Pricing is one of the main factors that determines whether the customer buys the product or moves to another variant. A variant in this case could mean another platform offering a better price, another seller who has displayed the product at a lower price, or even a completely different brand offering a similar item.
This is where dynamic pricing strategies – where the prices fluctuate frequently – come into play and staying ahead of price changes via a price change tracker becomes crucial. To ensure that your brand or product performs well in the marketplace and generates steady revenue, businesses must have a comprehensive understanding of market dynamics and adjust their pricing strategies accordingly.
Image Source: Prisync
Let’s take a look at how an essential tool such as a price change tracker can make a difference to your business.
How Does a Price Change Tracker Work?
In a nutshell, a price change tracker is a tool that tracks and monitors price fluctuations in real time. By collecting data from multiple sources such as competitor websites, e-commerce marketplaces, and brand-native websites, the tool provides intelligence on product pricing trends and information that’s up-to-date.
A price change tracker or an e-commerce analytics platform provides users with –
Identify pricing patterns
A well-designed pricing tracker provides timely data on pricing fluctuations, allowing brands to keep track of the current market environment. Working on this data, businesses can see trends and patterns where the product cost rises or lowers and make the necessary adjustments in their own strategies.
For example, a makeup brand using a price change tracker sees its main competitor lower product costs on the weekend. This may be on products customers are more like to make an impulse purchase on – such as lipsticks or blushes. With this knowledge, the makeup brand can also compete during the same time so consumers can consider their brand as well.
Data to optimize profitability
Though dynamic pricing can seem like a good product pricing strategy, it has its shortcomings when used incorrectly. When lowered too much or at the wrong time, the business can stand to make marginal profits or lose out on money by not pricing it correctly.
A price change tracker can analyze current trends and historical data to identify the most profitable price points for their products. This can strike the perfect balance between attracting customers and maximizing profit margins.
Competitive analysis
In line with the above point, as businesses analyze historical data, various pricing patterns emerge and businesses can perform a thorough competitor analysis. This data would allow brands to gain insights into their competitor positioning, see any gaps where their own strategies fall short, and make the necessary adjustments to drive revenue.
Competitor analysis can also be used to gauge how market leaders perform online and use that data as a benchmark or knowledge-learning tool. It can showcase new strategies that can be adapted to your own business or modified so it works for your product.
Image Source: AsanaÂ
What to Look at While Implementing a Price Change Tracker
To successfully implement a price change tracker, businesses must consider adopting these key steps –
- Identifying key competitors and products
To know what must be improved, brands must know what to track and whom to monitor. Identifying primary and secondary competitors along with the products needed to be closely observed, is the first step in the right direction. This data creates the foundation for the rest steps to follow.
- Selecting the right tracker
With several options in the market, the right tracker is essential. For example, 42Signal’s e-commerce analytics platform provides insights into MAP violations, product pricing and even offers a brand comparison feature via insightful dashboards. These resources on a single platform can be critical to success and monitoring various requirements, especially prices.
Image Source: 42Signals
- Analyzing data to guide decisions
Without this step, tracking prices isn’t effective. It’s only valuable if businesses analyze the information, make the necessary adjustments, and use these insights for future planning. Market performance and competitor behavior are imperative to identify new opportunities and modify existing practices to drive growth.
Conclusion
A price change tracker provides businesses with the necessary tools to monitor competitor pricing, optimize profitability, and implement dynamic pricing strategies. With this data, businesses can outperform their competitors and witness the change firsthand by adopting the right practices.
42Signals provides this data and more by leveraging AI to anticipate consumer demand, track competition, optimize digital shelves, and grow online sales. To know more about the platform or for a demo, contact sales@42signals.com
