FAQ on Price Watch and
How it Can Help You

Just as the name implies, price watch revolves around monitoring the prices of your rivals in order to keep up with them. You need to look at factors such as the prices that they’re offering, whether or not their prices are lower than your own, and finding out the times for their promotions.

Collecting all of this data is incredibly difficult to do manually, especially today when prices are continuously changing. In order to ease the workload as well as make sure that the results are accurate, it’s best to invest in a price watching software.

This will decrease the time that managers typically spend on pricing an item. In fact, they tend to spend 4 hours a day on it. However, with the help of a price monitoring software, managers can keep track of prices automatically, which saves time as well as assists with meeting KPIs.

Today, it’s possible for consumers to have information readily available to them at their fingertips, literally, so they can easily make a price comparison. In fact, based on research by UPS, 81% of them are already comparing the prices of several stores in order to find the most “fair” price.

As a result, it’s imperative to be monitoring the prices of your rivals in order to keep your price competitive. Otherwise, shoppers will end up buying from your competitor.

Without a doubt, in order to set the right price, you have to make sure that the data about rivals is complete and correct. A few ways to make ensure the data is usable is by:

• making sure that all of the information about an item is received, including but not limited to its color and technical makeup
• knowing the number of errors
• figuring out the percentage of prices that were found
• making sure that data is up to date
• being aware of the amount of time that it takes to deliver.

After observing your rivals’ prices, next you need to examine the information and determine the right price. This is accomplished by figuring out the:

• price index
• promo-activity of rivals
• availability of items
• price history

The price index lets you know where your business is in comparison to your rivals, as well as figure out which one impacts your sales the most. In order to offer the most profitable promotions, it’s important to watch after those offered by your rivals. It’s also important to keep track of everything that your rivals have in stock in order to make a decision based on your pricing strategy. Additionally, with price history, you’re capable of making assumptions about specific situations due to past situations.

A powerful price watching solution depends on the qualitative data as well as the analysis made. If you want to make the best choices, it’s crucial for retailers to properly examine their rivals so that they can get a better understanding of the value that the final customer sees out of an item. With this information, retailers can create a solid retail pricing strategy in order to select the correct models as well as pricing situations. As soon as all of that has been established, the price watching will then aid in boosting sales and margins, enhancing communication with suppliers, etc.