Market Scan: Competitor Analysis
I have mainly segregated the market I know of into three kinds.
Firstly, it is social media sellers. Instagram shops buy authentic sticker designs in bulk and resell them to users who may not be able to access sites that we will touch on later. There are also designers who sell directly on Instagram whenever they launch a new design. The latter method is also widely found on Facebook. In this context, I would really like to include Carousell, but as I wish to create an app that goes international, and Carousell has higher potential locally as compared to Instagram and Facebook, we shall scratch it off the drawing board. Another possible social media channel would be Twitter. This is done so by accounts holding group orders, where they choose a shop or site to purchase goods from, let their followers know of what goods are in stock, and then collate everyone’s orders so the shipping fee can be split among more people.
Selling on social media platforms ensures a global reach should the right hashtag or promotional ads be used. If an international reach is to be met with organic growth, an account would have to be very big and reputable, but that is not very hard to achieve should the designs produced be unique enough but still easily fancied by the mass public. Price will also factor into consideration but that is up to the branding and purpose of the seller. One is also able to view reviews of the product before purchasing as most sellers have a highlight where they repost the customer’s reviews.
However, not all shops allow for international purchases as shipping is difficult to figure out and frankly not always worth it if all a customer purchase is one sticker sheet. Next, while both Instagram and Facebook have shopping sections, unless you know and follow the brands, you may never be able to find a super wide selection.
Secondly, it will be Korean shopping sites. Most known sticker artists are from Korea so it makes sense that there are multiple websites to sell the goods. Such websites include Seoul Sticker Shop, 2tomark, Jelly Crew and Pinu Planet. Taking into account that I severely do not understand the language in which these websites are presented, I am unable to make the most accurate judgements. However, it makes sense that these sites are primarily selling artists’ designed products which is similar to my concept. They seem to have different tabs for different artists. If it functions like any normal shopping site, I am sure they also have sorting functions, whether by price or by product category. You know exactly what is still in stock and what is not. And you can usually tell immediately how much you have to pay in total, including shipping.
However, like probably most other people on this planet who are not Korean fluent, there is great difficulty in navigating the sites. We can only make assumptions based on the images we see. Payment methods and settling the shipping modes will be much harder with the language barrier in place. Also, there are brands on multiple platforms, which may facilitate different prices based on the commission the website organization wishes to earn and the various different business models. This makes it a hassle for buyers to find the best sites or the sites with the most varieties.
Lastly, it will be e-commerce sites. While similar to the Korean sites, it facilitates a wider selection of items that include household products to fashion pieces. Such platforms include Taobao, Etsy and Shopee. From my observations, Taobao and Shopee have lots of dupes where a cheaper quality or a copy and paste of the original design was crafted. There are also smaller shops or China artists’ designs sold there. These platforms are mostly crafted with an international audience in mind so the language barrier and shipping methods are less prevalent. Etsy is more creative-focused in general so most of the items are in the same category or for arts and crafts.
The problem with such platforms is the vast amount of varieties provided. This means that one either has to know the name of the shop they wish to purchase from or scroll endlessly if they opened the app without a goal in mind. There is also the issue of copyright and ethicality whereby while the dupe version of the sticker designs might be cheaper, it discredits the hard work the artists put in. Based on most of the bullet journaling content I have seen on Instagram, many bullet journalists prefer to use authentic stickers and will actively tag the creators in their spread posts. Also, while the language used is mainly English, not everyone may be fluent in English.