How to monitor competitors in foreign markets

To keep track of competitors in foreign markets, decide what you follow (specific companies, whole product markets, or a country's trade as a whole) and which changes matter to you: new markets and products, buyers moving between suppliers, prices per kilogram, volumes and market shares. Take a baseline from company profiles and market reports, then let monitoring tell you when the data changes, and check every signal before you act on it.

Most companies look at competitors once, when they enter a market, and then only hear about changes from customers, often too late. Foreign trade data changes every month, and the changes that matter usually show up there before they are visible in price lists or the press. Below is what to watch, how to set it up on Orion Markets and how to read what comes in.

What changes are worth watching

• Markets. A competitor starts selling to a new country or stops selling to one.
• Products. It starts trading a new product group, which can mean a new line that will compete with yours.
• Customers. A large buyer moves from a competitor to another seller, or the other way round. A buyer that has just left a competitor is a customer worth calling.
• Prices. A competitor's price per kilogram changes sharply while the market price stays the same. That is a price decision, not a market move.
• Volumes and shares. A competitor's sales or share of a market grows or falls for several months in a row.
• Supply. Goods start coming from a new country of origin, or by a new route through a third country.
• The whole market. Total imports reach a record or fall sharply, a major player enters or leaves, or the market becomes more concentrated in a few hands.

Step 1. Make a short list of what to follow

• Companies. Your three to ten main competitors. For each, find the legal entity that actually trades: a brand may import or export through a separate trading company, and a group may have several. Search on Company profiles by name or tax ID.
• Markets. The product markets that matter to you. A market here is a product code, a country and a direction (imports or exports), for example imports of your product into your two main export countries.
• Countries. If a whole country's demand matters to you, its trade as a whole.

Keep the list short. Ten well-chosen companies and markets give you more than fifty you never look at.

Step 2. Take a baseline

A change only means something if you know what is normal. Before you start monitoring, write down the current picture:

• From the company profile: the competitor's main products and partner countries, how regularly it ships, and the Competitors section, which lists other companies trading the same products in that market with their shares.
• From the market report in Analyze markets by product: the largest importers and exporters and their shares, prices per kilogram, the main countries of origin, how concentrated the market is and which months are its peak season.
• From Trends: which products are growing or falling in imports and exports, to see whether your market moves with the general trend.

How to read these figures without common mistakes is covered in How to read foreign trade figures.

Step 3. Set up monitoring

Orion Markets has three kinds of monitoring. All of them work the same way: when new trade data is loaded for a country, the latest month is compared with earlier periods, and the changes you chose to follow appear as events. You get an email and see the events in your account, as a timeline or grouped by signal.

Companies: Trade Intelligence

Trade Intelligence follows one company's trade, both its sales and its purchases. You turn it on from the company's profile and choose the signals, which include:

• New market and Market exit: the company started or stopped selling to a country, or buying in it;
• New product group: it started selling or buying goods with a new 6-digit HS code;
• New competitor: a new player with noticeable turnover appeared in the company's product groups;
• Buyers and suppliers and Customer switching: a large new buyer or supplier appeared, a regular one disappeared or cut volume sharply, a buyer moved to other sellers or came from a competitor;
• Price shock: the price per kilogram for a product code changed sharply, and the whole market did not move the same way;
• Volume spike, Sustained trend and Market share: a sharp monthly jump or drop, turnover over three months up or down by more than 30% against the same months last year, a noticeable change in the company's share of a product group in a country;
• Origin switch and New shipping route: goods of the same group started coming from a new country of origin, or through a third country;
• Company went silent: no shipments for three months in a row on every market where it traded regularly;
• Sanctions lists: the name of the company or one of its counterparties resembles an entry on the OFAC, EU, UK or UN sanctions lists. The match is by name only and is not a verdict; check the company yourself.

Markets: Markets Intelligence

Markets Intelligence follows a whole market: one or more product codes, a country and a direction. You turn it on from a market report or a catalog card. The signals cover:

• a sharp rise or fall in the market's monthly volume, and record high or low months;
• a sharp change in the market's average price per kilogram;
• a significant new player entering the market, or a large established player leaving it;
• the market becoming much more or much less concentrated;
• a new country of origin with a significant share, or supply moving from one country of origin to another;
• demand rising or falling for several months in a row.

Countries: Countries Intelligence

Countries Intelligence looks at a country's foreign trade as a whole and flags coordinated shifts across many products, not a jump in one code. The scenarios include a building boom (more heavy equipment, cement, steel and electrical goods), import substitution (more machinery and raw materials while finished consumer goods fall), a shift in the shares of partner countries across many product groups, stockpiling of strategic goods, of food and energy, and a sharp fall in the number of importers. You turn it on in the Countries section.

What it costs

Monitoring is part of the paid plans. Each plan sets how many companies, markets and countries you can follow at the same time; you can pause a market to free a slot, and nothing extra is charged from your balance. What each plan includes is on the pricing page.

Step 4. Read signals with care

• One month is not a trend. A volume spike can be one large shipment or the start of a season. Wait for the next month, or check whether the same months last year looked similar.
• Compare with the market. If a competitor's sales fell but the whole market fell as much, nothing changed in your favour.
• Data arrives with a lag. Events come when new data for a country is loaded, and the latest month differs by country. The periods are on the data coverage page.
• Check before you act. Before you call a buyer or change prices, open the profile or the market report and look at the detail behind the event.

Step 5. Turn signals into action

• A competitor lost a buyer. The buyer is looking for a supplier or has just found one. Contact it early, with an offer for the product it buys.
• A competitor raised its price per kilogram. There may be room for your price, or the competitor moved to a better grade. Look at its products before you decide.
• A competitor entered a new market. It found demand there. Check that market for your product too.
• A new country of origin appears in your market. Buyers are trying cheaper sources. Prepare an answer on price or on what makes your product different.
• A major player left the market. Its customers need a new supplier.

Example: watching fruit imports into Armenia

Suppose you export citrus fruit to Armenia. The public profile of Best Fruits AM LLC, Armenia shows in its "In brief" block that the company is an importer, with over 2,200 foreign trade shipments recorded from October 2025 to May 2026, main goods under codes 0805 (citrus fruit), 0803 (bananas) and 0810 (other fresh fruit), and main partner countries Georgia, Iran, Ecuador, South Africa and Armenia.

If this company is a customer or a competitor of yours, Trade Intelligence on its profile would tell you, for example, when its citrus starts coming from a new country of origin, when a large supplier disappears from its purchases, or when it starts importing a new product group. Markets Intelligence on citrus imports into Armenia would show the same changes for the whole market: a new country of origin with a real share, a new major importer, or a record month.

What monitoring will not show

• Contract terms: discounts, payment terms and exclusivity are not in trade data.
• Countries outside coverage: trade between two countries that are both outside the data is not visible.
• Local purchases: if a competitor buys through a local distributor, the data shows the distributor as the importer.
• The latest weeks: data arrives with a lag of one or more months.

Common mistakes

• Following too much. If you get more events than you read, cut the list to the companies and markets you would act on.
• Watching the brand, not the legal entity. Make sure you follow the company that actually trades.
• Reacting to one month. Most sharp changes need a second month of data to confirm them.
• Treating a name match as a sanctions finding. It is a reason to check, nothing more.

To start, find your main competitor on Company profiles and look at its profile, or open the report for your product and country in Analyze markets by product. How to find out who your competitors buy from is covered in How to find out who your competitors buy from.