Price Dynamics – new report introduced in Price2Spy

Posted on March 21, 2013 by misha

With an ever-growing number of Price2Spy clients, we keep getting a steady stream of fresh ideas for tool enhancements. One such idea (originally coming from a client of ours) is Price Dynamics chart.

Price Dynamics, a new report introduced in Price2Spy, is a chart that enables clients to see the price increase / decrease dynamics over time.This new report will ask you to specify

Date range – possible to chose among the periods given or set the wanted date range;
Dynamics report type – price increase / decrease and product availability / unavailability.

The report is represented by XY coordinates - Y, vertical axis is showing the number of products affected and X, horizontal axis is showing dates. Each site being represented by a colour, the client gets a graphic picture of the date when a specified price / availability change occurred for a specific number of products on which competitor site.

Why is that important? Depending on your business, there could be a number of reasons:

Not only does it show changes that occurred on competitors’ sites, but it also shows important dates of price changes. Clients get a clear idea of whether the competitor changes prices at frequent intervals or chooses particular time of the week or month to do so.
Price change dynamics report enables online store owners to track dates of availability changes at their competitors as well. This feature is of particular importance for clients wanting to know whether a competitor had sudden ‘bursts’ on demand for some products, so the competitor went from several items in stock to unavailable. Or after quite some time of being unavailable, an item becomes available. Is it back in trend, so the competitor decided to have it back in offer?

The image above shows price decrease for 4 competitors within 2 weeks. To help you understand the chart we are going to analyze the competitor represented by orange line.

The beginning of the chart shows that the competitor had made quite some changes on Mar-7 – 27 price drops.
The period from Mar-8 to Mar-13 could be called a calm, steady period with only up to 6 changes.
Mar-13 is when price drops start to grow in number – only to culminate on Mar-14 (15 price drops) after which a steady period comes along again – until Mar-20 – a date with over 30 price drops.

What we can conclude is the following:

The competitor does not change prices in bulks daily, but more or less weekly or even once in two weeks.
There were some minor price drops for just a few products in the meanwhile, but major price changes occurred just twice in 2 weeks according to the chart.

Different clients find their ways to monitor trends at their competitors’ sites, and each of them focuses on particular group of products / prices / brand, etc. What Price2Spy does is make it easy and simple for them to spot changes occurring within their field of interest. And that is only possible if communicating with clients and striving to meet their needs.

Hopefully you’ll like this new chart. If you have any ideas on how to further enhance Price2Spy in order to make even better tool for online merchants – please let us know – your suggestion are always welcome.

Price2Spy now tracking hotel prices from Expedia.com

Posted on March 18, 2013 by ivana

It is commonly known how hard it is to stay afloat in today’s increasingly competitive tourism market – whether you are a small family hotel or a five star luxury. Struggle is equal for hotels located in the hectic streets of Manhattan and those lying along the vast white sand beaches of Bora Bora. What brings them all together is an effort to attract visitors and the actions that each one of them takes to do so.

Price2Spy provides an opportunity to know competitors’ actions and to take your own (re)action accordingly. With Price2Spy and the service it offers, you will neither find yourself in the situation to regret underpricing your accommodation – and thus reducing the turnover unduly, nor you’ll be the last to know that your competitors have lowered their prices for a special promotional offer.

After several pleased customers operating in this market, we can proudly state that a most challenging task has been successfully solved and Price2Spy can effectively monitor prices from internet-based travel websites with hotel offers in more than a hundred countries like expedia.com or booking.com.

Though the idea of monitoring prices on the above mentioned sites might seem a bit far-fetched, it actually works very simply: The client provides us with a list of

competitor hotels
room types
specific dates to be tracked

Data entry part is on our team, after which the client receives notifications on price / availability changes on the competitors’ sites.

After just several days of setup Price2Spy clients are able to receive notifications at regular intervals and get a grasp of not only competitors’ actions but the underlying reasons for them as well – every price rise or drop is a signal of a specific situation – has your competitor suddenly decided to rise prices on particular room type? That competitor must be gushing with people. Another competitor all of a sudden dropping prices almost below their operational costs? This seems like a desperate call for people to pay a visit.

Finally, the conclusion must be unanimous – monitoring prices from such complex sites is possible after all – Price2Spy has proven this. Are you a hotel owner in need of tracking your competitors at sites like Expedia? If you are, Price2Spy is just what you need.

Showcase: Price2Spy helps Ramcity harvest the pricing data

Posted on January 30, 2013 by misha

This testimonial is published with client’s (Ramcity) explicit consent. Price2Spy will never publish any of our client’s details unless we are given permission to do so.

Issues:

Extremely competitive, sensitive and volatile market;
10 prime competitors to monitor;
Unable to extract data for Google AdWords.

The client – RamCity – is one of Australia’s leading suppliers of computer memory and storage upgrades. Established in 2003, the company has been operating in the ever-changing market with great success. The client is now in need of reliable information on competitors’ actions according to which decisions concerning prices, promotions, etc. are made.

Solution:

Standard Price2Spy account used by RamCity to keep a close eye on all price / product availability changes of its key competitors;
Web crawler – a non-standard Price2Spy service designed to meet the client’s particular needs (collecting data later to be used with Google Adwords)– ran through the site in order to collect the demanded data. Given the complex site structure and large number of products ( and yet larger number of URLs), web harvesting took several days. What made the whole process even more challenging was the IP address control because of which the crawler could have been blocked – meaning that our crawler had to ‘walk on its toes’.

“I’ve been most impressed by the technical ability and timely service the Price2Spy team has provided to RamCity.” – Rod Bland – Ramcity CEO & Upgrade Evangelist

Introducing ‘Price Buckets’ in Price2Spy reports

Posted on January 27, 2013 by misha

Price Buckets – New Filter on Price2Spy

Price Buckets – most recently added Price2Spy filter, an ideal feature for e-tailers wanting to focus on a particular price group and be the leaders among the competitors, offering products from that group at the lowest price.

For example – for ’Low Price’ products you might want to keep your price below your competitor’s, while for ’Mid-range’ products you want your price to be on the upper market edge. That is where Price Buckets filters come into place – you could separately analyze two groups of products (Low Price / Mid-Range) by using Price Bucket filters in Price2Spy.

What are Price Buckets and how to use them?

Price2Spy users are familiar with a number of filters possible to apply when running pricing reports. They might filter products according to brand, supplier, category, etc. and now even according to a price range – according to your own pricing standards.

It’s pretty simple – first you need to add new Price Bucket to your Price2Spy account. You need to define the price range and label the Bucket depending on which price group it contains e.g Price Buckets containing low price products might be called ‘Cheap’, Low cost’, ‘Low price’, etc. Important thing to note is that the users classify Price Buckets according to product prices on their own website, meaning that Price Buckets labelled as “Cheap” might contain products belonging to another price group at their competitors’ sites.

Why Price Buckets?

If you are an e-tailer focused on a specific price range striving to beat your competitors with the lowest price offered for the targeted group of products, Price Buckets are just the right option for you. With filtered reports enabled by Price Buckets, it is quite simple to conduct your own strategy having in mind your competitors’ most recent actions concerning products from the price range which you’re focusing on.

The underlying reason e-tailers use Price2Spy is monitoring competitors and analyzing their prices, actions and strategies. Analyzing competitors’ price strategies across different pricing groups is the core point of Price Buckets. Using filtered reports selecting particular Price Buckets, Price2Spy users might analyze competitors’ actions expeditiously and take their own strategic steps accordingly.

If you, as an online retailer, can relate to any of the above mentioned, then Price Buckets will help you achieve your business objectives!

Tracking Russian, Arabic, Greek and other stores in non-western languages

Posted on January 24, 2013 by misha

Price2Spy team has encountered numerous clients with different kinds of demands, and meeting those demands, Price2Spy has been changing and evolving. Options and features offered by Price2Spy have been growing in number rapidly, and we have our clients to thank for that.

Many Web-based tools might have difficulties reading non-western script sites. This leaves millions of users from Arabic world, Eastern Europe, Far East etc with no proper support for their languages / scripts. Our team has overcome this problem so that Price2Spy clients can track a variety of sites using all kinds of scripts, from various parts of the world.

The Cyrillic script - seems to be a natural surrounding for Price2Spy. The reason lies in Price2Spy ‘place of birth’, Serbia. Hence, our support for Russian, Greek, Ukrainian and other languages from this region comes rather natural.

Thanks to technology we’re using, Price2Spy is able to handle virtually any known script – and that’s why we have many clients from other countries and languages using scripts of their own – Arabic, Hebrew, Greece, Korean etc etc

Therefore, if your store is operating in your own language, making most of Internet tools useless – do not fear, it’s not a problem for Price2spy.

Showing competitors’ prices on your own site – PROs and CONs

Posted on December 19, 2012 by misha

Showing competitor prices on your own site

Are you aiming for the lowest price in the market? Want to share it with your customers and provide them with a clear proof of it? Thinking of showing your competitors’ prices on your own website?

Not convinced that it’s a good idea?

One might presume that consumers would be all in favour of this. And that would be almost completely right. A study by the e-tailing group Internet Retailer on consumer comparison shopping shows the following figures:

63% of consumers say they would like to see competitors’ prices on a retailer’s site
78% would likely return to a site that shows competitors’ prices
36% would be “much more loyal” to a retailer who displays price comparison

PROs:

Time-saving – It does save time and definitely makes it easier for shoppers to compare and decide. Though coined about two centuries ago, the phrase “Time is money” perfectly applies in modern times as well. For that reason, it is more than likely that potential shoppers will come back to a site showing competitors’ prices when they want to compare prices by just one click.

Money-saving is most likely the deciding factor for those in favour of showing competitors’ prices. Savings that could be made using this feature are significant, and given the current economic crisis, those who shop around and compare prices before buying would be thankful to get a chance to do it without spending too much time on it.

Trust is what every retailer strives to build and grow in customers. Showing competitors’ prices on a site – not only higher prices, but lower as well – would be an excellent means to achieve this end. The fact that a retailer is open to showing competitors’ prices, both higher and lower particularly increases trust in the eyes of consumers.

Lowest price guarantee, should be a benefit both for a customer and a retailer. The customer gets a bargain, the retailer gets a customer. In other words, if a customer finds a lower price (including all duties, taxes, fees and shipping costs) a retailer guarantees that they will at least match that price, depending on the rules and conditions of the offer. Lowest price guarantee and showing competitors’ prices feature would appear a natural combination.

CONs:

Showing competitors’ prices might help customers decide where to shop. It is their decision to make and they get what they choose. However, by showing competitors’ prices, retailers might get what they neither choose nor want.

Take a risk of lawsuit as an example. Unless you monitor and update your competitors’ prices regularly, you might end up being sued. You might also find yourself in threat of a lawsuit even if you do keep competitors’ prices on your website updated. On what grounds? Featuring someone’s logo on your site might be construed as infringing their registered trademark.

Advertising the competition. Positive or negative, it is still an advertisement. Your lower prices might say that you are a better choice for a customer, still, your mentioning a competitor might lead the customer straight in the unwanted direction– to your competitor’s site. A potential client might leave your site to compare your prices with those of a competitor, and never come back.

A number of merchants might see this as unprofessional. In their opinion, competing just on price is not the sole point of e-tailing (or any other) business. Your offer should include a high standard of service and quality regarding delivery, call centre/customer support. In other words, do not compete by pointing out that you are the cheapest. The lowest price is overrated. Attract customers by beating your competitors in every other respect, not just the lowest prices.

Showing competitors’ prices on your own site – yes or no? The answer to this question lies in every retailer themselves. And this answer varies from retailer to retailer. Based on the items they sell, the service they provide, the consumers they target and other special or general requirements, retailers weigh the pros and cons of using this feature and they decide.

As for those who find it convenient to use this feature and want to have competitors’ prices displayed on their website, Price2Spy API is just the solution they need.

URL deactivation alert – a new Price2Spy feature

Posted on December 3, 2012 by misha

The best ideas for new features and functions come mainly from our clients. URL deactivation alert is not an exception.
One of our clients whose competitors have very frequent stock changes suggested that we add a feature that would notify him in case one or more of the URLs that he had monitored had been deactivated. Once again, this suggestion came in quite useful since, knowing our clients’ businesses, we found it generally helpful for other clients as well. Hence, Price2Spy development team got on the task, and here we are – URL deactivation emails are at your disposal.

URL deactivation alert is a feature that notifies a client via email that one or more of the URLs that are monitored have been deactivated. Besides mere notification, it provides you with a list of all other sites offering this product, so you have all the competitors at a glance. There is also a list of possible reasons for deactivation included.
The deactivation can happen for a number of reasons such as product being discontinued, a site being slow/not responding or a change in the product page/design (in this case please, get in touch with our support team – support@price2spy.com – because we would need to make adjustments in how Price2Spy treats this site).
Another thing worth mentioning is that this feature is optional, meaning it is up to you to decide whether you want to receive URL deactivation alerts or not. (If you do not want to receive them, just go to your Settings and switch them off).

We pride ourselves on the fact that our clients take part in Price2Spy improvement. One new feature or function is just one more great idea successfully materialized.
Therefore, please, do not hesitate to come forward with a new suggestion which will make Price2Spy a better tool. All your ideas are welcome!

3 new reports available in Price2Spy

Posted on November 6, 2012 by misha

Because you asked for it – we have prepared 3 new pricing reports in Price2Spy reporting section.

These 3 reports combined represent a very quick way for establishing price relationship between your and competitor sites – it will be very easy to determine if a competitor is generally speaking cheaper, or more expensive than you are.

1) Products priced below my price

This will show you how many products per competitor are priced below your own price. Clicking the competitor name will show you which exactly products those are. This will enable you to see which products you should reconsider for price adjustment – if you’re within your price margin, of course.

2) Products priced above my price

Similar as above, this report will show you how many products per competitor are priced above your own price. Clicking the competitor name will show you those products, and you’ll be able to see which products you should reconsider for price raising.

3) Products equally priced as on my site

As you’re already guessing, this report will show you which competitors have identical prices as you do. Typically this is the case with MAP prices, where the end price is dictated by the manufacturer, or in case when several sites are closely monitoring each other and updating their prices accordingly.

Of course, 3 new reports can be combined with all regular report filters: competitor filter, brand/category, availability filter etc etc

Price2Spy API launched

Posted on October 11, 2012 by misha

Our development team is proud to present Price2Spy API

More and more clients were asking us for a seamless way of integration of Price2Spy into their existing software solutions / CRM tools – and the result is Price2Spy – a standardized way to access / manage your Price2Spy data.

Our API is implemented as a standard Web Service, making it easy for developers to develop your side of the interface – no matter what programming language / technology they use.

Price2Spy API can be used to either to create / manage your products and URLs, or to get the latest (or historical) pricing data – all by exchange of standardized XML (SOAP) messages.

This way you can practically use Price2Spy without ever logging into it – product managers will continue to work in your own software / CRM, and Price2Spy API will make sure the data they enter gets into Price2Spy (or other way around – it will make sure Price2Spy feeds your software with the latest pricing info).

Avoid email notifications for your own price changes

Posted on September 22, 2012 by misha

Avoid price change alert email for your own price changes Some of our customers (having real frequent price change policy) have asked for a new Price2Spy feature: avoiding price notifications for price changes on their own sites.

Since they heavily rely on price change alert emails sent by Price2Spy, they needed a way to keep track of all price changes, but to avoid email storm when they themselves update prices on their own store.

And that’s exactly what we did – we offered them a new setting: Do not send emails for my own price changes.

That means much fewer emails, but still having accurate reports and price comparisons.

We hope you’ll find this new feature useful (actually several clients have already confirmed that it works great for them!)