Case Study
07
SUPPORTING CLIENT'S COMPETITIVE PRICING INTELLIGENCE TOOL WITH QUALITY ASSURANCE EXPERTISE
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AUTOMOTIVE PARTS-KEEPING YOUR PRICES THE BEST
The automotive supplies industry, with a large number of trade names, frequent stock changes, and a huge quantity of analog products, requires a lot of the product manager’s attention to build an effective pricing policy for different Supplies groups.Detailed report provided by Vserve Ebusiness Solutions will lead to increased sales and profit and also help you go in detail into the competitor site, verify the product segments in each category along with the product details. Price chart history provided by Vserve Ebusiness Solutions shows the changes in price over a period of time that will help you to sell your Supplies more effectively to the price-sensitive customers.
BETTER WAYS TO MONITOR PRICE:
The below mentioned practices are followed by Vserve members to help the product managers in an efficient way while handling large amount of SKU’s:
- More than 15 different important sites are monitored.
- Sites which shows reduced price in cart than the advertised price is monitored separately.
- We always go for standardized part numbers for product matching to make the SKU matching process simple.
- Price changes in last 24 hours are alerted through pricing dashboard or price matrix.
- We use MAP module to find the violators of minimum advertised price.
CONSUMER ELECTRONICS-EASE YOUR EFFORTS
Even though most of the products categorized in this industry have standardized part numbers, some clients go for manual product matching. Here at Vserve, we manage to give a solution for this problem.We ease the efforts by splitting the work, based on product category, so that the product managers can concentrate on his domain.
Vserve Ebusiness Solutions provide analytical data by taking you in depth to the competitor pricing policies brand by brand. By implementing API interface with your software, you will be able to view the price changes from your own system without making a login to Vserve Ebusiness Solutions.
BETTER WAYS TO MONITOR PRICE:
The following practices are pursued by the Vserve members to help the product managers in this industry:
- Since this industry has a large number of products, API integration is a must.
- More than 120 marketing sites are monitored that depends on market decentralization.
- Individual site monitoring is a must to be aware of the cheapest price offered.
- Price change alerts will be given 2-8 times per day for clients who wish to get updated with pricing variations.
- We use pricing strategy module to detect the price changes and also MAP module to identify the abusers who are against the rule of marketing.
HOUSEHOLD & FURNITURE- WE DO SMART MONITORING WORK:
The household and furniture industry is one of the hardest for matching and monitoring, but Vserve price intelligence solution handles this issue. In this industry, customers work without standardized part numbers or with well defined part number.
What we offer our customers is the ability to have a clear data on the competitor segments, brand, product, categories etc. The price history chart provided by Vserve Ebusiness Solutions will give you details about the product period as well as the hike of price over time. We also let you know about the activities of your competitors and their pricing behavior.
FOLLOWED PRACTICES IN FURNITURE INDUSTRY:
When it comes to household and furniture industry, the ways followed to monitor price should be helpful to the product managers.
- Recent price change alerts can be spotted via pricing dashboard or automated price matrix report (in certain cases emails are most commonly used to alert the price changes).
- In this industry, the competitor websites monitored, ranges between 50 and 200.
- Market places like Amazon and eBay are monitored as well.
- Vserve Ebusiness Solutions capture the prices within shopping cart to identify the MAP violations.
- One of our core services is monitoring prices on B2B sites which require username and password to access pricing details.
LIGHTING INDUSTRY-INNOVATIVE MONITORING TECHNIQUES:
In this competitive industry, international operations (across countries) are carried out by very small and compact teams. On the other hand, a multitude of small retailers are emerging, most of them using alternative sales channels (like Amazon / eBay) which makes effective price monitoring even more challenging. Furthermore, in many cases product pricing differ for a single product and for a set of products.
In this industry, automatch is possible in many cases with standardized part numbers but whereas some manufacturers have really short part numbers (SKU) leading to the mismatch of the product.In such cases we go for brand names and check whether they are matching and make sure they match well.
In quite a few cases we have coupled basic Vserve price monitoring service with scrapping competitor website product content in order to provide structured product data containing product name, description, image, and individual product attributes.
FOLLOWED PRACTICES IN LIGHTING INDUSTRY:
Here is how Vserve Ebusiness Solutions can help product managers from this competitive industry,
- Use pricing strategy module to identify products with price hike and drop opportunities.
- Most of our clients go for full API integration, where the client’s software initiates the process into Vserve. Vserve then performs automatching and feeds pricing data back to the client’s software.
- 1000-10,000 SKU’s gets monitored by our competent analysts.
- Cheapest products per site can be spotted via pricing dashboard categorized by brand, products and suppliers.
- Price change alert emails are most commonly used to detect MAP violations.
- MAP violation module is used to take necessary action against the rule violators.
MUSIC- MARKET COMPETITIVENESS AT IT’S BEST:
Music industry is characterized by certain factors that aren’t that common in other industries we’ve been dealing with. At this very moment we have more clients coming from various segments of this exciting industry, who use Vserve Ebusiness Solutions to keep an eye on their rough online market.
Price changes happen so often that in most cases tracking the product price once per day is not enough. More and more sites are trying to avoid being price-monitored by introducing smart IT solutions to detect non-human traffic. Vserve Ebusiness Solutions has stealth IP technology which enables us to overcome such difficulty.
BEST PRACTICES IN MUSIC INDUSTRY:
Here is how Vserve Ebusiness Solutions can help product managers from this industry,
- The number of retail sites monitored very much depends on market strategy. Some tend to monitor only 2-3 big sites, while others go very broad monitoring about 40-60 sites.
- MAP violation module is used to take necessary action against the rule violators.
- Use pricing strategy module to identify products with price increase or drop opportunities.
- Cheapest products per site along with spot pricing, stock changes in the last few days can be spotted via pricing dashboard categorized by brand, products and suppliers.
- Price change alert emails are most commonly used to detect MAP violations.
OFFICE SUPPLIES:
This industry, characterized by thousands of SKUs is a very good example of why efficient price monitoring is considered to be one of key ingredients to business success. Furthermore, many of our clients use Vserve Ebusiness Solutions not to monitor their competitors, but actually to monitor prices offered by their suppliers, so they can optimize their supply costs.
This brings the need to monitor B2B sites which requires login and password to access product pricing. Vserve Ebusiness Solutions will enable you to easily identify your competitors’ pricing policies and react to important price change alerts for example, when a competitor lowers the price below a certain threshold.
BETTER WAYS TO MONITOR PRICE:
Here is how Vserve Ebusiness Solutions can help product managers from this industry,
- Price change alerts are usually used only for key product categories where all the other products will be covered by automated price matrix report.
- In case MAP-enforcement is needed, Vserve will indicate the MAP-pricing violations.
- Use pricing strategy module to identify products with price increase and drop opportunities.
- Cheapest products per site along with spot pricing, stock changes in the last few days can be spotted via pricing dashboard categorized by brand, products and suppliers.
- Number of individual products (SKUs) monitored is typically between 10 000 and 50000.
TRAVEL & AIRLINE:
Airline and travel industry websites are known as most complicated websites on the web to monitor. Tracking prices from these websites are challenging as List of destinations, routes – ranging from a few hundred up to several thousands, travel models, websites and much more should be monitored, that’s where Vserve Ebusiness Solutions expertise comes in.
Based on the client’s needs we capture the flight schedule and the number of stop over’s. The travel cost from various airline websites is monitored. A number of cheapest travel offers are analyzed. Competitor’s position in the list of offered flights is tracked.
IMPROVED WAYS TO MONITOR PRICE:
Here is how Vserve Ebusiness Solutions can help product managers from this industry,
IMPROVED WAYS TO MONITOR PRICE
- As there are so many price points in this industry, price alerts or reports do not make any sense, therefore we supply raw data via API integration.
- Vserve Ebusiness Solutions handles flight guidelines such as pieces of luggage allowed, baggage surcharge, seat reservation price, insurance options etc.
- Most commonly, up to 5 most important market competitors get monitored.
- Individual competitors Websites, as well as Meta-Search websites, are regularly monitored.
BABY & KIDS-HOW TO STAY UNANCHORED IN A TURBULENT MARKET:
As you can imagine, this industry has no firmly standardized part numbers with some exceptions, for example, manufacturers are usually able to supply product EAN numbers or barcodes. Some of our clients do it themselves, while others hire Vserve team for such tasks.
Vserve will enable you to easily dive into various aspects of your competitive landscape by many different segments like brands, categories and suppliers. You can easily drill down to the product details at any time. Price history chart will show the development of prices over time, so you will easily recognize important patterns in your competitors’ pricing behavior.
IMPROVED WAYS TO MONITOR PRICE:
Here is how Vserve Ebusiness Solutions can help product managers from this industry,
- Number of stock keeping units is usually less than 2000 range. This makes manual product matching quite acceptable both in terms of cost and time.
- Marketplaces like Amazon and eBay typically need to be monitored as well, usually for the cheapest price offered.
- Usually between 10 and 30 most important online sites get monitored.
- Using Pricing Strategy module will result in a clear and interactive list of products and suggested pricing changes.
- Most recent price changes and cheapest products per site can be spotted via Pricing Dashboard.
- In case MAP-enforcement is needed, Vserve will indicate the MAP-pricing violations.
ELECTRIC EQUIPMENT-STAY AHEAD OF THE COMPETITION:
Vast number of different SKUs is what defines our customers from this industry. Usually the SKU rate is more than 50k and reaches up to 500k. This industry has a mixture of both standardized part numbers and small part numbers leading to potential mismatch.
We usually go for additional Auto match validation, making sure that the brand name is a match as well. Basic Vserve price monitoring service is coupled with scraping competitor website product content in order to provide our clients with a source of structured product data attributes.
IMPROVED WAYS TO MONITOR PRICE:
Here is how Vserve Ebusiness Solutions can help product managers from this industry,
- The number of competitors monitored is limited to 5-10 most important market competitors.
- One of the specifics of price monitoring we have encountered working with in electrical industry is the ‘quantity factor’.
- Most of the clients go for full API integration where client’s software initiates the process by inserting new products into Vserve.
- Vserve then performs Auto matching, and feeds fresh pricing data back to the client’s software.
- Price change alert emails are used only for leading product categories.
- MAP violation module is used as a reliable tool when it comes to spotting competitors.
GAMES & TOYS-PRICE MONITORING IN SUCH A DISCONNECTED MARKET:
What we have learned from various markets is that the product collection changes regularly, as brands compete with each other by introducing new products. The same counts for competitor retail sites. In gaming industry, we require dedicated resources for continuous product matching across international marketplaces as well as individual retail sites in order to achieve better market control globally.
Vserve price intelligence Solution delivers you 98% accuracy, combining automated and manual product matching for toys and hobby shops.Pricing dashboard will make your online marketing easier by enabling you to quickly check various aspects of your competitive landscape.Most of the online retailers go for manual product matching; where some among them do it all by themselves while others rely on Vserve Ebusiness Solutions to do it instead.
IMPROVED WAYS TO MONITOR PRICE:
Here is how Vserve Ebusiness Solutions can help product managers from this industry,
- The number of competitor sites monitored is usually between 5 and 20.
- In case of brands over 200 individual sites monitored.
- Sometimes several different sellers on Amazon are monitored individually in order to ensure full pricing analytics on these channels as well.
- Number of individual products (SKUs) is usually less than 2500.
- Most recent price changes and cheapest product per site can be spotted via pricing dashboard.
MASS RETAILERS-MASS PRICES MONITORING:
Mass retailers can handle more than five million products. With so many products on offer such sites typically focus on many different product ranges which make the task of identifying relevant competitor sites even more difficult.Due to the diverse nature of the products offered, EAN / MPN part numbers are rarely used for product matching.
Mass retail clients typically have different product managers taking care of different segments of their offer.In some cases, the work is split by product category like baby equipment, car parts, consumer electronics etc. while in others it can be done by brand, or even by product supplier.
IMPROVED WAYS TO MONITOR PRICE:
Here is how Vserve Ebusiness Solutions can help product managers from this industry,
- The number of site monitored can vary from 30 to 300.
- Tracking market sites like Amazon, eBay are performed.
- The number of stock keeping units is more than 20000.
- Products are divided either by brand or by product category.
- Use Pricing Strategy module to identify products with price increase or drop opportunities.
- Pricing Dashboard, define the reports showing recent price and stock changes.
- In case MAP-enforcement is needed, Vserve will indicate the MAP-pricing violations.
NUTRITION, FOOD SUPPLEMENTS-CHALLENGING PRICE MONITORING:
When it comes to nutrition and food supplement industry, it is lot more complicated to monitor the price and as a result there is a long list of challenges faced by the retailers in their respective business. For this reason retailers come to Vserve Ebusiness Solutions to make this task a simple one.
Many products with different flavors are coming without standardized packaging. Comparing quantities, size and weight is not a simple activity. Depending on the shoppers location the product price and availability may vary. Brand names are used accordingly.
IMPROVED WAYS OF PRICE MONITORING:
Here is how Vserve Ebusiness Solutions can help product managers from this industry,
- MAP violation module is used as a reliable tool when it comes to spotting competitors.
- Pricing Strategy module is used to identify products with price change opportunities
- More than twenty competitor sites are monitored.
- Number of individual products (SKUs) varies from 200 to 5000 depending on the client.
- Most recent price changes and cheapest products per site can be spotted via Pricing Dashboard.
- Price change alert emails are the most commonly used way of monitoring the price changes.
SPORTS AND OUTDOORS-EVER CHANGING PRICES:
The speed of acceptance to market changes makes one online sport shop more or less successful than another. Vserve price monitoring service will help you change the prices of the sporting goods of your online store in accordance to your shop’s rule based pricing strategy with the help of dashboard containing competitors data.
Every bit of information is checked manually so you get only reliable data for your sports equipment store’s progress. Since the products in this market have a very short lifecycle, they get replaced by another similar product with different model name and pricing. Vserve Ebusiness Solutions will enable you to easily identify your competitors’ pricing policies and react to important price change alert
IMPROVED WAYS OF PRICE MONITORING:
Here is how Vserve Ebusiness Solutions can help product managers from this industry,
- Many of the products gets discounted due to the short life span of the sporting goods.
- Most recent price changes can be spotted either via pricing dashboard or by price matrix report.
- Several different sellers on Amazon are monitored usually for the cheapest price offered.
- Normally at the range of 30-50 important competitor sites get monitored.
- Number of stock keeping units monitored is usually between 1000-5000.
- Use MAP module to detect retail sites that are in violation of minimal advertised price.
COMPUTERS AND NETWORK-PRICE MONITORING IS A MUST:
Computers and networks industry is one of the most competitive e-commerce categories. Vserve Ebusiness Solutions helps you to manage all challenges in this industry in order to compete effectively to increase margin and customer loyalty.
This industry is classified into computer, laptops, peripheral equipments, server equipment and network equipment. The main price monitoring challenge in this industry is that we need to make sure we never compare a used product to a new one.
IMPROVED WAYS OF PRICE MONITORING:
Here is how Vserve Ebusiness Solutions can help product managers from this industry,
- The number of competitors site monitoring varies depending on the market situation.
- Alerts on price changes of other electronic stores.
- Most of the retailers often sell their products in channels like Amazon, eBay for a cheaper price than their regular store, so these channels are monitored individually.
- Number of individual products monitored varies from 50 to 25000.
- Use pricing strategy module to identify pricing changes.
- Recent price changes, stock movements, can be tracked through pricing dashboard.
FASHION-ROLE OF ASSORTMENT MONITORING:
Manufacturers in this industry do not care much about online retailer challenges, and produce apparel, footwear or fashion accessories with so many custom properties that it is almost impossible to compare at program level. This is why Vserve price Intelligence service uses visual matching system to provide you actual data about your competitors.
One of the specifics of this highly demanding industry is the ability to monitor not only the pricing, but product assortment as well. The fashion industry is characterized by product variation, for example a shoe having several sizes and colours come in different pricing and availability. Vserve can monitor individual product variations and give real-time notifications of competitor’s changes.
IMPROVED WAYS OF PRICE MONITORING:
Here is how Vserve Ebusiness Solutions can help product managers from this industry,
- Live-tracking of competitor’s promo-prices, discounts and offers.
- Seasonal price changes help to free up your stockroom on time.
- About 15 most important market sites get monitored.
- Number of stock keeping units monitored is less than 2500.
- Automated price matrix report is used to alert the price changes.
- Recent price changes can be spotted via pricing dashboard.
- Use MAP module to detect retail sites who are in violation of minimal advertised price.
HEALTH AND BEAUTY-HEALTHY WAY TO MONITOR PRICE:
Health and beauty industry encompasses a variety of products, including fragrances, makeup, hair care , sunscreen, toothpaste, and products for bathing, nail care, and shaving. Retailers from this particular industry make use of Vserve Ebusiness Solutions to achieve a clear insight into international markets.
One of the key characteristic of this industry is different packaging options. A product is typically offered in several different packages and volumes, all on a single product page. Here price monitoring becomes a bit complicated where Vserve Ebusiness Solutions through its domain expertise is always ready to manage such challenging situations.
IMPROVED WAYS TO MONITOR PRICE:
Here is how Vserve Ebusiness Solutions can help product managers from this industry,
- Vserve Ebusiness Solutions reports and dashboard will make your online marketing easier by enabling you to quickly check various aspects of your competitive prospects.
- Price history chart will show the development of prices over time, so you will easily recognize important patterns in your competitors’ pricing behavior.
- Use pricing strategy module to identify pricing changes.
- Most recent price changes can be spotted either via pricing dashboard or by price matrix report.
- Use MAP module to detect retail sites who are in violation of minimal advertised price.
MEDICAL INDUSTRY-HOW TO WIN PRICING WARS:
This competitive industry has undergone significant changes with the introduction of marketplaces like Amazon that get heavily used by small retailers who try to make their way to market success. Vserve Ebusiness Solutions takes initiative in monitoring the pricing policies of medical instruments across many different markets for our customers.
Vserve Ebusiness Solutions will enable you to dive into various aspects of your competitive landscape by many different market segments like brands, categories, suppliers thereby you can easily drill down to the product details at any time. Price history chart will show important patterns in your competitors’ pricing behavior.
IMPROVED WAYS OF PRICE MONITORING:
Here is how Vserve Ebusiness Solutions can help product managers from this industry,
- More than 120 brands are monitored including all the small and large retail sites.
- Monitoring marketplaces like Amazon is typically a must to be aware of the lowestprice offered.?
- Price change alert emails combined with automated price matrix report are the most commonly used way for monitoring the price changes.
- In some cases, email alerts are divided based on the category or brand so the product managers get alerted only about the products they are in charge of.
- Most recent price changes and cheapest products per site can be spotted via pricing dashboard.
- We help our customers to detect retail sites who are in violation of minimal advertised price through MAP module..
PET SUPPLIES-STANDARDIZED PRICE MONITORING:
When it comes to pricing in the pet supplies industry, the main challenges for price monitoring include a variety of products, different packaging, dimensions, weight, quantity, color, etc. Vserve Ebusiness Solutions covers all pet supplies retailers’ needs, providing insight-rich data and actionable recommendations.
By switching on Price Intelligence will enable you to focus on what really matters for your company’s growth and by delivering actual and reliable data on how to beat your competitors will help to ensure that your shop is the best place to buy pet supplies online. Data collected from targeted websites and rule-based price recommendations will lead to progressive growth of online business.
IMPROVED WAYS TO MONITOR PRICE:
Here is how Vserve Ebusiness Solutions can help product managers from this industry,
- Integration with client’s e-commerce software, paired with Automatch approach enables full process automation where newly added products get auto-discovered on competitor sites, and Vserve starts monitoring the
- In case of global brands / manufacturers – the number of retail sites watched is usually more than 200.
- Vserve’s ability to capture the prices from within shopping cart greatly helps to detect MAP violation cases which are not so easy to spot.
- Use Pricing Strategy module to identify products with price increase and drop opportunities.
TOOLS AND MACHINES-EEFICIENT PRICE MONITORING:
Tools and machine industry is a demanding industry which is often characterized by varied requirements, making it very difficult to identify the real competitors. In most cases, we’re dealing with products that do have manufacturer part number, and the websites we are trying to monitor use them inconsistently.
Vserve Ebusiness Solutions makes the accurate analysis of SKU’s and determines whether new SKU’s to be added or not and blend basic price monitoring service with scraping competitor website product content, In order to provide our clients with a source of structured product data.
IMPROVED WAYS OF PRICE MONITORING:
Here is how Vserve Ebusiness Solutions can help product managers from this industry,
- Product matching is performed manually except for brands and manufacturers.
- We help our customers to detect retail sites who are in violation of minimal advertised price through MAP module.
- Price change alert emails are used to deliver feeds carefully segmented by category or brand.
- Use Pricing Strategy module which will hopefully result in turnover or otherwise profit increase.
- Most recent price changes and cheapest products per site can be spotted via pricing dashboard.