Positioning analysis of Shopify versus Miva using SmokeLadder
Video Transcript:
In this episode we’re looking at B2B Ecommerce platforms to see how Miva can improve their positioning to take on market leader, Shopify.
We looked at both of their websites, analyzed them both, compared and contrasted them, and found some different opportunities where we think Miva might be able to move up and take on Shopify in some new ways.
Website reviews of Miva and Shopify
First, let’s look at Miva’s home page. So we can see their messaging focused on being fast, flexible, complete, best ecommerce platform for modern B2B, take control of your online store, B2B ecommerce solution design for growth. Sounds pretty good overall. The focus on B2B specifically is a strength for sure.
Then we can jump over to Shopify.
Now this is not Shopify’s homepage. This is a dedicated landing page. They have for B2B. And if we come down here, we can see in their sub headline, grow and run your wholesale business with tools optimized for flexibility, customization.
Already, we can see some overlap with the things that Miva was focused on, which already kind of weakens their position a little bit.
Positioning analysis of Miva vs Shopify
Let’s take a look at our app and let’s see how they scored and, what else they’re focused on. So total positioning score overall, they did great.
We look at two different things overall here. We’re looking at the value, the overall points of value that they provide and differentiation. In this case, we’re looking at the category of marketing tools.
If we come down here, we can see all the points of value that we grade them on. This is these are the points of value we grade every every website on.
We’re scoring them on a scale of one to ten. As we move across, we can see on the right hand side, the points where they’re the strongest, So quality expertise, integration, flexible, configurable, all things that if you were in the market for an ecommerce platform are things that you would definitely care about.
Let’s now jump over to the differentiation tab.
This first one is we’re comparing it against category averages. These are averages that we develop internally in our app based on all the sites we’ve analyzed.
They’ve got really good separation here. We come down. We can see they’ve got some really good strengths, integration, configurable, lower costs.
But what we’re really interested in with this is how do they compare with Shopify’s landing page?
We come down here and we can see it gets a little bit more muddy.
As we move across here, we can see There are some points where the orange line representing MIVA is ahead and does have some advantages, but we can see there’s a lot of areas where Shopify and blue has advantages over MIVA. And then there are a bunch of points where they’re just sort of equal.
If we come down scroll down here, we can see the specific points where Miva is the strongest or has the the most separation from Shopify, expertise, lower cost are the two biggest ones. Expert is a good one. It was interesting looking at the history of these two company. Shopify has been around a long time. They’ve been around since two thousand six, but MIPA has actually been around even longer. They’ve been around since nineteen ninety six.
In the tech space, maybe being around even longer in some cases might not be an advantage. You might view them as maybe being less fresh, less innovative. I don’t know. But overall, it still shows that they have really deep expertise. They’ve got a lot of years in the space, which I think overall is a good thing. Lower cost is not something we would typically want to really emphasize from a positioning point. At least not have it be the primary point of of emphasis for the position.
Only because it’s something that can always be undercut by another competitor.
So that’s a good thing. Obviously everybody wants to save money, everybody wants efficiency. So it’s not that that’s bad. It’s just that we might not want that to be the main focus point of the positioning.
Generating revenue, good, but kind of overlapped.
And organize is another interesting one. That I wanna dig into just a little bit more. The weaknesses we can see Shopify’s strengths, which are Miva’s weaknesses, reputation, of course, would be a strength for Shopify, scalability configurable.
But let’s jump back over to Miva’s site because there’s a section down here at the bottom. They talk about various features, growing revenue, different different aspects of the solution of their platform. Nothing that really, really stands out, but just sort of gives you an idea of what they can do. At the bottom here though, there’s this really interesting value prop of. Bring us the problems other platforms can’t handle.
This really leans into that idea of expertise that they have. It also leans into organization.
So being able to handle super complex stores with different complex setups, maybe They have lots of products, lots of skews, lots of variations.
Miva can handle that, and they’ve got the expertise to back it up.
They’ve also got this really great line here around legendary support.
This is a really nice phrase and also an area where I think they could separate themselves from Shopify.
If we come back over to the analysis, we can see that responsive is one of the points of value that we look at and Miva didn’t score particularly high in this. They scored actually slightly below Shopify, but I wonder if there’s some opportunity here for them to lean into that more to really lean into an identity built around expertise, responsiveness, being able to handle the most complex stories and businesses.
As a business owner, if I have a complex B2B business, knowing that a team or a solution or service like this really has my back is gonna help me get my site set up properly, help me walk through complex problems, that’s a big selling point, and gives me a little more confidence to maybe wanna try them over defaulting to a market leader like Shopify.
Where Miva has opportunities to win
So I think those are the areas where there might be some real opportunity for them to lean in. So rather than just talking about revenue growth being flexible, things that really overlap with Shopify, could they lean into we have deep expertise in B2B. We’ve got your back. We’re the most responsive support team that you’re gonna find, and we can organize and handle the most complex. Stores. That to me is a position that they could really build around.
I’ll look at one last thing in the AI insights and the decision maker insights. There’s one line in here from the COO position where it says, however, insights into onboarding training or continual support would assure me of smoother operations.
So we can see here the COO position is is craving that. They’re craving better support And then down here in the value proposition evaluation, we can see the the the summary line here is complete B2B ecommerce platform with legendary support. Even though legendary support was all the way down at the bottom of the page, that little phrase got pulled up as part of the core value. And I think that just shows how strong that phrasing is. And also this idea of adopts a client centric approach with white glove support as a memorable strength.
That’s something that I think they need to emphasize more and really lean into and double down on. This is just a quick analysis, of course. Obviously, you can do a lot more with the tool that we have and you can dig into your own competitors and Take some time, analyze your site, analyze some competitors, and see where you could challenge your market leader.