In eCommerce, conducting research can be the difference between success and failure. Finding winning products and exploring similar stores will save you a lot of money and time when testing products and more.
Manual research can be time-consuming, especially when you manually review ads or scroll through supplier websites.
On the other hand, research tools like Commerce Inspector give eCommerce merchants 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 Commerce Inspector review will go in-depth on what this tool does, its pros and cons, how to use this Shopify spy tool and its pricing plans.
Without further ado, let’s get started!
Outline
- What Does the Commerce Inspector Extension Do?
- Commerce Inspector Chrome extension - Pros and Cons
- How to Use Commerce Inspector?
- Should I Use Free Commerce Inspector Extension or Paid App?
- Conclusion
What Does the Commerce Inspector Extension Do?
What is Shine Commerce?
Commerce Inspector (Shine Commerce) is a 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 campaigns tracking, and sales trends. With comprehensive insights, this tool is ideal if you are:
- New online sellers
- Dropshipping business owners
- Niche products sellers
How does Commerce Inspector work?
Before you dive into the review, it’s important to understand how they source the data.
Commerce Inspector utilizes artificial intelligence algorithms designed to identify product trends and insights. The way Shine Commerce works is that it scans through every Shopify store, sends signals, and automatically matches those signals with the existing and researched data.
It collects this data through public sources such as Facebook, Google, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. Once collected, this data is analyzed, and the Commerce Inspector or Shine Commerce provides information about sales figures, and can track revenue trends with ease.
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.
Using this tool, merchants can have instant access to excellent features to explore stores and search products, such as:
- Track stores
- Access to shop-level sales data and SKU-level data
- View social follower counts
- Analyze visitor and traffic
- Explore ad library link
- Export CSV files
- View apps used in competitor’ stores
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, Shine Commerce can show you the trending products your competitors have been selling during an adjustable time frame.
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 a specific time period.
💡 Quick Read : 15+ Product Research Tools: An Ultimate List (+ Always Updating)
Commerce Inspector Chrome extension - Pros and Cons
Commerce Inspector Pros
#1. Comprehensive Tracking
Commerce Inspector provides detailed tracking of your competitors, showing product catalogs, web traffic, ad creatives, and product sales.
As a result, you can then A/B test your competitor's strategies onto your eCommerce and see what works for you.
#2. Ease of Use
This tracking tool 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 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.
Therefore, even you are a non-tech merchant, you can still leverage its functionality and develop the best strategies.
#3. Product Insights
With this tool, you’ll get access to detailed product-level insights such as sales volume, units sold, Shopify store’s product launches, and categories.
Commerce Inspector provides you with the best-selling, most trending, and newest products added to competitor’s store.
#4. Product Niches
Finding Shopify stores is a breeze with the web browser. You can simply use their search function to search 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. Ad Library
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 Facebook ads working for each product.
Commerce Inspector Chrome Cons
#1. Paid Versions Might Be Too Expensive for Smaller Stores
The cheapest premium plan at $99 per month allows you to track only 10 stores. If you want to track 25 stores, that’s $199 per month.
Beginners just starting their first store won’t likely have the budget to exceed the $99 or $199 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. Go to the section with Commerce Inspector pricing.
#2. Free Chrome Extension Lacks a Lot of Features
Unfortunately, the free 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.
#3. Commerce Inspector Chrome extension does not work
Commerce Inspector Chrome extension does not work as expected according to reviews in the Chrome extension store. Overall, the tool receives 2.7 out of 5 stars with 195 ratings and 200,000 users.
How to Use Commerce Inspector?
You can start using Shine Commerce spy tool by downloading the free extension and registering an account.
Then, go to your top competitors within your niche. The tool will be added into your list of Chrome extensions. To start accessing your store’s performance data, simply click on Shine Commerce (or Commerce Inspector).
From there, you can browse through best-selling & trending products, ads, social media, traffic and shop profile.
On the other hand, 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.
Note: Since the tool’s name has changed to Shine Commerce, you need to go to shinecommerce.com instead of commerceinspector.com
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
Should I Use Free Commerce Inspector 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 access, such as:
- Non-sales shop data: traffic, list of competitors, social media, apps, link to ads library and recent events
- Shop sales data: stores, types, product, and variant. But you can not unfollow shop
- Limited features: shop lists/collections, shop search, and product search
- Only 2 followed shops
Comparatively, the premium plans provide much more data and insight. Premium plans are separated into four plans:
- Starter Plan - $99 per Month: You can track 10 shops with some standard functions
- Growth Plan - $199 per month: You have all functions in starter plan and 25 tracked shops
- Pro Plan - $499 per Month: This plan allows you to track unlimited shops and access all features
- Enterprise Plan - Need to contact for price: You can use more advanced features
Note: You can try the Free trial plan for 3 days with 100 shops to track.
The main differentiator between the free versus paid plans is the ability to search trending shops, which are also tracked by others, access to product sales data, unfollow shops and give notes.
It’s important to see recently sold products that are currently selling well. By seeing 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 the Commerce Inspector extension works. After that, you can upgrade to paid plans if you enjoy using the software and need more advanced features.
Conclusion
Commerce Inspector or Shine Commerce 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 can 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 discover 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 gain a competitive edge over all your competitors.
