To know how your competitors are pricing their products is crucial to stay competitive in the market. This guide will walk you through the workflow within Retail Intelligence that answers questions such as…
- How are products similar to ours priced, and does their brand align with the category?
- Is there a seasonality to changes in prices for a brand, product, or category? If there is a seasonal impact, did it also affect revenue or units sold?
- Does the price of our product align with the offering on our D2C site?
To Begin: Create a Custom Category
A powerful tool within the Retail Intelligence platform is Custom Categories, which allow you to build a category featuring the brands and products that you want to analyze. Let’s pretend we're Sony and want to build a category around noise-cancelling headphones. (You can follow along with these steps with your own product.)
You can start by selecting the relevant categories. Feel free to select multiple. Click the big blue Apply Filter & Update List button at the bottom of the category creator.
Hone in on noise-cancelling headphones by inputting those details under the Product Name section. Include Any will include all variations with either term you include. Update the list again.
Include any additional Product Attributes, such as price ranges or number of reviews.
Then, apply any ASIN Overrides (which would filter the results for the ASINs you input) and cap the number of results that appear.
In the upper right corner, save the report and title it.
Then: Analyze the Results
Let’s connect the above questions to the answers that can be found in the analysis.
- First, let’s look at the average price listing. By selecting the AVG Price Listing, you’re getting a trend of the prices in the product group. Analyze it aggregated to understand the average price for the product category, which is an immediate gauge on how high or low you can go.
However, click on Breakdown in the top right corner to see the top products broken out by each of their average prices over the selected time frame. This will let you know how your top competitors are pricing their products, and give you a better idea on your own pricing strategies. For example, if they’re product is priced a bit higher and their Units Sold is also higher, it may indicate that you are undervaluing our own product.
*Tip: scroll below the trend chart to see a list of the products, which is where you can de-select what’s chosen by default and select a new product to analyze in the trend chart above.
- Use the same trend chart as above to determine seasonal fluctuations in prices for a product, product category, or brand. When you see pricing changes at certain times, see if there was also an increase (or decrease) in Units Sold or even Product Views.
If your competitors are taking advantage of holidays or other times with increased shopping and getting away with it, you might want to consider this for your pricing strategies, too.
However, if you see a spike in product views (and price listing) but a decrease in units sold, then be wary of the overall consumer sentiment towards the product. If that's the case, check out the Cross Browsing report to see where else your shoppers are shopping, and also Basket Analysis to discover which brands they’re going for instead.
Note how in this example with noise-cancelling headphones, the average price has gone down over time. While you can use this data to research competitors’ strategies, also think about macroeconomic and other outside factors that might be affecting the overall increase or decrease in pricing for a product or product category.
- Determine if your pricing on Amazon aligns with your D2C sites by using the same methods. Take the numbers found in Retail Intelligence and compare them to what you see on your DTC sites. Do the same for your competitors. How are they pricing their products on Amazon vs. their branded websites? What deals are exclusively on Amazon, or vice versa?
Check out Custom Categories in Retail Intelligence!
Additionally, Use Product Trackers
Once you’ve analyzed and gotten the insights out of the Custom Category analyses, dive into Product Trackers to monitor the price of a single product (including all of its ASINs) and see the trend.
You can even skip Custom Categories and jump right to this feature. It is a great way to hone in on a competitor’s product so you can track critical ranking movements at the daily level, such as the daily price. Also, Product Trackers will help you understand competitive shifts and identify opportunities for improvement. You’ll see when there’s a price shift, giving you the ability to respond and make the changes to your own strategies.
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