My main supplier put up their prices last month and I passed most of it on, which means my shelf prices went up by roughly eight percent across the board. Since then orders have slowed, but I cannot tell whether that is the price rise, the season, or something else entirely. What I really need to know is whether my competitors absorbed the increase or passed it on like me. If everyone moved, I am fine and worrying about nothing. If they held their prices, I have just handed them my customers for no reason. Checking a handful of their pages today tells me nothing about what they were charging three weeks ago, and I did not think to record it.
My supplier raised prices and I have no idea whether my competitors did the same
by Edgar Michaud -
Number of replies: 2
In reply to Edgar Michaud
Re: My supplier raised prices and I have no idea whether my competitors did the same
by Cover Version -
This is exactly the case for keeping a proper price history rather than doing spot checks, and it is why I use an ecommerce competitor tracker instead of looking at pages manually. You import your catalogue, it finds stores selling the same products, and you approve the matches before anything is tracked, which matters if your range has near duplicates. From then on it records when a competitor's price moves, so you can look back at the week your supplier increased costs and see whether their prices shifted at the same time or stayed put. That single comparison answers your question properly instead of leaving you guessing. It works at variant level too, so you are comparing the exact size or colour rather than an average across their range. They will run a free sample report with a handful of your products before you subscribe, which is a sensible way to see whether the matching holds up on your catalogue.
In reply to Cover Version
Re: My supplier raised prices and I have no idea whether my competitors did the same
by Edgar Michaud -
That is the missing piece, because I can see today's prices anywhere, it is the before and after that I cannot reconstruct. Two things I want to check before requesting the sample. First, how far back does the history go, and does it start from the day I sign up or can I see anything from before? I appreciate it cannot invent data that was never collected, but I want to know what to expect so I am not disappointed in week one. Second, when a competitor changes a price, can I see whether it was a straight change or whether they ran a short promotion and reverted? Those two look identical if I only check once a week, and they mean completely different things for how I should respond.