Import intelligence – how competitor analysis can help
Understanding the competition’s product supply chain is essential intelligence. An import report (or export report) can be a great threat indicator. If you can find out what they’re importing, this gives you great insight into the competitor's new products and timescales. It’s also helpful to know which manufacturers they are using – do you have manufacturers in common? That is the sort of intelligence that an import report can give you, to help you make informed decisions.
An obvious data source is the US Customs website, obviously focused on United States trade. The information is free; however it’s not easy to trawl through this data source and it’s worth buying importer intelligence from a specialist solution. We’ve used several: they provide similar information but present it with different emphasis on certain areas, so it’s helpful to have a look through a few. Finding a search function that you like is also a good idea, as you’re going to be using it a lot.
We have put together a comprehensive guide to online tools for DIY intelligence research. Here is a closer look at some of the customs data websites we use for looking into import/export activity.
This US-based solution has a comprehensive list of shipping manifests, detailing entry activity, with filter options, analytics and transaction detail. The central report manager shows suppliers, customers, and also shows trends. For many records of an importer's entry activity, you can look at the shipment document, compliance information, delivery details and anomalies. Their mapping application is a great way of looking into trading partners; and their email alert service helps you stay in touch with what’s happening.
PIERS is a branch of IHS, who offer business information and analysis in great detail. PIERS specifically provides an import intelligence tool for global trade activity, collecting over 17 million bills of landing that have been filed with US Customs. You can access import and exports for 14 international markets, and trade stats for over 80 countries – that’s a lot of potential intelligence.
Supply chain analytics are available from Datamyne’s international trade website. You can get the details of each transaction, giving you import intelligence about manufacturers, the logistics used by your competitors, and information about trade trends. There’s a great search and drill-down function.
A good global trade analysis website aimed at making it easy to find, save, and share international trade data. You can create and save a shortlist of companies (both buyers and manufacturers), and receive alerts when any new information that’s relevant to your saved data comes up. You also have access to key people’s contact details from over 1 million companies, helping you follow sales leads.
There are other sites available; however from our experience, we can recommend these four (if you’re willing to pay for the information). Related to this, if you look at the same page on our guide, you’ll see that we also provide a list of supplier directories.
The caveat of course is that your competitors may be hiding information by using proxy names. You can understand why; but it can mean that you’re coming up against a brick wall. If this is the case, please contact us, and we’ll see what we can do.
You can get a decent insight into import/export activity through DIY competitive intelligence; however if you want to take this to the next level, or don’t have time to search through all the data, please get in touch with Aqute. We’ve helped many organizations track their competitors’ import/export activity, gaining them invaluable supplier and product intelligence.
