Competition

SmallBusiness.com: The free small business resource

Competition refers to other companies or sources that provide products, solutions or services similar to yours. While small businesses often consider competition to be the easy-to-identify businesses that appear to be competing directly for purchases from existing and potential customers (the store down the street), often "competition" can come from unidentified or unforseen sources: for instance, a new innovation that solves a problem related to your service or a new provider of the service online or in another location. Or, in many cases, "competition" can be in the form of such in-direct factors as apathy or other competition for the attention of your intended customer or client.