It’s the process of selecting strategic price points to take better advantage of the market than your competition. This pricing method is used by businesses which sell the same products, though their services may be different. This type of strategy is used for products which have been on the market for so long that their alternatives are also available. There are usually only three choices present in front of the businesses in terms of pricing, either sell their products at lower cost than competition, at equal cost or at higher cost than the competition. When your business is online, people get easy option to compare online your competitors prices. And if they find your competitors selling the same products that you are selling but at cheaper cost, they are going to opt for your competition and sooner or later you may end up losing your business. Online business is all about pricing and better the price, better the business.
Monitoring the competitors pricing
Competitor’s price monitoring is crucial strategy for the business. It’s the strategy that helps in finding the perfect pricing at the perfect time. Monitoring the competitor shouldn’t be the only criteria to set the prices but it’s an important one. Not only the pricing of your customers, but you should also be looking at your log and figure the trends of your buyers and your products perceived value. It’s the best way to stay ahead of the competition. You can also find out where you stand with respect to your competition.
For all this to happen conveniently, web scraping is a powerful tool that can act like a canon and give you an advantage over others. With web scraping, you can easily find out the pricing data whenever you want to.
To create your own competitor price monitoring strategy, just follow these simple steps:-
- Competition identification- the first and foremost you should identify your competition. It’s only after you know who you are competing against that you can get a hold over them. Use Google or social media websites to find out your competition.
- Identification of competitive assortment- you should have knowledge of which of your products are being sold more than or less than your competitors. Web scraping helps you to find it out and hence increases your chances of selling more than your competition.
- Analysis of data- run the data which you have collected through scraping through an analytics platform and you will quickly identify the trends and compare the prices.
Importance of competitor price monitoring
Competitor price monitoring can be used to determine what competitors influence the sales of your business. It’s very beneficial if you know what your competitors are selling and at what price. Knowing this would help you to set up a better price which can increase your sales and get ahead of the competition. If your competitors are selling products at lower cost than you, you will definitely lose to your competition. It will help in avoiding in making pricing mistakes. Pricing has an obvious impact on your sales. If they are too high, consumers will obviously run away from you. Too low and you’re basically keeping the money on the table. The modern business world waits for none and you must always be ahead of your competition. Monitoring your competitors prices is like having a cheat sheet in your exam. That’s how much advantage you have when you monitor your competitors prices.