Competition is inevitable in life and business. Whether you are starting a new business or developing a strategy for an existing one, competition will affect every aspect of your business plan, from pricing to promotion. Naturally, if your product market is saturated, differentiation becomes a vital element of your product. How can you do business and find customers when there are 100 competitors selling the same product? Will your product stand out in a crowded marketplace?

One brand that has succeeded by turning these concerns into an opportunity is the high-end bath product brand, Bathorium .

When starting a business, it is very important to find a target market. In a competitive environment, product differentiation can be the biggest competitive edge. If you compete with a very unique product, it is easy to expect that there will be no competition. However, no matter how innovative a new product is, it will eventually face competition as other competitors enter the market. Gregory Macdonald, Merchant Success Manager at Shopify and founder of Bathorium, a luxury bath products company, emphasizes that product differentiation is the only way to survive in the e-commerce market.

Competitor and product analysis

The story of Bathorium’s founding began with the founder Gregory’s trip to Italy. Gregory happened to stay at an AirBnB and really liked the bath products that the host recommended. The bath products were homemade products made with oils, salts, etc. When he returned home, Gregory tried various bath products to recreate the emotions he felt in Italy, but he couldn’t find anything similar. Instead of being discouraged, he started researching competitive products.

"I spent hundreds of dollars at Bay, The Detox Market, and Holt Renfrew on every bath bomb and bath ball on the market. Most of them were either just salts or oils, or they were just solid waste that settled to the bottom of the tub. I never liked any of them." - Gregory, founder of Bathorium

At that time, Gregory was convinced that if a product could replicate the experience he had in Italy, it would be successful in the North American market, even if it competed with existing competitors, and so he began developing the product.

Gain a competitive edge

Using a competitor's product firsthand can help you learn about its features, shortcomings, and commercialization opportunities. Here's Gregory's comment on product testing:

"When testing a product, we had our own formula checklist to check things like scent, color, feel, and solubility. The concept for each product was 'beautiful red,' and even for the same red, we filled the bathtub with water, tested it, mixed it again, and tested it again countless times to get the result we wanted. Our goal is to provide a perfect shower experience through our bath products. So we tried to find a spectrum of red that was not just a simple red, but a striped red, like blood spreading through the bathtub water. Not too much, not too little."

A thorough product analysis can also provide an opportunity to find new market opportunities. If you do a thorough product analysis, you can find blue oceans even in a saturated market.

Product experience-centered marketing

If you have launched a product, it is time to deliver a customer experience. No matter how great a product is, if customers do not know about it, it has no meaning. Below are Gregory’s comments on product experience strategies.

“I have a product that’s different from the rest, but how do I get people to know about it? How do I share that message with the loyal customers of the brand or other bath products? So we reached out to customers directly with our product across all sales channels, from Etsy to Pinterest, big box stores, small stores. For the first three years, we focused on promoting through samples, and we still do a lot of giveaways today. Free samples are a huge help in conversion. A free sample strategy can really shine when there’s a clear product differentiation.”

Increase product perfection

If your product has entered the sales growth phase, it is time to improve its perfection. Below are Gregory's comments on the Vasorium package.

"Many people say that the current packaging of Vasorium is so pretty. But in fact, when we first started, we used labels printed on regular vinyl packaging with an office printer. It is not easy to create a perfect brand that can be put into a retail store right away. You can improve the product through feedback after launching the product."

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Are you hesitating to launch an overseas shopping mall because of the fierce competition in similar products? Are customers not familiar with the product you have developed? Do you have a product but are concerned about packaging and branding? If you have a good understanding of your competitors’ products and have made sufficient efforts to improve the product’s perfection to satisfy customers and close the gap in the market, you are ready to start selling. The rest will be completed naturally and sequentially, as proven by Vasorium.

They say the truth lies in proverbs. One of the famous proverbs is "Well begun is half done." So, shall we begin?