In ecommerce, competition rages on! In any sector, in any field, every type of online store that sets up shop is already up against giants. It's hard to stand out from the crowd. To become the best in your field, you need to keep a strategic watch on the competition, and that includes keeping an eye on prices, regardless of the current market conditions.
Price monitoring enables an ecommerce company to position itself within its sector in relation to the prices set by the competition and sales data. But how do you activate this lever effectively and give yourself a competitive edge?
Price monitoring: Definition and characteristics in ecommerce
What is price monitoring in your target market?
Price monitoring is a marketing technique that enables companies to keep a close eye on prices within a target market, with the aim of attracting as many consumers as possible. E-tailers define the rules and recurrence of their strategic watch, either regularly or by displaying prices in real time.
Price monitoring will enable you to maintain control over your business in relation to your environment, by keeping an eye on the prices charged by other competitors.
With this type of marketing technique, the company is always going to be aware of price movements within its sector, allowing it to avail of optimal price adjustments and reference its products with the aim of always increasing its sales.
Why use price monitoring?
Price or competitive intelligence has always been used by brands, particularly in the retail sector. This model offers a number of advantages to online retailers, such as enabling them to modify their selling strategies more rapidly and effectively, monitor the reputation and image of their brand and that of their competitors, draw inspiration from their competitors, avoid points of friction present in other chains, stay one step ahead of their sales targets, or simply provide effective support for corporate decision-making.
Competitive intelligence and price monitoring enable you to better control the presence of your point of sale or ecommerce site within your sector, in relation to competitors. It also makes it possible for you to establish a fairer, more positive pricing strategy, in order to provide a better customer experience, offer better service, and trigger as many conversions as possible.
How do you monitor competitor prices?
There are two ways to find out what your competitors are charging: on the one hand, you can monitor prices yourself, by consulting the prices charged by your competitors in physical stores or on the internet.
Social networks, Google, website, blog, physical store... Any channel that enables entrepreneurs to analyze the prices charged by their competitors is going to be a good one to use in order to learn more about the pricing policy in force.
Thanks to today's technology, there are software programs that are a great help in enabling you to configure the parameters to be monitored, particularly in the context of ecommerce price monitoring.
All you need to do is identify your direct and indirect competitors, the parameters you need to analyze on an ad hoc or ongoing basis, and use digital marketing tools regularly to help you grow and develop your business.
How do you find competitor pricing? Best price monitoring tools and software for ecommerce
Discover the top competitive intelligence tools and solutions for tracking prices to help you grow your business.
Competera
Used by a wide range of retail businesses around the world, Competera is advanced pricing software that uses the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning to help users determine and maintain optimal pricing in real time. This in turn makes it possible to increase customer trust and encourage return visits.
The platform offers three different tools that can be used separately or in combination with one another, depending on what best suits the user’s current needs:
- Competitive data: supplies relevant real-time data involving the currency, language, and region of your choosing, all accessible via one dashboard.
- Pricing automation: allows you to significantly reduce the amount of time spent on product pricing with defined workflows and a clear analysis of what is likely to occur with a price change.
- Price optimization: features dynamic price setting based on cross-product dependencies, demand patterns, and 20+ pricing and non-pricing factors to boost your revenue and profit margins.
Pricing for the Competera solution is available by request on the platform. In addition, new users can take advantage of a free trial to see how the software works.
Prisync
Prisync is competitor price tracking and monitoring software that assists online retailers of any size to boost their sales and increase profit margins using data-driven pricing strategies. This platform makes it possible to accurately track and monitor competitor prices and product stock information concerning the target group of companies you wish to monitor, without having to spend loads of time on obtaining and analyzing data.
Users can find all the information they’ve specified in an easy-to-use dashboard, with advanced analytics and a variety of reporting options available. With Prisync, you can automatically update your product pricing in response to how your competitors price their offerings and improve your profit margins.
What’s more, the software offers 24/7 live support, adding to the tool’s accessibility and ease of use. Prisync allows you to avail of a 14-day free trial and then has several flexible plan options, starting at $99 per month.
Skuuudle
Pricing intelligence platform Skuuudle helps online retailers of varying sizes, from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies, to track and monitor competitor pricing in national as well as international markets. With the vast amount of data users can gather via this tool, they can determine how to best adapt to changes and trends in the market and adjust their own product pricing accordingly.
When using this price monitoring software, you’ll obtain detailed insights concerning your competitors and their pricing strategies, but you’ll also get a customized plan on how to improve your own company's chances of success.
The platform features flexible pricing, creating a package tailored to your unique needs. Book a demo with Skuuudle to enjoy a free trial of the solution.
Paarly
Paarly is a price monitoring and competitor analysis tool. The tool will provide data on distributors' and competitors' products, enabling you to map your target market effectively.
The tool is based on a pricing analytics model: it also supports pricing intelligence and dynamic repricing. And that's not all: this solution supports retailers in their marketplace efforts as well, to better control brand presence and optimize brand awareness.
Paarly offers a free 10-day trial period and divides its services into four different packages, up to an unlimited customized edition.
Minderest
This price monitoring solution provides a wide range of ecommerce tools for price monitoring. Solutions available for retailers are as follows:
- Price Intelligence: intelligent analysis of prices using graphs and trends. This allows you to visualize your positioning from a global perspective.
- Competitor Price Watch: daily monitoring of prices and stocks in all countries, languages, and currencies, with high data accuracy.
- InStore: Minderest will check competitors' prices and stocks in physical stores.
- Catalog Intelligence: the solution will analyze the entire product catalog on the market to identify missing references, providing access to highly accurate information.
- Repricing: prices are continuously set in line with market trends.
- Dynamic Pricing: decision support thanks to artificial intelligence.
Minderest also offers solutions for brands and manufacturers:
- monitoring of recommended prices, as well as alerts in the event of sales violations;
- verification of prices at points of sale and in physical stores; and
- monitoring the positioning of other brands and analyzing new products launched on the market.
Price2Spy
Small and large online retailers alike will appreciate the powerful competitor tracking, monitoring, and analyzing capabilities of the Price2Spy pricing intelligence tool to keep an eye on their business rivals.
With the help of this price monitoring software, you’ll be able to track price information and access numerous reports to analyze and understand the data you collect. Furthermore, Price2Spy allows you to monitor your competitors’ price changes over time, providing you with the most up-to-date information concerning product pricing and stock.
Get alerts when price and stock changes occur and use analytics to better inform your own pricing decisions. In addition, the platform’s repricing module permits you to set the pricing strategy or strategies for your site, making it possible to adjust your online store’s product prices easily and quickly.
Try Price2Spy free for 30 days and then choose from one of the software’s many available plans, starting at $26.95 per month.
Retail Shake
This solution lets you know everything about your competitors! Price, geolocated stock, website, product visuals, descriptions, and even customer reviews: all competitive elements are analyzed by this software.
No wonder the big names in ecommerce use these web services on a daily basis to stay one step ahead of the competition. Retail Shake's competitive intelligence is automated, and product monitoring can be carried out in real time, whether for your own products or those of the competition.
Each product is analyzed to determine whether it's present only on ecommerce sites or also on the various marketplaces. The data is international, providing a global view of products and competitors. Tailor-made, the platform adapts to the needs of all ecommerce sectors.
Omnia Retail
Omnia Retail is a platform that features a comprehensive collection of automation tools designed to assist retail businesses with optimizing their product pricing strategies. The solution is easy to use from the get-go, with no additional IT service required.
Besides procuring pricing data from your competitors’ sites, Omnia also analyzes comparison shopping engines to provide you with as much up-to-date information involving market trends and competitor pricing as possible. You have complete control over the pricing rules you set for your business, allowing you to adapt the software’s services to best suit your unique approach.
From start to finish, you’ll be able to avail of full automation on the platform, which means saving loads of time on tasks you’d normally have to complete manually.
Head to Omnia Retail’s website to sign up for a 14-day free trial and provide the solution with your information to obtain a customized price quote.
Price Observatory
Price Observatory is a French price monitoring solution that also has an English version of its platform. Its intuitive interface provides access to a simple, effective dashboard. The system can be integrated in just a few days: data integration, optimization of competitor matching, etc. Everything is configured very quickly.
The promise of this tool is also to offer a service adapted to all business needs. In addition, R&D is at the heart of the company, so that they can always offer a high-performance service. The company's teams are on hand to help and support you in your day-to-day selling strategy. Solutions are available for retailers and chain stores alike. A complete tool with 100% personalized follow-up!
Pricing intelligence tools: Helpful allies for your ecommerce success
As you've likely come to understand, keeping a careful watch on competitor pricing is essential when selling online. Use the top price monitoring tools available to assist you in your price tracking efforts and finding the right price for your products, a price that'll attract more people to your online store and still allow you to maximize your profits.
