Amazon is without a doubt, the largest online retail store, and has brought about major shifts in the way business is conducted both on and offline. They have the largest product catalogue, and provide an income for millions of sellers and businesses from all over the world.
In such a large marketplace, however, it becomes quite difficult remaining relevant, with everyone wanting a piece of the cake. To remain on top, one must think outside the box and go out of their way to do ordinary things in an extraordinary way. The latest trend and most probably one of the most effective one is price monitoring. With it, you can better understand the market dynamics, and the behaviors of competing sellers. Using this information will help you develop your own strategy of remaining on top, and maybe getting a bigger share of the cake than the rest.
But what exactly is Amazon Price Monitoring?
Well, simply put, price monitoring is keeping tabs on the way competitors price their products, and trying to understand the market dynamics that prompt them to price their products the way they do.
In reality, though, it goes in much deeper than that. To remain relevant, you will need to keep tabs on more than just the general price. You will also need to track promotions, discounts, product availability, and even shipping data from your competitors. You would then need to analyze all this information, and find a sweet spot where you will price your products and make them more enticing to customers.
It sounds like a lot to do, and to be honest, it really is. The good thing, however, is that there are numerous tools and software available that help you do all the work automatically, making the task so much less daunting for you.
So, what do you need to do to remain ahead of the competition?
First, it is important to say that there is really no clear-cut way to success when it comes to selling on Amazon. Even Amazon itself is constantly changing, evolving, and trying out new ways to remain the best, and the same goes for you. You will need to do some trial and error to find what works best for your category, and niche too. Here are, however, some general pointers that will get you started in the right direction.
Keep track of competitor pricing
This is the most important thing you need to do to remain significant in the online marketplace. Without knowing and trying to understand your competitor’s prices, there is really no way for you to know what to do to get on top and remain there. But as mentioned above, there are several tools that let you do this at the click of a button. CamelCamelCamel, spotlite, and sellerprime are only a few you can use.
Reprice
Once you know what your competitors are doing right that you are not, the next step would be to change strategy and reprice your products to remain relevant. If you have a small store with a few products on your catalogue, it is possible to do this manually.
However, if you have hundreds or thousands of products in your catalogue, doing it manually is definitely out of the question, especially considering that you may even need to change prices of products several times a day (Amazon does it). Most price tracking and monitoring software, however, have a repricing feature that does the job for you easily.
Give offers and promotions
Nothing draws customers to your store more than offers, sales, and promotions do. A clever seller will maximize on this to ensure buyers are always streaming to their store. Research has shown that nothing makes a buyer want to click the ‘Buy’ button more than the promise of a discount – however small. Just make sure that you are still getting a good profit margin overall, or giving discounts would really beat logic.
 When used correctly, Amazon price tracking and monitoring could really put you ahead of even the most experienced sellers, but of course, you will need to couple it with well-written listings to explain the features and benefits of your product.
But as the wise men of old said, the end justifies the means.†If you can get it to work for you, that is really all that matters. Happy selling, and we hope you get a bigger share of the cake than you’ve been getting.