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SWOT Analysis: A Simple Way to Find Your Competitive Edge (Plus a Free Template)

  • 11 minute read

Running a business is hard work. With so many different things pulling at your attention, it’s easy to get caught up in the minutia at the expense of the big picture.

The only way to make sure your business sticks around for the long haul is to periodically step back and look at things from a broader perspective.

That’s where SWOT analysis—Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats—comes in. A SWOT analysis will push you to look at your ecommerce business’ potential. You won’t just examine how your company is performing today, you’ll investigate how it’s going to perform next week, next month, and even next year.

Find your competitive edge

Free: SWOT Analysis Template

Get your free SWOT Analysis Template. Use this free PDF to future-proof your business by identifying your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

SWOT analysis: definition

“SWOT analysis” sounds like some kind of scary accounting process—it’s not. Doing a SWOT analysis doesn’t involve addition or subtraction, but it is very helpful.

A SWOT analysis lists the good and bad things about your business, both from an internal and external viewpoint, by identifying your business’:

  • Strengths
  • Weaknesses
  • Opportunities
  • Threats

A SWOT analysis forces you to think about the future. You know how your business is doing today, but do you know where it will be tomorrow? This process will help you figure it out and—more importantly—create a strategic plan for it.

SWOT Analysis image
Photo courtesy of: Oberlo

Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors, while opportunities and threats are external factors. Internal factors come from within yourecommerce business, while external factors come from the larger environment surrounding your business.

Strengths and weaknesses mostly focus on the present, while opportunities and threats mostly focus on the future. What is happening versus what could happen.

Strengths and weaknesses are under your control. It may be difficult, but you can change them over time. Examples include:

  • Company culture
  • Reputation
  • Customer list
  • Geography
  • Staff
  • Partnerships
  • Intellectual property
  • Assets

Conversely, opportunities and threats are typically outside of your control. You can try and plan for them or influence a positive change, but at the end of the day, it’s not up to you. Examples include:

  • Regulation
  • Suppliers
  • Competitors
  • Economy
  • Market size
  • Trends
  • Financing
  • Weather

Why do a SWOT analysis?

Both large and small businesses should do a SWOT analysis. If you’restarting a new business, a SWOT analysis can help you decide on a business model and gain competitive advantage. Doing it will inform your break-even analysis and give a more realistic picture of what you’re signing up for. Both should be included in abusiness planif you need to seek financing.

现有的部sinesses should perform a SWOT analysis annually. Think of it as your annual State of the Business. Having it will allow you to keep your business running smoothly, anticipate problems, work on necessary changes or improvements, and make smarter decisions throughout the year. Basically—an annual SWOT analysis will keep you from losing touch with your business, customers, and industry.

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How to do a SWOT analysis

A SWOT analysis is far from scientific. There’s no objective way of measuring how well you do one. It relies on your ability to observe and recall internal and external factors that can impact your business. It’s not about making accurate predictions so much as it is about knowing what to plan for.

Step 1: Create a SWOT analysis matrix

Your first step is to create a SWOT analysis matrix, or download ourSWOT analysis template. The 2 x 2 matrix has one box for each area: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

SWOT Analysis Matrix

Step 2: Gather the right people

While important business decisions typically need to be made by founders and senior-level employees, there’s no such thing as “too many cooks in the kitchen” with a SWOT analysis. Having more input, even from people who don’t fully understand your business, will only make it stronger.

You may also find that you’ll get better buy-in on the strategy decisions that come out of the analysis if you include your employees in the process. Heck, even your customers can provide valuable insight.

SWOT analysis brainstorm

Step 3: Host a brainstorming session

Once you’ve assembled your team, host a brainstorming session with everyone involved. You can either list strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats together (better for small teams) or ask participants to create and submit lists individually (better for bigger teams).

Whether you’re working alone or with a diverse group, getting the brainstorming started can be tough. Here’s some help to get things moving.

Strengths

These are positive factors that affect how your business performs. They are internal strengths within your control that reflect your current situation. To discover your strengths, think about the following questions:

  • What are we good at?
  • What do we do better than anyone else?
  • What is our competitive advantage?
  • What do we do that no one else does?
  • What resources do we have at our disposal?
  • What are our ecommerce company’s advantages?
  • What advantages do our employees have?
  • What valuable assets does our company have?
  • What do our customers like about our business?

Weaknesses

These are negative, internal factors that affect how your business performs. Although they may be difficult to change, they should be within your control. Some things for you and your team to consider include:

  • What are we bad at?
  • What do our competitors do better than us?
  • What do our customers complain about?
  • What disadvantages does our team carry?
  • What is holding us back?
  • Which resources are we lacking?
  • 我们可以改进什么?

人事处portunities

These are external opportunities that could affect your business in a positive way. They may be largely out of your control, but you can choose to leverage them. Some questions to consider are:

  • What potential regulation changes could help our business?
  • Is the market changing in a favorable way?
  • Is the current economy going to affect us in a positive way?
  • What opportunities have we not pursued yet?
  • What new opportunities are becoming available?
  • Is our cost of goods going down?
  • Is there a way for us to acquire useful resources that we do not already have?

Threats

These are external factors that could affect your business in a negative way. They may be largely out of your control, but you can create a contingency plan to minimize the damage. Consider the following:

  • Who are our existing competitors?
  • What new entrants to the market could threaten our ecommerce business?
  • Is our market size declining?
  • Is the industry changing in a way that could negatively impact our business?
  • Is our cost of goods increasing?
  • Is a supply we rely on becoming scarce?
  • Are regulations changing in a way that could hurt our business?
  • Is ourmanufacturerunreliable?

Include everything that comes up in each category. Don’t worry about how important each observation is at this stage—the idea is to not miss anything. Just write it all down.

Step 4: Fill the gaps

Once you’ve exhausted everyone’s ideas and come up with four big lists, it’s time to start filling in gaps where additional explanation is needed. This is an opportunity for you and your team to ask questions that will determine how important each item on the list is.

Ask everyone in the group to choose their top three items for each category. Most likely, a pattern will emerge that will show you what to focus on.

Even if it’s only you working on the analysis—don’t worry! In this case, you are likely involved in all parts of the business and will have good insight into what you need to consider. Crack a bottle of wine or brew a pot of tea and dig in!

Free: SWOT Analysis Template

Get your free SWOT Analysis Template. Use this free PDF to future-proof your business by identifying your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Using your SWOT analysis

As business owners, we’re constantly having to prioritize what gets our attention. Tough decisions about resource allocation are unavoidable. No matter how successful you become, you’ll always have to pick and choose where to direct your attention. A SWOT analysis helps you determine which areas to focus your energy and resources.

Narrow your lists

Start with the lists from your brainstorming session. Now work on narrowing down those lists so they fit on a single page, arranged in a 2 x 2 matrix (example below). You’ll likely narrow your list based on two considerations: how powerful a factor is and how likely a factor is to happen.

例如,依靠一个大客户的小羊k of your revenue is a powerful weakness: it leaves you in a vulnerable position—even if you’re pretty sure they’re not going anywhere. Conversely, even if you’re not worried about your rent increasing, you need to plan for an increase if lease negotiations are imminent.

Even after you’ve created your single-page matrix, keep the unabridged lists around for future reference. You’re not going to focus on the rest of the list right now, but being aware of it will ensure you don’t miss any important issues, especially as situations change. What is less important now may become critical in the future, and you need to be aware of that possibility. You can always rearrange your list or come back to an item later.

Create strategies

For each of the items on your final list, create a strategy to exploit the advantages and opportunities, and to deal with the weaknesses and threats. These initial strategies don’t need to be particularly complex or robust, although you may choose to expand on them later. For now, just create a broad plan of action.

Also, keep in mind that different factors can work together to balance each other out. How can you use your strengths to improve your weaknesses? How can you exploit opportunities to neutralize your threats? Can you leverage your strengths to better take advantage of opportunities? Is there a weakness you need to prioritize in order to prevent a threat?

SWOT analysis example

Here’s a sample SWOT analysis for an online tailored-shirt business. Although many more factors came up during brainstorming, these were deemed to be the most important.

Strengths

  • Locally made shirts mean faster turnaround on orders
  • Many repeat customers who promote the business
  • Good search engine rankings drive free traffic

Weaknesses

  • Pricing on locally made shirts is not competitive
  • Higher costs mean fewer fabric options due to inventory costs
  • Customers don't like taking their own measurements

人事处portunities

  • Using technology to simplify the measurement process could increase conversions
  • New paid advertising channels such as Instagram and Pinterest could be effective
  • Custom made clothing is currently trending

Threats

  • Several competitors are currently undercutting prices
  • Website is difficult to use on a mobile device even though mobile traffic is increasing
  • A strong dollar could drive down international sales

Think about what business strategies you could implement to take advantage of this information. Remember, there are no right or wrong answers here.

Conduct your SWOT analysis today

There’s no doubt that a SWOT analysis isn’t just a nice thing to have. As ecommerce continues to grow, businesses needcompetitive analysistools to stand out against competitors, break into new markets, and meet their goals—be it raising brand awareness, driving traffic, or increasing revenue.

Start working on your SWOT analysis to make sure you don’t continue to operate with your eyes closed. You could also understand your market using this freecompetitive analysis template.It’ll keep your business on point and put your marketing efforts to better use.

Illustration by Eugenia Mello

SWOT Analysis FAQ

Why is SWOT analysis important?

SWOT分析是一个战略规划的框架for identifying a person’s or organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to competition. It helps you uncover what you do well and where you can improve, and create strategies to achieve greater success.

What are the 4 dimensions of SWOT analysis?

A SWOT analysis involves four dimensions: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Internal and external environments are taken into consideration when performing a SWOT analysis because they can affect the success of your business or project.

What is the difference between SWOT analysis and SWOT matrix?

A SWOT analysis is a business planning process to help improve decision making. A SWOT matrix is the visual toolkit for documenting ideas and helping create actionable plans.

How do you write a good SWOT analysis?

  1. Create a SWOT matrix.
  2. Gather stakeholders.
  3. Host a brainstorming session.
  4. List your strengths and weaknesses.
  5. List your opportunities and threats.
  6. Fill in the gaps.
  7. Put your SWOT analysis to use.
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