10 Ways to Conduct Online Market Research and Grow E-Commerce in 2022

Information is found everywhere these days from libraries to online resources. Going through the mountains of information out there to find the most relevant ones for a specific audience or market can be very challenging for many research paper writers for hire who create custom written academic papers for students.

This is where market research works best because it is the best way for many researchers and companies to collect all the information they need from their target audience. Below is a look at 10 ways to conduct online market research and grow E-commerce in 2022.

Check out the competition

E-commerce is all about business and not what your competitor’s next move is by checking out their sites. There are a few questions you need to ask yourself like

• Who is the market leader?
• What difficult is it to enter?
• What are the weaknesses and strengths of the competition?

Don’t be put off by the number of competitors in the market at first sight. All you’re doing here, scoping out them out via their website to see how they are performing well and areas you can improve.

Use social media platforms

If you want to know what people think about your business, you need to use social media. You will uncover what your target audience wants, the direction the industry you’re in is taking, and act accordingly. What you will also learn from social media platforms is the language customers are using. You can take help from the best social media marketing agency.

You can add some of the terms you see them use in your product descriptions in the future to drive traffic to your site. Go to Twitter and Facebook, two very massive platforms, and see the hashtags being used by customers.

Test the waters by building an online store

This is a massive gamble but the rewards and plenty when it works out. Try and do this while your product is still in development so that you get some pre-orders in and drive traffic to your website.

Get rid of any nerves you might have and be confident that you’ll go live on time and hit your release date. The whole idea of doing this is to get feedback straight away from customers.

You can get the word out about your website through social media platforms and word of mouth. This lets customers sign up to your mailing list or add your product to their wish list which is good for business.

Conduct online surveys

This is a very straightforward procedure and one of the most commonly used today. It is made out of questions given to customers to get their opinions on products and services a business offers. There are a variety of online survey tools you can use to get answers from customers like SurveyMonkey or other SurveyMonkey alternatives.

Keeping your survey short and simple is important because you don’t want too long as most people get easily put off if they have to sit and answer so many questions.

Focus groups with live chats

A business can perform live chat focus groups which are similar to surveys and a good way to gather information from participants. Feedback from customers is gathered in real-time rather than wait for them to sit on their computer or smart device and answer the question.

There are plenty of online tools that you can use for live chats and the good thing about them is you don’t have to meet customers in person and eliminates any geographical obstacles. As long as customers have access to a good internet connection, they can jump into the live chat and say their piece

Webcam interviews

This is the same as a traditional interview, the only difference is it’s done over the camera. You and your customers will interact one on one about their experiences with your product or services. This is a good approach because you will get honest answers that will not be influenced by others if it was a group setting.

You can ask open-ended questions and hear in detail what your customers think and figure out ways to improve their satisfaction levels.

Use online diaries

These diaries give you an insight into your customer’s daily lives to see how they are embracing your service or product.

They can be conducted every month, week, or daily and there are plenty of tools to make this happen as well. You can set up your website in a way that accepts video diaries from customers to aid you in your research.

Virtual reality

This is something that is costly to implement but is becoming more popular these days thanks to advancements in technology. You can allow customers to visualize your product or service and gather feedback from there.

It is an immersive experience for your customer and you can use this alongside in-depth interviews, focus groups, surveys, and more.

Internet communities

You can set up an online community that lets customers interact with each other and share experiences. Anyone can join the community no matter their location and share their stories with others.

The closeness an online community brings gives you a clear insight into customer thoughts based on their conversations and can be accessed via computer, phone, or tablet devices.

Online scrapbook

The last method you can use is called scrapbooking. It allows customers to be creative with products and can be done both on and offline. Participants can either do this on their own or in a group, it is all up to you, but the goal here is to gather their thoughts and emotions by allowing them to leave comments.

You can hire moderators to assist you when customers leave comments so that they reply to them if you are getting plenty of comments. This is a wonderful way to spark debates and look at ways to improve your product or service.

All the research options and ways on conducting online market research mentioned above will work for all scenarios or businesses. You have to pick the one that suits your business and your audience because picking the wrong one can waste both time and money.

Analyze closely what data you want to collect and the things you want to achieve with your business. Look at the benefits, drawbacks, and cost of each method and pick approximately. There are a few methods up there that require minimal effort to set up, might be time-consuming in terms of data collection but they are free.