In the world of online retail, properly pricing your products is critical to your business success and survival. Knowing your competitors' prices, plus knowledge of what your competition is doing are key elements to pricing correctly. Whether you're just beginning to monitor your competitor's prices -- or reassessing your pricing practices -- here are 8 of my favorite competitive pricing resources to help you in the ever-more-competitive world of online retail - numbered for convenience, but in no particular ranking -- they're all great!
1. Multichannel Merchant
Based on industry research, personal experience, and observations of the writers, Multichannel Merchant is full of good insight for online retailers. Just plug "competitive pricing" into the search box and you'll find article after article on pricing intelligence and latest technology regarding competitive pricing intelligence tools.
2. PROS Pricing Leadership
A treasure trove of articles on the subject of pricing, comparison shopping engines, competitive pricing intelligence tools, and everything in between -- by respected leaders, pros and bloggers in the industry. Very informative; a lot of valuable information and insight.
3. Knowledge Is Power
Knowledge Is Power is an apt name for this self-proclaimed "Forum For The Competitive Intelligence Community." Well-organized, easy-to-find topics and blogs. If you seek answers to questions about competitive intelligence methods, tools, and happenings, this source recognizes and touts the need for savvy online retailers to utilize competitive pricing intelligence tools to the utmost. Amen.
4. Six Sigma Pricing Blog
Everything you ever wanted to know about pricing: Price Execution, Price Planning, Pricing Strategy, and Pricing Operations. Blogs include tantalizing titles like: Pragmatic Competitive Intelligence for Pricing Precision; Fewer Products: Is Less More? Plan Pricing Promotions For Survival and Profit. Impressive contributors. Headed by award-winning pricing practitioner, Navdeep Sodhi, who's not afraid to tell his clients to raise prices if he thinks they might leave money on the table. Sodhi is a past recipient of the Award of Excellence from the Professional Pricing Society.
5. PricingWire
PricingWire focuses on the critical role that pricing plays within any business. Lots of valuable information to help your business remain in the best position to make smarter pricing decisions, improve value propositions, and create and grow paying (and profitable) customers. Chris Hopf, keep up the good work!
6. Retail Ecommerce
Search for "pricing" and "competitive pricing" on this site and you'll find some interesting articles, such as, What is your pricing for the internet -- Pricing a product is a tricky job for an online retailer; Hidden truths about comparison shopping engines (CSE); and other interesting info on online retail.
7. Knowledgepoint
Take a look at a series of articles on using business intelligence for competitive advantage. What is the market doing? What are your competitors up to? What is happening to the demand for certain products and services? What capacity is there to service those needs? The answers to those questions are found in business intelligence -- and business intelligence is all about having a competitive edge.
8. KM World
KM stands for "Knowledge Management" and sub-name for this site is: Gaining Insight to Enhance Decision-Making. Competitive intelligence has great influence over competitive pricing. Respected industry publication with lots from which to choose, including ways to handle price objections. Detailed, long explanations, not for quick answers to particular problems.
These are my 8 favorite competitive pricing resources. I'd love to hear yours - please leave comments below.
I appreciate the article, Gilon. I would add that for eCommerce pricing, don’t forget about shipping and handling pricing and the advantages of building that into your price. If you have an excellent operations partner, you should be able to go to them for advice and really understand your actual per order cost for handling and shipping, and determine if you can offer free shipping at certain price points or quantities. Online consumer choices often are driven by a the price of the product but the tipping point to click “buy” is on shipping cost and ease of delivery.
We met at IRCE and spoke about eCommerce order management and fulfillment. If you have clients who need a cost analysis, let me know, I can help.
As the eCommerce superhighway gets more congested and competitive, online retailers must find ever-more-innovative ways to attract customers and make sales. Pricing intelligence tools have quickly become essential to rapidly access and act on data on pricing, product availability, shipping charges, promotions, and the like.