to | “Hotel bedding for real homes.” First-time homeowners, neutral styling |
| Catalog | 313 products. Bedding, bath, sleepwear. $14 to $389 |
| Top products | Linen duvet cover, percale sheet set, waffle towels. We match the first two |
| Pricing and offers | Duvet cover $180 against our $195. About a quarter of the catalog on sale most weeks |
| Buying terms | Free shipping over $75. 100-night returns. No subscription |
| How they reach people | Three emails a week. Mostly Instagram. Ads feature the sheet set |
The step most people skip: so what?
A filled-in page is only a description. Under each one, write three short lines:
- Where they beat us. In the example: a lower price on the duvet cover and a longer returns window.
- Where we beat them. Something a shopper would notice, not something only you care about.
- One thing we’ll do about it. A single action with a name and a date next to it.
Tip
If you can’t think of an action, the analysis isn’t finished. Go back to the matched products and compare them the way a shopper would.
Keeping it current
The six sections change at very different speeds, and that’s what decides how often to revisit them.
| Section | Changes | Check |
|---|---|---|
| Who they sell to | Rarely | Twice a year |
| Buying terms | A few times a year | Every quarter |
| How they reach people | With each campaign | Every month |
| Catalog, top products, pricing and offers | Every week | Every week, or automatically |
The first three are fine to do by hand. The last row is where a manual analysis goes stale, because it means opening every competitor’s store every week.
That’s the part Trailwatch handles. It reads each competitor’s catalog every few hours, alerts you to launches, sales and sold-out best sellers, and sends a Monday briefing that sets their week against your own products.
New product: Linen quilt, $210
Their first quilt. It sits in Bedding, between their duvet cover and their comforter.