High-speed trading tools – developed for the stock market – are driving price changes on the Amazon website.
As price-savvy shoppers regularly carry out online competitor price monitoring before making their final purchasing decisions, sellers on Amazon are responding to this consumer trend by using computerised trading tools to change their product prices as regularly as four times an hour. Such tools were often developed by former data-mining engineers at investment banks.
Pricing intelligence allows sellers to undercut each other: they can ensure that their prices are always slightly lower than their rivals. Algorithms can analyse historical data to pick prices that will secure a better position on the eCommerce site.
Amazon now has around two million sellers on its market place. The online retailer is also competing well against its clients on pricing as it has strong experience in data mining and full access to clients’ sales information.
© Profitero 2012
About Profitero
Pricing intelligence company Profitero provides retailers with actionable price intelligence data, monitoring over 50 million products across 4,000 eCommerce retailers every day, observing pricing, promotions and stock availability. We work with the world’s leading retailers, enabling them to acquire new customers and grow profit margins by monitoring and responding to changes in competitor pricing and promotional activity as they happen. For more information on Profitero price intelligence and competitor monitoring, visit www.profitero.com or email sales@profitero.com
