What makes an efficient price management tool?
Multiple factors influence whether to set a price or another and each price decision will have an impact on the willingness of customers to buy a product. Retailers need market insights in order to have enough data to make informed decisions that will eventually make a difference in their e-commerce profitability. That is why these days so many retailers demand a price management tool to cover their current business needs.
Nowadays there are multiple ways of tracking prices and any retailer in a very competitive landscape can now easily collect information on their competitors’ prices through a price management tool.
These sort of tools have become powerful allies for medium-size to enterprise-size retailers in the busy marketplace, and they offer significant benefits and competitive advantage as opposed to the traditional manual method of collecting and storing data in excel spreadsheets.
Nevertheless, with so many options available on the net nowadays, what are the best tools for price management?
From netRivals, as specialists in the subject, we have gathered some of the must-haves or areas that a price management tool should cover in order to be efficient enough for retailers in the current competitive landscape. Let’s start!
What to check when looking for an effective price management tool
Market and competitor analysis
Firstly, you need to analyze the markets where you operate. Such analysis needs to take into account the number of countries where your company is active in, and you also need to think about which markets require special attention due to a high volume of competition.
It is important to have a clear idea of what your main competitors are from the very beginning. To know what to prioritize.
Once you know which markets you want to monitor, you start thinking of the competitors you’d like to track. When looking for a price management tool, it is important to check whether such a tool counts with a competitor suggestion functionality.
In the case of a price management tool like netRivals, any retailer-type account benefits of the competitor suggestion functionality. Nevertheless, it is important to have a clear idea of what your main competitors are from the very beginning. Why? Easy. By knowing your main competitors, you can start monitoring stores which require deeper analysis. Once the competitors have been entered, the system will search the database to find similar stores which you may like to start monitoring.
The price management tool of your choice must offer the possibility of monitoring as many markets and competitors as necessary. You will notice that monitoring a greater number of countries and competitors translates into higher costs. That’s why you need to look for the option that best works for your business. All without sacrificing the quality of the data!
Multi-store management
Whether you have a large e-commerce, an average company or a single store, what you need is to track the price changes of competitors that affect your level of competitiveness. That is why it’s so important to make sure that, in any of the cases, the pricing management tool of your choice allows the management of prices across multiple stores.
The ideal scenario is to have a dashboard where you can see the total number of stores in your account, and from there you can view and manage the data collected.
Amazon analysis
Amazon has become one of the main concerns for retailers when it comes to competitor analysis. Not only in terms of pricing but also product assortment and reviews.
Retailers willing to perform well against competition must be aware of the availability, prices, and reviews for products sold in Amazon. These data can help gain a better understanding of how their catalog competes against other retailers’ in the market.
Google Shopping analysis
Google Shopping is not only a powerful tool for retailers to promote online their product catalog, but it is also a way of getting an idea of the volume of competition existing for specific products in your catalog.
The best option is to automate the process by choosing a price management platform which can provide a detailed view of sellers in Google Shopping.
Trying to search your best-sellers in Google Shopping to come up with a comprehensive list of stores competing for those products can be a way of getting the first draft of your competitor list. Nevertheless, in the long-term, this is definitely not the most efficient way of keeping track of newcomers or of those competitors that you may have ignored throughout the analysis process.
That’s why, in order to avoid losing track of the real competition in the market, the best option is to automate the process by choosing a price management platform which can provide a detailed view of sellers in Google Shopping. This way you can save up time that otherwise you would waste by manually putting together and updating lists of competitors and prices.
Business goals
When looking for the most convenient pricing management tool, you need to think carefully about what business goals you want to achieve.
By using a tool of this type and automating the tasks involved within the competitive analysis, you can significantly improve your business strategy and succeed in achieving goals like the following:
- Optimize margins
- Reduce your Cost per Acquisition
- Increase sales
- Negotiate better conditions with suppliers
- Be more competitive in the market
- Improve sales in marketplaces
- Optimize SEM campaigns
- Favor international expansion
Easy-to-navigate
The tool must provide quality data in order to offer an accurate vision of the market.
However, a price management tool without an intuitive interface can discourage its usage. That is why it is essential to find a tool which is efficient and easy-to-navigate.
Comprehensive data and analytics
An efficient price management tool must provide information on the following key areas: competitors’ prices, stock-outs, and promotions.
Some tools are limited to generate lists containing this information. Nevertheless, more advanced tools also represent this data through comprehensive graphs.
Training on the tool
Training is essential in order to go through all the functionalities of the tool and understand how each one can help ease up your pricing management.
Assess the tool and identify the features that best serve your business goals.
Learning exactly how the tool works can help you identify the features that will best serve your business goals. Keeping this in mind, the best time to receive training of the tool is when you’re account is already set up.
Customer care
The initial training on the tool is essential. However, it is likely that you forget to ask something or even that doubts arise while using the tool or getting used to it. That is why it becomes crucial to be assigned a competent Customer Care team member that can provide help and additional training in areas which can lead to questions, or in case a technical problem occurs.
Value for money
Price management tools with many functionalities tend to be more expensive. This is understandable, given the complex process of development. It is not only about scraping data, but there are also a lot of procedures involved that allow the platform to work efficiently.
Nevertheless, there is no need to break the bank! Depending on the size and needs of your business, there are many options out there that can meet your business requirements and adapt to your budget. The demand for price management tools is constantly increasing, as well as the offer. So don’t hesitate to request a trial if you want to see how a specific tool works. This can help you assess its features and decide if it is worth the investment.
Explore the market!
At netRivals we have several service plans available for retailers of any size. Each plan contemplates the features above mentioned and they adapt very well to current market needs, at very competitive prices.
Retailers looking for effective and time-saving methods must take the previous points into account when assessing how well each platform aligns with their business needs or goals.
