What is your thought on competition?

Competition was actually the primary factor whenever I considered entering a new niche. Call me lazy, but intense competition generally indicates the niche is very lucrative, and all the heavy lifting in marketing research has already been done. With so many marketing techniques and channels available, there is no reason to avoid competition no matter who the heavy hitters are. Let your competitors find all the hot products, then just use superior marketing tactics and strategies.

yep i was gonna write this same thing.i think grant cardone says it best. dont compete dominate. competition isn't healthy for businesses its healthy for the comsumer. because when businesses compete prices drop. you wanna be way out ahead where your the only choice instead of 20 other companies. Remember when the ipod came out around the time of ipod nano and video? there was hundred of mp3 players on the market some for like $30. were they any competition for apple? did apple have to lower there prices? nope because they dominated the market, they was the only choice if you wanted a quality product.

Competition to those who are intelligent, savvy, and hard working is almost always positive.

It brings the standard up in your business , and the most important thing is it gives optimum Value to
the End User


- Robert Andrew

I agree with all of you. Each of you is a true warrior.

There is a thread by a warrior who wanted to start a site for article-writers. He asked if that was a good idea and if anyone felt the niche was saturated,

He received one reply that told him yes, the market is saturated. Basically, he was told by this person to forget it and move on. Yech! Fortunately, warriors jumped in and gave him some very interesting tips.

Competing is the staff of life. Finding ways to go one better than all those others out there is totally engrossing no matter what your niche. The best phrase I ever heard is, "...go after the competition."

Competition in my opinion is what drives me to ensure my content adds as much value, trust and results as I can! Going above and beyond is my goal even in a very competitive niche. So many people try to re invent the wheel and come up with the latest, greatest niche...sometimes this works, but sadly most of the time it does not.


More competition means more hungry buyers! People need to create a great USP for themselves and really work harder than there competition. Like it has been said above most people choose to take the fast route and then they wander why they can only make $50 a month.


Do not re invent the wheel.....learn how to dominate the existing lucrative wheel!!

Even a first year economics student would disagree, I'm afraid, Ray. Heck, even a first year G.C.S.E student. Having spent 6 years studying economics at university and going on to travel the world with a telecommunications multinational, I'd also have to disagree. Quite a bit. A full explanation would take up my entire day, so in brief, and in layman terms: monopolies are more likely to suffer cost and quality inefficiencies, to be less innovative, to experience negative issues of personnel motivation, to gain less understanding of the core audience and - among other issues - encounter weakened sales by effectively not selling what the audience demands, produce products of less quality than they would in a competitive market (inviting all associated problems). I could go on.

Take the WSO section as an industry microcosm. If we allowed one vendor, Joe Blow III, to monopolize the WSO market with his own products, this would likely happen to Joe Blow III (I'll list 3 big outcomes, in the interests of brevity):

1. Innovation. A competitive WSO market would enable Joe to learn from his competition and thus lead him to produce WSO products he would never have dreamed of producing. Furthermore, having been educated by the competition, his products would likely be better. Better products (and more of them) in a WSO market where products are essentially luxury items, would lead to higher super-normal profits.

2. Core Audience. A characteristic disadvantage of the monopoly is complacency in regards to understanding the core audience. Traditionally, and this would happen in the WSO example with Joe, there is less incentive to learn how to deliver the ideal product or service to the target audience. In the case of Joe, this might mean he misses the boat. Sales would be negatively impacted if, for example, he fails to understand his audience require products about Facebook Group growth.

3. Price setting. One of the benefits of a competitive market - as Adam Smith would tell you - is market efficiency, where competitive pricing naturally (without influence) leads to a state of market equilibrium, where, in effect, and in short (as hell), the right price is charged. In a luxury market, such as the WSO, determining the right price for each of your WSO products would be an ongoing battle to determine each relevant price elasticity of demand, which of course fluctuate with too many variables to mention. And in the luxury WSO market, you'd constantly suffer sales inefficiencies because of it.

Something, in short, must be wrong if you don't like competition.

Just to clarify: you effectively remove competition in the market by entering a market and doing (a) something the existing competition does not like to do or (b) cannot do as well as you can. Am I understanding correctly? For (a): I'm not sure I understand why they would leave the market if you entered, unless they felt some altruistic desire to supply the products or services before your entry, and after it, with you supplying, they said, "Oh, super. Look, he's doing it now. Thank goodness, we can do something else." For (b): this I can understand. So what you're saying is you enter the market and do something so amazingly well that the competitors say, "Crickey! We best up our game or jump ship." And when they can't up their game, they leave the market. Can you give any examples where you've done this? I can understand, though, if you'd prefer to keep them private.

- Tom

In theory, yes, not always in reality. Compititon can push up price to the end consumer. Let's say you have sports rights, which were previously held by a single broadcaster but a new deal has forced those rights to be divided between two broadcasters resulting in a fan having to pay two different companies if he wishes to watch all the action. This is the case with the rights of a certain competition which I won't mention here. Fans have ended up paying more.

Can't say that I get a 'warm fuzzy' feeling from competition like everyone else here seems to. But it does challenge me to get better, work harder and think smarter.

But to be honest I'd much rather have the whole house to myself, so I look to exel at things my competitors don't like to do ...or do as well. That makes many of my competitors go ... Poof!

I have to agree with Tom. Look at the bigger picture and it is obvious that competition benefits the Seller and Buyer.

In the end , it brings on advancement and takes a creator to new heights of success that he would NOT have realized if he was the only one in the Marketplace


- Robert Andrew

BS, competition in a market is widely regarded as beneficial to both buyers and suppliers, and it appears that the majority of marketers within this thread would agree. Which is not to say that a healthy debate on the topic is off the cards. There are many instances where zero competition or a distinct lack of competition is of benefit to the supplier - and we see evolve, as such, monopolies, duopolies, oligopolies. To say competition benefits the supplier (and indeed the buyer) is merely a generalization, a case of saying, "On the whole, it's better."

I'm keen to find out myself. Please, don't see the above opinions of others as unwavering. Consider them more as an opportunity for pleasant debate. In other words: do share your thoughts.

- Tom

Rockefeller didn't avoid competition though. You could even argue it was good for him, at least in my opinion. Buying out or decimating competition is just winning the game, it isn't the avoidance of competition altogether.

Usually, an IMer (of the caliber that frequents this forum and ask these kinds of questions) isn't going to have the funds, business acumen, or "killer instinct" to do what Rockefeller did. I don't think kthe comparison directly applies, outside of the characteristics you would need to thrive in a competitive environment.

Sincerely,

Not The Expert

Competition denotes commerciality. Either one innovates (thru creativity or by going the extra mile) or diversifies to stay ahead.

I can see both sides of the argument. To promote a product with a low gravity CAN WORK. Some people swear by it. I recently tried it (didn't pay for ads or anything like that) and I am getting lots of hops and some sales on that particular product.

For me, I've had the most luck with mid-range products - not the super popular, competitive products but for the ones with a gravity between 20-35.

You will find people on WF who experience huge success marketing the most popular, competitive products and some who affiliate the low-gravity products.

The key is doing a good job promoting. Most people do minimal work promoting a product. And of course it helps immensely if you're an expert and develop a following and mailing list. You can take the most popular product in the world and send it to your mailing list and if anything, you'll do get sales. I know your question refers more to online than mailing list but I digress - I think having customers come to me through my expertise on the subject is the way to go - then I can recommend products to them.

In this day and age I'm afraid this isn't true.

I can put in place exclusivity contracts with suppliers and retailers and squeeze a business out at both ends of the market.

I can negatively SEO a competitor

I can bring down their website

I can leave negative reviews online and pay others to do the same.

I can kill your time and resources with frivolous lawsuits If i know you don't have the same funds as I do then I can keep dragging the experience out.

And that's just off the top of my head. More worrying though, someone could do that to me.

The most profitable niches are generally also the most competitive, but this can work to your advantage. The competition has already done most of the heavy lifting in product research and educating the masses, so the purchase decision essentially rests on those who can present the most favorable perception. A very common mistake that most marketers make is using the same methods as their competition, then conclude the market is impossible to break into (ie "saturated"), when in reality this is only true for the marketing method itself.