Review our online library, below, for papers and case studies covering competitor price monitoring and competitor content monitoring
PAPERS
6 Ways to Use Competitor Price Monitoring to Maximize Profit
To maintain profits in an increasingly competitive market, retailers need to efficiently identify the price point that drives sales and protects margins. The pressure is on as consumers research online for the best prices, and use mobile devices while shopping or “show rooming” in stores. Prices are being driven downwards, resulting in lower margins. To gain market share without sacrificing profit, it is critical to have accurate information to price products high enough to maximize revenue and low enough to close sales. Continue reading to find six ways taht you can use competitor price monitoring to maximize profit.
Six Best Practices for Competitor Price Monitoring
You know your strategy and your brand positioning and have a pretty good idea of how you compare to your competitors, so is there a need to monitor their pricing in detail? The answer is almost certainly yes. If your products compete with other companies for the affections of shoppers, you need to know what those competitors are doing and when they are doing it. Regular and accurate pricing, promotion, and assortment monitoring helps you know your competition so you can stay ahead of them when in the planning stage, ensure you are meeting your seasonal goals, and provides you with the information you need to make pricing, promotion, and assortment decisions to achieve your profit goals.
Competitor Price Monitoring Approaches: Mapping Versus Crawling
There are two methods used to provide competitor product intelligence, including competitor price monitoring data. The first is by far the most common and involves sending spiders to crawl predefined websites for identical products based on the item name and/or SKU number. The second method is mapping products based on rules and attributes identified by the originating retailer.
The first method, based on automation, is far cheaper, but assumes that all retailers will use identical or similar names for products or publish the manufacturers’ SKU number. As we know, neither of these reliably occurs. What a manufacturer might call a “Brand X Children’s Cuddler”, one retailer may call a “Baby Snuggle Blanket”. Also, most companies provide their own part number, if any, not the part number of SKU provided by the manufacturer.
Manual mapping is far more expensive than automatic crawling, but provides several benefits. First, it can provide more data, more accurately by having products properly mapped. Second, it allows the flexibility to map not only identical products, but any items that a retailer deems to be competing with its products.
3 Ways to Drive Sales Using Competitor Content Monitoring
Providing better online product content than your competitors’ drives more website visitors, increases sales, and decreases returns. Efficient, consistent competitor content monitoring can help you quickly create a superior shopping experience, while also providing you with insights to adjustments in competitors’ strategies.
Continue reading to learn how competitor content monitoring can help you track changes in competitor strategy, drive website traffic, increase sales, and decrease returns:
Five Reasons to Monitor Competitors Prices
You know your strategy and your brand positioning and have a pretty good idea of how you compare to your competitors, so is there a need to monitor their pricing in detail? The answer is almost certainly yes. If your products compete with other companies for the affections of shoppers, you need to know what those competitors are doing and when they are doing it. Regular and accurate pricing, promotion, and assortment monitoring helps you know your competition so you can stay ahead of them when in the planning stage, ensure you are meeting your seasonal goals, and provides you with the information you need to make pricing, promotion, and assortment decisions to achieve your profit goals.
Online Price Monitoring for Store-Based Retailers
All retailers need good competitor pricing intelligence gathered accurately and efficiently. However, the traditional method of having merchandisers gather data by going store-to-store is expensive, time-consuming, and incomplete.
Online product pricing intelligence provides beneficial information to all retailers, whether online or store-based. Store-based retailers have three main competitors: other store-based retailers, online retailers, and online marketplaces. Online pricing intelligence reflects accurate data for all three of these competitors.
Seven Reasons to Monitor Your Competitors’ Content
Competitor content tracking provides you with information needed to meet your overall marketing position and pricing goals by providing you with current and trending data. Read on for seven strategic reasons why monitoring your competitors’ online product content gives you a strategic edge.
Read on for seven key reasons to monitor your competitors’ content.
CASE STUDIES
Competitor Price Monitoring Comparing Bundled and Bulk Products to Competitors’ Item Price
The client sells bundled and bulk discounted items and wanted to be able to compare their prices to those of their competitors. As their competitors do not bundle or bulk items, they needed a competitor price monitoring solution that would break out the bundled and bulk items to individual prices and accurately compare the unit prices to those of their competitors.
Comparing In-Store Only Items to Competitor Online Prices and Assortments
The client wanted to generate massive quantities of accurate competitive pricing and assortment data that could be integrated into their internal solution. They wanted to use the data not only to better price their products, but also to have a comprehensive understanding of the competitive landscape on private label items.
They also needed to know which of their store-only products were being sold online be their competitors and at what price.
Comparing Private Label to Competitor Brand Pricing
The client wanted to generate massive quantities of accurate competitive pricing and assortment data that could be integrated into their internal solution. They wanted to use the data not only to better price their products, but also to have a comprehensive understanding of the competitive landscape on private label items.
Pure Online Specialty Retailer Grows Sales Through Competitor Price Monitoring Integrated With In-House Tool
To compete online in a highly competitive market the client needed accurate, reliable retail competitive intelligence data that it could use to make pricing and assortment decisions and that would feed into their in-house business intelligence platform.
Competitor Price Monitoring Solution Requiring Private Label and Similar Product Monitoring
The client wanted to expand their competitive position in the online market. They needed a competitor price monitoring solution that would provide complete and reliable data that they could count on to make strategic pricing and assortment decisions that would help promote their sales and margins. They client had an existing pricing intelligence partner but was not satisfied with the versatility of the solution or the accuracy of the data. They needed a competitive intelligence solution that provided data that could be relied upon as accurate, provided improved mapping, full customization, and private label monitoring.
How a Large Retailer Used Competitive Price Tracking to Grow Sales
The client wanted to generate competitive pricing, promotional, and assortment tracking information that could be used online and in store to:
- check if their price position was where they wanted it to be and, if not, to have the data to make adjustments
- use current and historical data to make improved promotional decisions
Learn how they turned to PriceTrac as their solution and how they have used the data for the last three years.
MarketPlace Daily Deal Solution
The client’s goal was to create a “Daily Deal” process that would provide the best current price in the marketplace. They targeted one deal for each designated category, resulting in several deals each day. The client wanted its promotion to be at least 8% lower in price than other major retailer sites.
Learn how they turned to PriceTrac as their solution and how they have used the data for the last three years.
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