Short form. The full breakdown is in the deep dive, the tracker itself is here.
I built the competitor tracker together with an AI tool, but I decided the structure myself: I split competitors into 5 segments (direct, aspirational, budget, informal, indirect) because each one needs to be fought differently. I took the core idea — mystery shopping — from the unit-economics work: response speed moves conversion more than anything else, and I deliberately connected these two projects. My first version came out too "polished" — I stated each competitor's exact response time in minutes, even though I have no real access to their Direct inbox to measure that. I caught this and redid it: I replaced invented numbers with a real classification (Facebook's official responsiveness-badge thresholds) and a real conversion curve from the lead-response data. What mattered to me was showing not a perfect result on the first try, but that I can check my own work for honesty in the numbers.
A chain competitor, a premium mono-brand, and a solo technician compete in different ways — on price, trust, or personal relationships. The same response doesn't fit all of them.
Mystery shopping means messaging a competitor as a would-be client to honestly measure their real service. But in this portfolio I have no real access to their Direct inbox, so instead of invented numbers I use a real, publicly documented classification — Facebook's official responsiveness-badge thresholds — and assign each segment a realistic level, not seconds.
Brands fail to respond to 80%+ of social-media messages [Sprout Social Index] — that's the market norm. And per a real study of 100,000+ leads, responding within 5 minutes instead of 30 gives a 100× higher chance of reaching a lead and a 21× higher chance of qualifying interest [Oldroyd/HBR 2011]. So "respond quickly" isn't hygiene — it's an open competitive niche.
No, they're fictional — this is a portfolio, I can't make verifiable claims about real companies. But prices are checked against real Kyiv waxing chains (SugarMe, LaserVille) and the niche's franchise economics, and every market pattern (responsiveness thresholds, the conversion curve, real ratings on barb.ua, Instagram engagement) is credited to a source, Ukrainian wherever one existed.
Weekly — competitors' creatives. Monthly — mystery shopping. Quarterly — a full review of prices and the SWOT.
Three concrete things: (1) a Direct response SLA of 1 minute (stricter than Facebook's official badge) — per Project 1's data, this drives a multiple-fold conversion increase; (2) combo service bundles (waxing + brows at a discount), which LUMÉ doesn't have yet but Belle Époque does; (3) a presence on Google Maps/reviews (nobody in the chain handles this right now — while the real PLAN D chain holds 5.0★ precisely because of it) plus an automated after-hours response — 46–50% of industry bookings happen exactly while the salon is closed.
A weakness can be fixed inside the company. A threat is something a competitor does that we don't control directly.
The first version of the analysis stated each competitor's exact response time in minutes — but I couldn't actually measure that, so it was false precision. I re-checked every number, and wherever there was no real source, I replaced it with an honest estimate or a real industry classification with a cited source. To me, that matters more than pretty numbers on the first try.
SWOT is a list of observations, TOWS is a plan of action. I paired the columns against each other and found that a ≤1-minute response SLA closes two cells at once: the strongest opportunity (a vacant niche) and the sharpest threat (informal technicians pull clients away with exactly that fast personal contact). That's why it's priority #1, not just one idea on a list.