Like it not, ALL businesses (yes that means yours too) are faced with competition. Even if you're the only restaurant in town you must compete with movie theaters, gas stations, bowling alleys, bars and other businesses where your customers will spend their money instead of with you.
With increased use of the Internet to buy goods and services and to find places to go, you are no longer just competing with your local businesses, you are (potentially) competing with businesses from other countries too.
Your competitor could be a new business offering a substitute or similar product that makes your own redundant.
Competition is not just another business that might take money away from you. It can be another product or service that's being developed and which you ought to be selling or looking to license before somebody else snags it up.
And don't just research what's already out there. You also need to be constantly on the lookout for possible new competition.
[Tip: Use Google Trends to listen in on the competition.]
You can get some clues to the existence of competitors from:
With increased use of the Internet to buy goods and services and to find places to go, you are no longer just competing with your local businesses, you are (potentially) competing with businesses from other countries too.
Your competitor could be a new business offering a substitute or similar product that makes your own redundant.
Competition is not just another business that might take money away from you. It can be another product or service that's being developed and which you ought to be selling or looking to license before somebody else snags it up.
And don't just research what's already out there. You also need to be constantly on the lookout for possible new competition.
[Tip: Use Google Trends to listen in on the competition.]
You can get some clues to the existence of competitors from:
- Local Business Directories
- Chamber of Commerce
- Advertising
- Press Reports
- Exhibits and Trade Shows
- Searching on the internet for similar products and services
- Running searches for existing patents for a similar product
- Flyers and other marketing paraphanelia
- Customer Feedback
- Opt-in lists
Tell us one or two ways that help you to figure out who your competition is and we'll add your name (and business) as a guest blogger.
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