Analysis from price intelligence firm Profitero today reveals that Amazon UK implemented just over 50,000 daily price changes at the beginning of May before peaking at more than 415,000 price changes by the middle of October. This dramatic increase in the number of daily price changes demonstrates why retailers need to be monitoring their online competitors’ prices every day in order to stay price competitive this holiday season and beyond.
The Profitero price analysis was based on more than 18 million products on Amazon.co.uk, and conducted over a six month daily period between April and October 2013. The findings show that Amazon UK implemented just over 50,000 price changes at the beginning of May, before peaking at more than 415,000 price changes by the middle of October.
Amazon UK implemented just over 50,000 daily price changes at the beginning of May before peaking at more than 415,000 price changes by the middle of October. This is an 8-fold increase in daily price changes during the last 6 months.
Profitero further examined the number of daily price changes in three of Amazon’s key categories – Electronics, DIY and Health & Beauty – and discovered:
- Within the Electronics category, which covers 12.8 million SKUs, the number of daily price changes has increased from 147,000 products in May to 1.74 million products in October, a staggering 1183% increase and representing 13.6% of Amazon’s overall Electronics inventory
- The Health and Beauty category, which includes 900,000 SKUs, is the most price competitive category, with more than one in five products seeing daily price changes in October – reaching a high of 190,683 price changes by the middle of the month
- The DIY category, covering 1.3 million SKUs, saw Amazon increase the number of daily price changes from just 1,500 in May to peak at 189,550 products six months later, or 14.5% of the overall category
Amazon UK’s Electronics category has seen a 1183% increase in the number of daily price changes.
Commenting on the findings, Volodymyr Pigrukh, CEO and co-founder of Profitero, said: “Whilst retailers increasingly recognise the threat from Amazon, they need to understand the importance of delivering the most competitive price on the market to appeal to today’s price-conscious consumer. Amazon UK has implemented eight times the number of daily price changes since May, and is now changing the prices of more than 400,000 products every day. With Amazon becoming ever more dominant, it’s essential that retailers are constantly monitoring their online competitors’ prices to ensure they price right and avoid losing out on sales. We predict that the number of price changes is only going to increase and so for retailers to seriously compete with Amazon, they need to be prepared for this and to monitor Amazon prices on a daily basis using an advanced price intelligence solution such as Profitero.”
More than one in five Health and Beauty products saw price changes in October, up from less than 5% in May.
The percentage of daily price changes in Amazon UK’s DIY category peaked at more than 14.5% of the category in October
Ensure you are benefitting from competitive price monitoring solutions such as Profitero which enable you to benchmark your prices against Amazon to offer the most competitive price on the market this holiday season.
To find out more about Profitero and discover how we help retailers make faster and smarter decisions, download our White Paper: Five Reasons Why Every Retailer Needs to Monitor Their Online Competitors’ Prices” or visit www.profitero.com.
Profitero.com: Web based competitor price monitoring for retailers and brands
About Profitero
Profitero is the leading global provider of online competitor pricing data. We provide both bricks & mortar and online retailers with their competitors’ prices, promotions and full product assortment information. Profitero’s accurate and timely competitor intelligence enables our customers to make better informed and more profitable pricing decisions, helping them to increase sales as well as margins.
More than 40 global retailers, including Staples, Sam’s Club, Tesco, Waitrose and Ocado, rely on Profitero Price Intelligence to:
- Benchmark competitor prices
- Manage their prices and promotions
- Attract price sensitive shoppers
- Negotiate better with suppliers.
Our pricing data can be seamlessly integrated into price optimization solutions such as Blue Yonder, Revionics and IBM DemandTec, to deliver more accurate and effective price optimization. Profitero is also the preferred supplier of online competitor pricing data to Nielsen’s retail customers across more than 100 countries.
To discover how Profitero can help make your pricing smarter, contact us at sales@profitero.com or visit www.profitero.com.