The Profitero Blog

£64,029.31 For A HQ Ultrasonic Cleaner? Pricing Intelligence Highlights The Need For Sellers To Monitor Online Marketplaces Closely

Written by Profitero | Nov 6, 2012 12:00:00 AM

Sellers need to monitor product pricing on retail marketplaces closely. Profitero’s pricing intelligence technology is finding an increasing number of pricing errors in the online marketplaces of leading global multichannel retailers. 

A retailer’s marketplace gives Internet shoppers access to thousands of choices to meet their online shopping needs. However, Profitero is seeing more and more pricing errors in marketplaces with our web-based competitor price monitoring application.

While a marketplace gives sellers additional avenues for growing sales, etailers need to ensure their pricing is correct to avoid missing out on sales to rivals. Profitero noticed a HQ Ultrasonic Cleaner on the Pixmania Marketplace for a whopping £64,029.31 this week. We informed the retailer of the error; the product pricing has now been updated to £44.46 on the website.

Profitero also found strange pricing on the Sears marketplace recently. A Pentax K-01 Yellow SMC DA-40mm F2.8 XS camera was available for purchase on the retailer’s marketplace for a lowly €168. The same model is currently available on Amazon UK for £432.99 (Seller: Pentax). We informed the retailer of our retail price monitoring results.

Our Profitero engineers tell us that our price monitoring technology recorded other irregular pricing on a number of marketplaces this autumn. Multichannel operators need to emphasis to their marketplace sellers how monitoring their online pricing closely will ensure they are not losing customers due to pricing errors.

With high prices and incorrectly priced items being two of the most common reasons for losing out on Internet sales, retailers using a competitor price monitoring system – such as the Profitero service – can enjoy a competitive advantage over less sophisticated competitors by eliminating such pricing errors. As well as providing competitor price intelligence for your business, Profitero can also help you to monitor your own online prices more effectively to ensure such mistakes never happen again. (Nov 7)

© 2012 Profitero

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