Information in today’s era is everything! Information gives you the power and also the ability to make a difference. While everything can be uncertain, having the right information by your side can prove to be helpful in attaining success. If retailers or any seller wishes to establish themselves and survive in the highly competitive and fast-growing environment, price intelligence software can help significantly. Using the pricing intelligence tools is the correct way of using the information collected and ensuring success.
In this article, we shed some light on boosting your sales for the online retail business. This blog can help you in getting a better understanding about the online business.
So, let’s jump right in.
Let’s have a look at what is pricing intelligence Tools for retailers?
Competition is inevitable in every field, especially, in online business. According to a survey, around 28% of the world’s population shops online. That is a huge number considering there are just over 2 billion shoppers and around 7.8 billion people in the world. So, staying ahead of the competition becomes unavoidable.
Usually speaking, price intelligence is the process of collecting and analyzing the price data of competitors. Furthermore, the collected information is then used by pricing intelligence software for making important business decisions and creating excellent pricing strategies. Pricing strategies guide you in building a strong sales strategy and enabling you in having a competitive edge over your peers.
Pricing Intelligence for Retailers
Price intelligence is important for everyone who is in the business but it is all the more important for retailers and hence they must invest in price intelligence software to come up with the best prices for their products and service. Retailers gather information on the prices of the competitors but it is not sufficient. You need more information to analyze and derive an insight from it which can be done with the help of pricing intelligence software. You would need historical data to understand how prices are changed as well as look at the trends and patterns. This will help in getting insight into what lies behind every price decision of the competitor.
Significance Of Price Intelligence For Retailers
There are a few reasons that make it extremely important for retailers to pay attention to pricing intelligence tools if they want to improve their business and stay ahead of the competition. Let us get started on some of the below:
- Retail Pricing Is Dynamic
If something that is definitely going to happen in the retail industry, it is a price change. Pricing is an aspect which comes in the dynamic category as they might be changing often and quickly; even a few times in a day! You need to develop a concrete pricing strategy with the help of price intelligence software to keep up with the pace of the competitor’s prices. Setting the right prices at the right moment can help in boosting your sales and profitability.
For instance, if a competitor dropped the price of a product to $50 and you are still selling at $55 then the competitor will get an advantage in a price-sensitive market. So, here this doesn’t always mean that you drop the price. Yes! With pricing intelligence, you can get the complete history of the previous customer buying behavior and future predictions. How will that help? Basically, you can understand that the customer goes for brand loyalty, features, price or service. So, with these kinds of insights, you can also give free delivery or any other add-ons without dropping your price. So, being competitive doesn’t always mean price drop but adopting a strategy that works best for your business.
2. Competitive Advantage
Price intelligence tools for retailers are a great way of achieving a competitive advantage over others in the industry. Having meaningful insight will offer you an opportunity for getting a bigger share of the market for your product and service. For example, if you collect sufficient information, you can estimate the competitor’s turnover and come up with a better offer for the customers.
Now, knowing about your competition also means getting a better hold of the market trends. Staying relevant in the online market is very important. Pricing intelligence enables you to do the same in a very efficient manner.
3. Adjust The Prices
When you have pricing intelligence software by your side, you can adjust the prices and create a pricing strategy the right way. This will help in protecting business’s reputation and also increase the profit margins. With online shopping coming into the existence, consumers have become aware and price sensitive. It is an important factor for consumers while making a buying decision.
Consumers are price conscious as well. This means they will verify and compare prices. Making a wrong decision can make you lose customers and your business will suffer. The main aim of using price intelligence software is to make sure that your prices meet the main target of the business. Whether you want to stay competitive, protect profit margin, or establish a good reputation, price intelligence tools can help in achieving goals.
Steps For Performing In Price Intelligence
Now, as we have covered about the importance of pricing intelligence, let us get an idea of the steps to take after we consider getting pricing intelligence tools.
To begin with, earlier, setting prices was simple. However, with consumers having a wide array of choices online, you need to keep an eye on most of the competitors. Here’s a look at some of the tips that will help in implementing price intelligence alongside pricing intelligence software.
1. Define Important Competitors
The first step before using the price intelligence software is that you need to define who your significant competitors are. Yes, now the eCommerce market has many online retailers and not all of them will be your competition. Defining and segmenting can help in staying focused on the specific competitors. For instance, if you sell cosmetics and you want to compete in the luxury brands category. Now, in that sense, you will not compete with small and medium-sized businesses. Your competition will be international brands like MAC, Armani and Chanel. Furthermore, you also need to decide the exact product matches. When you know your competitors, you can get better insights and make improvements in your pricing strategy.
2. Creating A Perceived Value
The brand’s pricing strategy will create perceived value in the market and push the customers to buy. The buying motives of different customers are different. While some consumers are looking for the best deals at low prices, others are interested in the quality of the brand and benchmark. It can be challenging to create perceived value as it needs analysis of a wide array of data. However, it can be simplified with the help of pricing intelligence software.
You need to decide about your target market and how it will respond to product prices. You have to find out if customers are looking for cheap solutions or if they are ready to pay a higher price for a quality product.
3. Collect Pricing Data
After listing your competitors, you need to create a list of the products that you need to monitor. The best way of doing it is to record product identifiers such as UPC, MPN, and SKU. Then you can go and manually check the product prices on the competitor’s website. A quicker option is using an automated solution such as pricing intelligence tools. It will gather prices for you immediately and continuously. It will perform checks a few times a day as required by your industry.
4. Data Analysis
When you collect price data of competitors, the next step is analyzing and understanding what it’s trying to tell. You will be able to compare your prices with competitors and get useful insight into the business. Price intelligence software focuses on pricing techniques of competitors. You will get information on why they change prices and how often so that you can create your pricing strategy.
5. Using Automated Software
Managing price intelligence is a time-consuming task. The best way of making it easy and your business efficient is using automated software such as pricing intelligence software. You should make sure that you use pricing intelligence tools that offer more features so that you can have everything within single tool. Automation will help in saving your time and money. You will receive detailed pricing reports, historical price charts, and price change alerts and more features that suit your needs.
Accelerate with WebDataGuru
Online business is complicated but when done with the right guidance and expertise, it can skyrocket. Pricing intelligence plays a major role in providing a map for the online business. As it can’t be more emphasized that price plays a vital role in your business growth trajectory. So, taking pricing lightly will cost the business in the long run.
WebDataGuru is one of the best pricing intelligence companies providing guidance and competent web data tools for online success. Why are you still reading?
Get in touch with us and know more about taking your online business to a peak you always dreamed of!!
Recent Comments