How often to check product prices online?
- 20 March 2020
Price monitoring is not a process that can be implemented and used in practice for all products and businesses identically, like a copy-paste rule. The products available on the market differ by numerous factors, from the industry through categories, specifications to the final popularity among customers.
So how do you customize price monitoring in the main product range? Which products do you monitor more often, which less frequently, and what should you pay attention to? You will find out in the post below.
Industry dynamics
The industry itself is one of the main changes affecting the frequency of price changes. Some of them experience large and frequent fluctuations that are associated with a short product life cycle. In the case of electronics (especially products such as smartphones) or fashion, you need to gain maximum profit in a short time – neither the seller nor the manufacturer wants to be left with unsold inventory when new models are available.
Some industries are characterized by high dynamics due to the high demand and large competition. These are for example medical products and OTC medicine, as well as cosmetics – in both of these cases consumers can find numerous offers, and, being price-sensitive, most often choose simply the cheapest one.
An example of products with low dynamics of price changes is, for example, furniture that has a very long life cycle, and their purchase is not a spontaneous decision or a small expense. For such decisions, aesthetic values or comfort play a greater role than differences in prices.
Which products should you monitor more often?
The choice of monitored products (with data updated more than once a day) depends on the type of business.
In the case of brands, it is particularly important to monitor the prices of new products – no one wants a new product into which large marketing effort has gone to, to be aggressively discounted immediately after launch. This way it is threatened to lose its price position and fall into the category below.
The next products that are worth monitoring are the “tops” – the most popular products that sell best and are most recognizable to consumers.
E-shops, on the other hand, will select the most attractive products (the most popular, attracting customers), as well as those that are most often bought in the category – in electronics, for example, a new, but also affordable Samsung smartphone.
Also, for e-commerce it’s also important to more often track the price of products that are available at many competitors’ because then they are more likely to change prices often.
Both for producers and online stores, products that have been standard on the offer for a long time or that have a very long life cycle can be monitored less frequently.
Data-based decision
To best select the products monitored more often, it is worth conducting a little experiment. For a certain time (e.g. week, month) we can offer our clients more frequent, i.e. few times per day, monitoring of certain shops, particular products or categories. Then based on hard data, our client can make a decision about which products and stores he wants to monitor more often in the long term.
For online stores, similar experiments can also be used to search for competitors with price automation systems – just check who reacts very quickly to price changes from others.
Summary
Starting price monitoring is the first step, but it is worth choosing it appropriately for a certain industry, type of products and your business. Thanks to this, we can gain even more on the acquired data and have a full overview of the market situation. If you are not sure how often to check your products’ prices, don’t worry, our consultants will help you choose the best solution!