There are over 12-24 million Ecommerce websites across the globe. Despite this, over 50% of online shoppers will go to marketplaces like Amazon to look for the product. This is because marketplaces have made it easy for customers to evaluate multiple options, compare prices, and gauge product performance and quality through reviews.

While this is a great thing for customers, it’s not so great for sellers because they are forced to compromise on margins or quality to keep up with the competition while not being able to provide the personalisations that you could be offering by selling on your own website.

But if you are one of the many retailers who have joined the big guys because you can’t beat them, then we are here to help you make the best of the situation, maybe even more than that!

What does competitor monitoring mean for online marketplaces and platforms?

Online marketplaces like Amazon’s algorithms rank your product based on multiple factors including sales, customer reviews, and of course prices.

So for retailers selling on such online marketplaces and similar platforms, price monitoring involves more than monitoring the prices of identical products within the marketplace but also those outside of it.

Additionally, within the marketplaces, sellers also have to keep an eye on stock status and customer reviews to gauge product performance, challenges in packaging and shipping, and seller support post-purchase.

Outside of the marketplace, they have to keep an eye on price promotions, stock status, and personalisations that retailers with their own eCommerce set-up are able to offer.

Monitoring competitor prices on online platforms and marketplaces

When selling on significant marketplaces, many aspects of sales, marketing, and shipping are out of your control but the one thing that you can control is the prices. The good news is, for most customers who shop on marketplaces like Amazon, price is a significant factor in influencing their purchase.

Price monitoring is a part of competitor monitoring efforts by businesses, especially retail businesses, where they monitor competitors’ prices, price promotions, and other aspects that affect the customer’s willingness to pay for a product or a service so that you can optimise your price and promotion strategy accordingly.

This means, pricing competitively is crucial to ensure sales.

On that note, it is also crucial to note that pricing competitively does not mean pricing is always lower than your competitor’s. That is not only inefficient but might lead you to compromise on your margins or quality or both!

How to effectively leverage competitor price data?

Leveraging competitor price data is not just about knowing their prices and pricing your products lower than theirs.

For your price strategy to be effective, you must base them on data beyond the current competitor prices. This includes competitors’ past prices, promotion history, stock status, customer reviews, etc.

For example, even if your prices are higher than your competitors, if their product reviews are negative or if they are out of stock, then you don’t have to reduce your prices to ensure sales. You can then focus your efforts on other marketing efforts.

Similarly, by looking at past trends in pricing and stock,  you can gauge when your competitors are discounting or restocking their products and forecast and plan your price strategy, promotion, and inventory accordingly.

Competitor price monitoring tools like pricechecker allows you to monitor prices, promotions, stock statuses, and customer reviews of your competitors’ products within marketplaces like Amazon, social media platforms like Instagram, and other Ecommerce websites.  Pricechecker’s data allows you to optimise your price strategy based on multidimensional data resulting in a boost in sales and RoI.