In eCommerce, product research can be the difference between success and failure. Finding winning products already validated by your competitors will save you a lot of money and time to test hundreds of products.
There’s no point wasting money on products that don’t sell. Manual research can take hours, especially if you manually review ads or scroll through supplier websites.
Product research tools like Commerce Inspector give eCommerce owners an advantage by providing insight into their competitor’s stores.
Essentially, it lets you legally hunt products from your competitors to help scale your store. You’ll be able to track their store’s product data, third-party apps, ad campaigns, and more.
This tool is geared towards dropshippers who need to find and test products continuously to manage their business.
This article will go in-depth on what Commerce Inspector does, its pros and cons, and how to use this product research software.
>>> Read more: 15+ Product Research Tools: An Ultimate List
Outline
- What Does the Commerce Inspector Do?
- Commerce Inspector - Pros and Cons
- How to Use Commerce Inspector’s Chrome Extension?
- Should I Use Free Chrome Extension or Paid App?
- Conclusion
I. What Does the Commerce Inspector Do?
Commerce Inspector is a web-based chrome extension tool that lets Shopify store owners legally track and spy on other eCommerce stores.
It provides competitive insights allowing you to see your competitor’s top sellers, units sold, products uploaded, ad tracking, and sales trends.
It works best using the Chrome browser since it’s a Chrome extension. As soon as you land on another Shopify store, you can subscribe to their store and view their sales data.
Understanding where traffic is coming from is also useful when analyzing your competitors. Commerce Inspector provides traffic insights on which marketing channels they advertise.
Third-party apps can give Shopify store owners a major advantage in increasing conversions and improving their business operations. With Commerce Inspector, you will be able to review all the apps and third-party tools your competitors use in their stores.
This allows you to discover new ways to improve your store. Perhaps, you can find various pop-up apps, email marketing tools, countdown timers, or third-party integrations your competitors have installed.
Where Commerce Inspector stands out among other product spy tools is its competitive intelligence for trending products. While other tools generally give you all-time best sellers, Commerce Inspector can show you the trending products your competitors have been selling for the last week.
As a result, you’ll be able to scout the most up-to-date trending products your competitors are selling. You’ll receive data on the total revenue received from each product and units sold in the last week.
II. Commerce Inspector - Pros and Cons
01. Pros
#1. Comprehensive Tracking
Commerce Inspector provides detailed tracking of your competitors, showing product catalogs, web traffic, ad creatives, and product sales. You can then A/B test your competitor's strategies onto your eCommerce and see what works for you.
#2. Ease of Use
Commerce Inspector is relatively easy to use. The web browser has a user-friendly interface with all the features on the left column for you to access.
Also, Commerce inspector’s chrome extension automatically appears on any Shopify store so that you can track your competitors. All relevant data is organized by trends, sites, products, ads, and apps. Browse through each tab to find the data you’re looking for.
#3. Product Insights
You’ll get access to detailed product-level insights such as sales volume, units sold, Shopify store’s product launches, and categories. The tool provides you with their best-selling, most trending, and newest products added to the store.
#4. Product Niches
Finding Shopify stores is a breeze with the web browser. You can simply use their search function to search sites, products, or apps by a specific keyword.
Search for your niche sites to find stores you can spy on. Next to each store, you’ll find the traffic data, total revenue, units sold, and newest products added. Commerce Inspector can spy on nearly any store’s metrics you want.
#5. Facebook Ads
Besides product research, the effectiveness of your advertising is another crucial component to the success of your online store. You can see their traffic sources, along with the exact ads working for each product.
02. Cons
#1. Paid Versions Might Be Too Expensive for Smaller Stores
The cheapest premium plan at $49 per month only lets you track three stores. If you want to track ten stores, that’s $99 per month.
Beginners just starting their first store won’t likely have the budget to exceed the $49 or $99 plan.
Many store owners have the expense of managing their stores, paid ads, and other operating costs.
Other product research tools are less expensive, even though they might have less comprehensive data.
#2. Free Chrome Extension Lacks a Lot of Features
Unfortunately, the free Chrome Extension only offers basic features. You won’t be able to track recent or trending products from your competitor’s store, only the best sellers. Furthermore, you can’t track the ads they’ve used for their products.
III. How to Use Commerce Inspector’s Chrome Extension?
Before you learn how to use Commerce Inspector, it’s important to understand how they source the data, so you can read their data to make better product decisions for your business.
Commerce Inspector utilizes artificial intelligence algorithms designed to identify product trends and insights.
It collects this data through public sources such as Facebook, Google, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. Once collected, this data is analyzed, and the Commerce Inspector provides information about sales figures, and can track revenue trends with ease.
The way Commerce Inspector works is that it scans through every Shopify store, sends signals, and automatically matches those signals with the existing and researched data.
You can start using Commerce Inspector by downloading the free chrome extension and registering an account. Then, follow your top competitors within your niche. The chrome extension will automatically appear and review data about their store.
From there, you can browse through the site’s best-selling and trending products, ads, and apps they use.
You can also use their web browser to manage all of the different stores you’re tracking in one place. The browser mode lets you see data from the store and product levels.
Store level gives you insight such as total traffic, units sold, and revenue made from the entire store, while product level shows you stats for that specific product alone.
Here’s how we recommend using the data on Commerce Inspector:
- Follow stores within your niche
- Find hot selling products within the last month or week
- Review active and inactive Ads to see how they perform and how they advertise products
- Check out the apps they’re using on their store
- Driving value ad tracking by giving you information like winning products, ad ideas, and apps, and implement those changes in your online store
IV. Should I Use Free Chrome Extension or Paid App?
Commerce Inspector is available as a free chrome extension or as a paid app with additional premium features.
The free Chrome extension offers a limited set of data, such as:
- All-time best sellers for any store
- Recent product launches
- Product launches by day and tag
- Apps used
Comparatively, the premium plans provide much more data and insight. Premium plans are separated into four plans:
- Start Plan - $49 per Month: It provides unlimited data for three stores
- Grow Plan - $99 per month: It offers unlimited data for up to ten stores
- Scale Plan - $249 per Month: This plan gives unlimited data for up to 30 stores
- Conquer Plan - $499 per Month: This plan provides unlimited data for all stores
Note: Commerce Inspector's Start, Grow, and Scale plan comes with a 3-day trial that you can avail by paying $1.
The paid plans give you more in-depth data about each store. You’ll receive last week’s best sellers, store and product-level revenue, current and history ad creatives, and top-selling and trending shop lists.
The main differentiator between the free versus paid plans is the ability to see recent product data from any store. Seeing all-time best sellers isn’t very useful since those products could’ve sold well years ago but not selling well currently.
It’s important to see recently sold products that are currently selling well. By seeing last week’s best sellers, you know you’re getting products that are effective right now.
Additionally, seeing ad creatives from your competitors gives you ideas on advertising your newly found products.
We recommend experimenting with the free version first to get a taste of how Commerce Inspector works. Perhaps, you’ll find a few good product ideas to add to your store. We recommend upgrading to one of their premium plans if you enjoy using the software.
Conclusion
Commerce Inspector is one of the most effective tools for product research on the market. Tracking the right stores in your niche can save you hours of manual research and lots of wasted money from testing bad products.
With the product insights, store data, ad tracking, and app information you receive from each store, you’ll be able to implement changes in your store and increase profits quickly.
The free chrome extension is a great place to start, allowing you to explore what’s possible. At the very least, you’ll find some new stores and products to spy on. And if you enjoy it, consider the premium version to elevate your product research capabilities.
So try out the tool and get a competitive edge over all your competitors.
