The global athletic footwear market is a competitive one, and the brands that dominate it are constantly innovating to stay ahead of their competitors. As a result, there's an enormous amount of data about running shoes and how people use them—and we've used it to create this guide to analyze the best running shoe brands.
We're going to take a look at some of the most popular brands in the industry. In this blog, we conducted an analysis of products in the running shoe category of six major brands from Amazon, the world’s leading eCommerce company. With this, our goal is to understand the various financial strategies different brands have taken to attract customers and the customers' responses to them.
The 6 major brands we are going to analyze are:
Data Attributes
The dataset used for the analysis and visualization purposes consists of 632 records and the following fields:
Product URL: It is the address of a particular product on the web.
Product Name: It identifies a specific product.
Brand: It represents the brand the product belongs to, for example, Nike.
MRP: It is the market price of a product.
Sales Price: It is the price of a product after applying discounts.
Discount Percentage: It is the percentage deducted from the MRP of a product.
Number of Reviews: It is the total number of reviews a product has.
Star Rating: It is a field used as a relative measure of performance. Higher the rating, the better the performance.
The Tools used for Analysis
We used Pycharm Community, a Python IDE, to analyze and visualize the dataset. Pandas, which is a library in Python, was used for the analysis and manipulation of the data. For the visualization part, i.e., for plotting the graphs, we used matplotlib, which is another library in Python.
By using these tools, we analyzed the data and plotted the following 8 graphs:
1. Product range of the 6 brands
The product range is defined as the variations of a single product that are similar yet distinct. The different versions of a product are designed to target different sections of customers. Therefore, having a wide range of products is important for brands as it allows them to address the needs and preferences of different segments of customers.
In this case, we look at the product range in the running shoes category of the six major brands mentioned above. From our analysis, we came to the following conclusion:
Adidas has the largest product range (195).
Reebok has the smallest product range (30).
2. Products with and without discount
Discounts are a way to create demand for a product and to attract new customers. When a customer sees that he/she can save money, he/she is attracted to it. They also tend to share this; hence, it is an effective way to reach new and inactive customers and create demand for a new product.
Special discounts are an effective way of keeping regular customers loyal and attract new customers referred by them. There is another category of customers - the indecisive ones. They are reluctant to buy a product due to the high price, and providing discounts persuades them to take a decision in favor of buying the product.
After the analysis of the data we have, we can infer from the graph that:
Adidas has the most number of products on discount (94).
PUMA and Reebok have the least number of products on discount (15).
3. Entry and Exit price of products in each brand
The entry price of products in a brand is the price of the product with the lowest price in that brand. Similarly, the exit price of products in a brand is the price of the product with the highest price in that brand. The difference between the latter and the former gives the price range of products of that brand. Maintaining this price range is crucial as a price too low or too high will turn off the customer's interest. When a brand has maintained competitive entry and exit prices, it will attract more customers.
With the data in hand, the entry and exit price of each brand is computed, and we observed the following:
Reebok has the lowest entry price of $36.
PUMA has the highest entry price of $48.
Reebok has the lowest exit price of $164.
Nike has the highest exit price of $551.
4. Average discount percentage
The average discount percentage is the average of all the discounts offered by a brand. In this context, it is the average of all the discounts offered by a brand in the running shoe category.
Discount creates demand and attracts customers. It has the same impact as that of entry and exit price, i.e., too low or too high a discount can turn off customer interest. The frequency of discounts also matters in a business scenario. Frequent discounts deteriorate the value of the product. Also, it attracts customers who buy only when there is a discount and may not value the product. Such customers may not be of great value in the company’s long run. Therefore, providing an average discount and maintaining the frequency of discounts is an essential factor in the sales of a product.
The analysis of the data evaluates the average discount percentage in the running shoes category of the six brands, and the following conclusion is reached:
Reebok offers the highest average discount percentage (15.57%).
Nike offers the lowest average discount percentage (2.89%).
5. Number of Ratings
Rating is a source of feedback from customers who have used the product. Therefore, it has a significant impact on the sale of a product and the growth of a brand. A positive rating increases the confidence and trust of the customer in the product. On the contrary, negative ratings lead to losing customers.
In our analysis, we set the base positive rating as 3.5. Ratings above 3.5 are considered as positive ratings, whereas those below are considered to be negative ratings. The result of our analysis is as follows:
Adidas has the highest number of ratings (169).
Reebok has the lowest number of ratings (28).
6. Average Rating across brands
The average rating is the average of all the ratings of all the products of that brand. The average rating of a brand tells us about the performance of the brand. It has the same significance as the individual rating of products. A good average rating will attract customers and enhance the market of the brand. Both positive and negative ratings contribute towards this. Here, we have taken the rating of products in the running shoes category of each brand.
The analysis of the data in hand shows the average rating in the running shoes category across each brand as follows:
ASICS has the highest average rating (4.2).
PUMA has the lowest average rating (3.2).
7. Discount range across products
As we know now, discounts are a way to create demand and attract new customers. But, as discussed earlier, there is a range of discounts below and above which the customer loses interest in the product or which reduces the value of the product. It is an essential factor to consider before offering discounts, as no brand wishes to lose its customers.
From our analysis of the data in hand, we came to the following conclusions:
387 out of 632 products have no discount.
The highest number of products fall within the discount range of 20-30% (81). It implies that both the brand and the customer prefer products that fall in this discount range.
Only 1 product falls in the range of 60-70% and 7 in the 50-60% range.
8. Mean and Median price
In our context, mean price is defined as the average price of all products in the running shoes category, and the median price is the price of the middlemost product in the running shoes category, arranged from low to high. Although they have different meanings, together, they have a significant role in determining the image of a brand. A brand whose mean and median prices are significantly far apart implies instability in the brand’s product pricing. So, mean and median prices are key factors in determining stability in a brand’s product pricing.
From our data, we observed the following:
Nike has the highest mean price of $153.07
Reebok has the lowest mean price of $70.65
Nike has the highest median price of $130
Reebok has the lowest mean price of $62.09
Conclusion
The eCommerce industry has grown immensely over the last few years. In order to stay in the competition, companies need to analyze the trend in the market and within the company. Therefore, analysis and visualization of competitor data play a vital role in the development and sustainability of any company.
The aim of this blog is to better understand the various financial strategies different brands adapt to enhance their market and increase product sales. This analysis showed the various factors which can affect the performance of a company and the response of customers to them. The visualization of the results of our analysis helps us to reach a conclusion faster.
In this blog, we analyzed and visualized the various factors which can affect the performance of a brand and the demand for a product. For this, we took data from products in the running shoes category of six major brands, analyzed it, visualized it, and reached certain conclusions from it.
You can download the data used for analysis from this link.
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