Pricing decisions are more important than ever.
With estimates putting the number of ecommerce businesses at anywhere between an astounding 12 to 24 million sites, consumers can easily compare prices with a click. Relying on manual tracking and outdated data just doesn’t cut it anymore. Only looking at a portion of your collection, or a handful of competitors, leaves you in the dark and hinders accurate decision-making.
However, competitive price benchmarking and monitoring software can revolutionise the way retailers navigate the market. Modern pricing solutions make it possible to accurately track and compare competitors’ prices, spot gaps and opportunities, plan more effectively and price strategically to maximise profitability. Here’s why you need to consider ditching spreadsheets for a pricing solution that works.
Make more precise price adjustments
Figuring out when and how to adjust your prices is like solving a puzzle. To crack it, you need to know what your competitors are doing. Let’s say your dresses aren’t selling as well as you hoped, and sales are dropping. This is where competitor analysis comes in. Are your competitors discounting their dresses? Which styles, colours, or sizes are they cutting prices on, and by how much? This information gives you a hint that it might be time to offer discounts too, so you don’t end up with unsold dresses.
Stay competitive
Timing is everything when it comes to pricing. Being late with discounts can mean missed sales opportunities while offering them too soon might hurt your profits. To hit the sweet spot, you need to keep an eye on your competitors’ moves using a reliable competitor price tracking tool. This tool helps you see what products competitors are promoting, when, and by how much they’re discounting. Armed with this knowledge, you can predict trends, get ahead of the competition’s pricing strategies and be on the leading edge of the promotional cycle.
Spotting trends for growth
Whether you’re a buyer, planner or merchandiser, staying in the loop with new and emerging trends is crucial to designing and planning future assortments. This is where a smart pricing solution like Centric Pricing™ comes in. It gives you insights into consumer preferences, industry dynamics and what parts of their inventory competitors are investing in. This information not only shapes your future products but also guides your brand’s growth journey.
New launches are also crucial to continuous brand evolution, but entering a new product category can be intimidating. If you’re venturing into a new category, an effective pricing solution will help you to understand an unfamiliar market landscape, from competitor price points to regional variations in products on offer.
Signs you need a pricing solution
Wondering if a competitor price monitoring tool is right for you? Think about how your current strategy is working. Have any of these revenue-impacting issues happened?
- Your prices were too high, and customers went for similar, cheaper options from competitors.
- You missed out on an emerging trend while competitors seized the opportunity.
- Discounting happened too late, leaving you with unsold inventory.
Even if you have avoided these pricing crisis situations, there might still be smaller pricing mistakes hurting your revenue. If you’re promoting blindly, you could be cutting prices further than you need to without realising it. A comprehensive price monitoring and benchmarking tool can uncover these missed opportunities to discount or raise prices, helping you make better pricing decisions.
The right pricing solution is priceless
Whether you’re launching new products, adjusting prices in line with inflation or simply keeping up with the competition, accurate real-time pricing data that is presented in a user-friendly, visually-based format provides teams with the insights they need to stay ahead.
Balancing competitor analysis and internal data is key to a strong pricing strategy. For retailers, providing a great shopping experience is crucial. Accurate and timely price tracking plays a major role in making your products attractive, boosting sales, and preventing excess inventory. In a world where value matters, an effective pricing solution enables you to use technology and data to orchestrate retail success.
Today, successful retailers are those who leverage cutting-edge technology like Centric PricingTM to make informed and efficient pricing decisions. Centric Pricing is an AI-driven analytics, pricing intelligence and competitor benchmarking solution that will empower your teams to improve pricing, discounting and assortment strategies.
Learn more about Centric Pricing
From its headquarters in Silicon Valley, Centric Software provides a product concept to launch platform for consumer goods. Centric PLM®, delivers enterprise-class merchandise planning, product development, sourcing, quality and product portfolio optimization innovations specifically for fast-moving consumer industries. Centric Visual Boards™ offer highly visual, touch-screen experiences for collaboration and decision-making. Centric Planning™ is an innovative, cloud-native, augmented-intelligence solution delivering end-to-end retail planning to maximize retail and wholesale business performance. Centric Pricing™ is an AI-driven market insight platform for data-informed decision-making on pricing and product assortments to maximize revenue and margins.
