Online Store Monitoring - an Advantage Over Competitors
Today's consumer is certainly wiser than ever before and can no doubt provide a comprehensive list detailing the many benefits of online shopping. These advantages are also the same reasons why the retail market is competitive.
Smart retailers understand this and that fierce competition is about price. As consumers seek the best prices for the items they want, retailers now agree that competitive pricing should be a tactic in their business strategy book of games. If consumers find value in using online tools to find the best prices, then there is no excuse for retailers not to apply the same strategy to ensure competitive prices. Thus, competitor monitoring has become one of the most important topics in the book for e-commerce managers.
Price monitoring is especially important when unpredictable changes are taking place in the market. Recently, of course, the most discussed is the COVID-19 pandemic. This had a huge impact on the online market in general, especially consumer electronics, mainly due to remote working and online learning, which often required new equipment. By monitoring the market daily, you will not miss any price changes your competitors are making in response to such events.
Another use case is the ability to track promotions that happen for just a few hours during the day, for example in the evening. If a store only tracks prices once a day, they may not see any such movement from their competitors. With the price tracking tool, a store can immediately respond to an email alert or analyze it later on historical charts.
Online retailers that use historical competitive pricing trends to adjust pricing at specific times are launching specific promotional incentives to capitalize on a predicted opportunity or even refuse the entire product line entirely and consider new products that can help meet their goals, increase sales, or expand your audience or both.
Historical pricing data allows retailers to understand competitor trends and patterns when it comes to pricing specific products and product categories at different times of the year. Effective price monitoring platforms will provide side-by-side price comparisons between retailers and products so you can get an idea of how competitors are reacting to price changes in their market.
Comprehensive monitoring services help online stores receive actionable pricing information, in the form of a report, for the cheapest and most expensive products on the market, out of stock and excluded from the list of products while fulfilling the recommendations of automated audits of individual products in comparison with the cheapest competitor or alternative.
A key component of a report is providing important business information that matches your business goals in the short, medium, or long term. Automatic matching means that information gathering is faster and more relevant. Personalized reporting empowers every retailer to be more dynamic in their approach not only to struggle to survive but also to maintain and improve profitability.
Online store monitoring will give you an advantage over your competitors. Remember, it's important to stay focused on results. It's easy to get distracted by trying to stay ahead of the competition, so only tracking the competitors has the greatest impact on your business. Work smart: automate your competitor monitoring activities. It is much more efficient to receive individual reports and recommendations daily than to do it yourself.