Businesses fail for a variety of reasons, including a lack of business savvy, not being able to manage growth properly or not understanding the best ways to market your business. However, one chief reason that many businesses fail is utilizing poor pricing practices-specifically, many companies set their prices too low and thus make weak profits that can’t keep the business afloat. In other situations, businesses fail to price their products or services low enough, so cost-conscious customers decide to patronize the business’s competitors instead. Online price monitoring software is designed to help businesses to choose the most competitive prices so that they remain strong in the modern marketplace.
Competitors
With online price monitoring technology, you can scan a competing retailer’s whole online site or a particular brand or category within its website to get full details regarding price, product assortment and other data. You can even complete scans of shopping engines or marketplaces to gather vendor names and pricing for listings of a product. This technology is helpful both for retailers/manufacturers and for companies who are in business to help clients to track pricing daily. For the latter companies, the data obtained using this type of software can even be integrated with their own systems, or the price monitoring company’s interface may be made available to these companies’ clients.
More Features
It’s best to look for a monitoring company that offers price tracking 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The company’s interface needs to be simple to use and intuitive. It’s helpful to get email alerts about pricing information and to even be able to export data to Microsoft as well as other formats. In addition, leading software provides information on past price trends, shipping prices and add-to-cart costs. The best technology will also give you up-to-date information on prices in multiple countries throughout the world and even provide helpful currency conversions.
Best Options
Additional features that are worth looking for in online price monitoring software is the ability to provide custom reporting so that your company-or a client’s company if you help clients to track competitors’ prices-can get the specific data it needs. A competitive price manager also offers integration with Google Analytics and secret shopper data in addition to providing useful data feeds. With help from the right price monitoring company, a business truly can stay on top of the competition and thus increase its chances of remaining vibrant both now and in the future.
