The DataWeave Blog

Author: Varun Sharma

Mastering Fuel Price Competitiveness: How First-Party Data Outperforms Third-Party in Pricing Accuracy
Fuel retailers today operate in a highly competitive and volatile market. Consumer behavior is increasingly driven by price sensitivity, particularly in industries like fuel where small changes in price can significantly influence where consumers choose to fill up. The stakes are even higher when you consider the razor-thin margins many fuel retailers work with, making every cent count.

For years, retailers have relied on third-party apps and services to provide them with location-based competitive fuel price data. These services collect pricing data based on customer transactions. While these platforms offer a convenient way for consumers to find cheaper fuel prices, their value to retailers is limited. The data they provide is often riddled with inaccuracies, lags, and incomplete coverage, leaving retailers vulnerable to missed pricing opportunities.

In this rapidly shifting landscape, retailers need data that is not only accurate but also real-time. Solving this involves directly tapping into retailers’ own data sources (first-party or 1P data) —such as websites and apps. This is believed to be the most comprehensive and reliable source of fuel price data in the market.

To validate this hypothesis, we conducted a comprehensive analysis comparing first-party and third-party (3P) fuel price data. Our analysis compared pricing (at the same time of the day) across more than 40 gas stations—including major players like Circle K, Costco, Speedway, and Wawa. The data was captured several times a day for over a week.

Accurate Pricing Matters More Than Ever

Our analysis revealed that nearly a quarter (24.4%) of the fuel pricing data provided by third-party sources was inaccurate when compared to first-party data. On average, these inaccuracies amounted to a price difference of 10.9%.

Such discrepancies, though seemingly minor, can significantly affect consumer behavior. Inaccurate prices could drive customers to competitors who are listed with lower prices—even if the real difference is negligible. For fuel retailers, this leads to lost revenue, missed opportunities, and reduced market share.

The implications are clear: relying on third-party competitive data alone puts retailers at risk. With inaccurate data, retailers may fail to adjust their prices in time to respond to market changes, losing customers to competitors.

The Core Challenges of Third-Party Data

Third-party data comes with inherent limitations. The way this data is collected presents significant challenges for fuel retailers looking to optimize pricing strategies. Here are the main issues:
- Inconsistent Data Frequency: Third-party pricing data is often gathered through customer card transactions. As a result, pricing data updates only when and where transactions occur. This can lead to irregular data availability, particularly in stations with lower transaction volumes. For instance, in rural areas or during off-peak hours, fewer transactions lead to fewer updates. Retailers are left with outdated data, making it difficult to keep pace with real-time price fluctuations.
- Limited Geographic Coverage: Regions with lower transaction volumes are particularly affected by data gaps. While urban centers may enjoy more frequent updates, rural and less-frequented stations often suffer from a lack of data. This limited geographic coverage creates blind spots, making it impossible for retailers in these regions to stay competitive.
- Potential Data Inaccuracies Across Fuel Types: Our analysis showed that inaccuracies in third-party pricing data were most pronounced for Unleaded fuel, with errors occurring nearly 80% of the time. While Diesel prices fared slightly better, inaccuracies were still frequent. This inconsistency across fuel types further complicates the challenge for retailers relying on third-party data.
Leveraging First-Party Data

At DataWeave, our Fuel Pricing Intelligence solution leverages real-time 1P data directly from fuel retailers’ websites and mobile apps, ensuring that retailers always have access to the most up-to-the-minute and accurate pricing information.

Here’s why first-party data stands out:
- Real-Time Updates: Our solution provides near-instantaneous updates across more than 30,000 ZIP codes, ensuring that retailers always have the most up-to-date pricing information. This real-time accuracy is essential for making dynamic pricing adjustments in a highly competitive market.
- Wide Geographic Coverage: DataWeave’s first-party solution captures data across a broad geographic range, ensuring no blind spots in coverage. Retailers in rural or less-frequented areas benefit from the same level of insight as their urban counterparts, giving them the ability to optimize pricing in real-time.
- Complementary to Existing Solutions: For retailers already using third-party data, DataWeave’s first-party solution can complement and enhance their current systems. By filling in data gaps and providing more frequent updates, our solution ensures that retailers are never left in the dark when it comes to competitive pricing.
Retailer-Wise Variances

Among the retailers analyzed, we found that some were more affected by third-party data inaccuracies than others. Speedway and Wawa, for instance, experienced inaccuracies in up to 28% of third-party price data. In contrast, Circle K exhibited fewer discrepancies, but even they were not immune to the challenges posed by third-party data.

For their competition, relying on third-party data alone presents a significant risk. By switching to first-party data sources, or complementing their existing third-party data with DataWeave’s first-party solution, retailers can ensure they stay competitive in the eyes of price-sensitive consumers.

In an industry as price-sensitive as fuel retail, accurate data is a strategic asset. Leveraging first-party data allows fuel retailers to:
- Maximize Revenue: By using real-time, accurate data, retailers can avoid under- or over-pricing their fuel, ensuring they capitalize on high-demand periods while minimizing losses during low-demand times.
- Enhance Margins: First-party data provides the precision needed to fine-tune margins, ensuring profitability even in fiercely competitive markets.
- Boost Customer Retention: Competitive pricing fosters customer loyalty. With better data, retailers can maintain customer trust and retention, even during volatile market shifts.
Shift into High Gear with DataWeave

As the fuel retail industry becomes increasingly competitive, the need for accurate, real-time pricing data has never been more important. DataWeave’s Fuel Pricing Intelligence solution empowers retailers with the insights they need to stay ahead of the competition, optimize pricing strategies, and boost profitability.

With first-party data, fuel retailers can eliminate the blind spots and inaccuracies associated with third-party sources. This shift toward data-driven pricing strategies ensures that every price adjustment is backed by real-time insights, giving retailers the edge they need to succeed.

To learn more, talk to us today!
October 21, 2024
The Rapid Rise of Alcohol eCommerce in the UK
Alcohol eCommerce has been rapidly growing over the years, and like a lot of other industries, the pandemic accelerated its growth. Convenience, safety & home delivery became important criteria for customers in the post pandemic era and so the sale of alcohol via eCommerce went up. Kantar reported that UK booze sales were up £261m & online and convenience stores were the biggest winners. The latest IWSR Drinks Market Analysis Report 2022 reported on another interesting trend – when ordering alcohol online, consumers prefer using websites v/s apps in most parts of the world except China and Brazil. In the UK the largest chunk of online alcohol purchases happens on a retailer website instead of an app.

Platform used for last online alcohol purchase. Source

To get a better understanding of this, we tracked 2 grocery retailers and 3 grocery Q-Commerce apps in the UK to get insights into Alcohol sales, pricing, trends & more!

Methodology
- Data Scrape time period: Feb 2022 – June 2022
- Grocery Retailers tracked: Tesco & Ocado
- Grocery Apps tracked: Gorillas, Weezy & Getir
- Category tracked: Alcohol
Which retailer was the Price Leader in the alcohol category?

Before the pandemic Tesco was the only Big 4 retailer to increase their alcohol market share & Waitrose was the biggest loser, with its share of booze sales falling from 5.4% to 4.7%. Maintaining Price Leadership is a critical element and plays a big role in increasing sales & market share because consumers will buy the most competitively priced product. We wanted to track and see which retailer was the Price Leader in the alcohol category – i.e., had the most number of lower-priced items in the alcohol category. We also wanted to see if & how Tesco’s position had changed post pandemic.

Price Leadership
- Tesco enjoyed price leadership in the Alcohol category from Feb – June 2022 with 38.9% products priced the lowest. This, followed by Ocado at 33.8%. Gorillas had price leadership for the least amount of products in the alcohol category at 5.6%. Tesco was the clear winner!
- Tesco’s Price Leadership kept declining through the months though – at the beginning of the year in Feb, Tesco had 44% products priced the lowest but by June, that number fell to a little over 36%. Ocado showed a reverse trend – in Feb they had price leadership on 32% items and by June that number rose to 35.3%.
- One player Tesco could’ve potentially lost price leadership to was Getir. In Feb, Getir had price leadership on only 8.2% products but that increased gradually over the months to land on 14.5% in June.
Which retailers focused on Discounts to perk up alcohol sales?

Discounts are a great way to draw in inflation-hit shoppers. Loyalty card discounts, reward vouchers, and other promotional strategies retailers offer help make their products more competitive & attractive to customers. To stay competitive, retailers need to be aware of the discounts their competition is offering. They also need to understand the risk of deep discounting and the impact on margins. We wanted an insight into alcohol related discounts in the UK so we dug into our data. Here’s what we saw.

Average discounts across months by retailers
- A host of European and UK based startups like Jiffy, Dija, Weezy, Zapp, Getir & Gorillas launched with the promise of delivering groceries the fastest & cheapest.
- Our data showed that Gorillas offered discounts in line with the competition, however, Getir likely went the deep discounting route.
- Getir offered the highest discounts across all months. And in the month of April they offered almost 9% more discount than Ocado – the retailer with the 2^nd highest discounts.
  Like we discussed above, Getir gained price Leadership from Feb to June. Deep discounting could have potentially played a role.
- Gorillas on the other hand had the lowest, almost non-existent discounts.
Let’s look at Price Index trends across 5 months

We tracked the Price Index (PI) across these 5 retailers to measure how alcohol prices changed over a 5 month period from Feb – June 2022.

Note: Retailers selling at the 100% mark were selling at an optimal price & did not undercut the market. The pricing sweet spot is 95% – 105%. Anything lower would compromise margins, and higher would mean the retailer was not competitive.

Price Index across months by retailers
- Weezy had a Price Index that was the most optimal, sitting in the 100% – 102% range.
- Gorillas had the lowest Price Index, between 89% – 91%.
- Getir had a low price index in Feb (96.1%) but slowly kept increasing to cross 110% in April, May & June.
- What was interesting to see was the competition between the 2 retail giants Ocado & Tesco. Ocado had a lower price index at the start of the year at 105.1%, while Tesco was at 109.8%. In the subsequent months, Ocado kept increasing prices to be competitive with Tesco and Tesco decreased prices to likely match Ocado’s pricing. By June BOTH Tesco & Ocado had the exactly the same price index – 108.7%
Which retailers were the quickest to make price changes?

Competitive pricing is critical to eCommerce success. Competitive pricing involves tracking your competitor’s pricing & strategically tweaking your own prices without hurting margins. We tracked the month-wise average Price change from Feb – June across all 5 retailers to see which retailer was making price changes and at what frequency.

Average price change across months by retailers
- Most retailers did not make massive prices changes, they were ballpark competitive with each other from a pricing standpoint.
- However, Gorillas made significant changes in the month of March when they dropped prices by 3.8% and in May when they increased prices by 5.5%!
- In May, the same month Gorillas made a big price hike, Weezy dropped their prices significantly by 10% widening the gap between the 2 retailers.
Which retailers avoided lost sales by maintaining stock availability?

Having a near real time view on stock availability is crucial to driving sales. Customers can buy products only when they’re available! So, we went ahead, looked into our data to see how each of these retailers managed stock availability from Feb to June.

Average availability across months by retailers
- Our data showed varying availability levels across retailers with Ocado having the highest availability across all 5 months. They had a robust stock at the beginning of the year at 100% but kept dwindling through the months to land at 95.8% by June.
- Tesco had a sharp drop in availability in May & June – from 97% at the beginning of the year to the 92-93% range.
- Gorillas had the lowest availability across months between 90 & 94%.
- Weezy consistently maintained availability at 95% across all 5 months.
Conclusion

For the most part, the UK market has a positive outlook towards buying alcohol online thanks to changes to shopper behavior arising from the pandemic. As per the IWSR Drinks Market Analysis Report 2022 in website-led markets, such as the UK, breadth of product range is important to customers along with price. These 2 play a key factor in purchase decisions. By contrast, consumers in app-driven markets have different preferences. While price matters, it is less important than convenience and speed.

As an alcohol retailer, if you need help tracking your competitor prices, discounts and product assortment, reach out to the team at DataWeave to learn how we can help!
September 5, 2022
UK Grocery Pricing Wars in 2022! A quick look at Pricing Data we gathered from 5 Grocery retailers in the UK
Grocery sales in the UK are dominated by the “big four” – Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s, and Morrisons. A Statista report on these Grocery Giants as of May 2022 indicates that Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Asda own approximately 27%, 15%, and 13% market share of grocery stores in the UK. Whereas Ocado and Symbols & Independent have the lowest market share, 1.8% each.

However, the grocery delivery market is seeing a major shift because of new-age Quick Commerce companies that have swooped into the already crowded grocery space offering super-speedy home delivery! These new entrants added to the already competitive Grocery market & price wars intensified. Customers today rely on ultra-fast delivery services for their grocery requirements. For example, Berlin-based Gorillas charges £1.80 to deliver anything from a £7 pizza to a 30p apple — with no minimum order value.

Investors funded over £5B in grocery delivery apps such as Getir, Gorillas, Zapp, Fancy, Dija, Weezy, Jiffy, and Beelivery, in the UK. These rapid grocery delivery apps offer shorter delivery times, as low as 10 minutes, along with deep discounts to attract customers. For example, Gorillas, Weezy, and Getir all claim a 10-minute delivery time and offer promotional codes for the first couple of orders. Customers also get discounts for inviting friends and family.

To get more insight into the Grocery space in the UK, we tracked 5 Grocery retailers & Q-Commerce companies to try and understand trends wrt pricing in this competitive environment. Let’s take a look at what our data found & which retailer won the competitive pricing tug of war.

Methodology
- Data Scrape time period: January 2022 – June 2022
- Grocery Retailers tracked: Tesco & Ocado
- Grocery Apps tracked: Gorillas, Weezy & Getir
- Categories tracked: Alcohol, Drinks & Beverages, Fresh & Frozen, Grocery, Health & Wellness, Home Care, Packed Food & Snacks, and Smoke shop.
Grocery Giants v/s Grocery Delivery apps – who was the Price Leader?

Price leadership by category

Price leadership across months by Retailer

We wanted to track and see which retailer was the Price Leader – i.e., had the most number of lower-priced items in a particular category. Our data clearly showed that the Grocery Giants Ocado & Tesco won hands down! Interestingly, Ocado launched a new Ad Campaign earlier in Jan this year about bringing value to the table for customers with quality products at affordable prices – seems like they’re taking this new promise very seriously!
- Tesco and Ocado were price leaders in maximum categories when compared to Gorillas, Weezy, and Getir.
- Between Tesco & Ocado, Ocado enjoyed price leadership across all these categories for 4 out of the 6 months we tracked pricing for. Tesco occupied the top slot for just the balance 2 months.
- Tesco was the price leader in the Alcohol category, with close to 40% of products priced the lowest compared to other retailers. They were also price leaders in the Smoke Shop category.
- Ocado won price leadership for the remaining 6 categories, with a marginal gap between both retailers.
Watching Price Index Trends as inflation soars!

Price index across months by Retailer

The Guardian reports that Grocery inflation has hit a 13-year high in the UK, and food price rises could hit 15% by this summer – the highest level in more than 20 years. Meats, cereals, dairy, fruit & vegetables are likely to be the worst affected. Keeping this in mind, we tracked the Price Index (PI) across these 5 retailers to measure how prices changed over a 6 month period from Jan – June 2022.

Note: Retailers selling at the 100% mark were selling at an optimal price & did not undercut the market. The pricing sweet spot is 95% – 105%. Anything lower would compromise margins, and higher would mean the retailer was not competitive.
- Getir & Ocado had a Price Index that was the most optimal, sitting in the 95% – 105% range.
- Gorillas had the lowest Price Index, between 88% – 90%.
- Weezy has the highest Price Index – they were selling at a minimum 30% – 40% premium over other retailers! Perhaps it’s their quick delivery service that justified these super high prices? Unlike other apps with a lower delivery fee but longer delivery times, Weezy offers a 15-minute delivery service & customers seem to be willing to pay for convenience! Wheezy also has a delivery fee of £2.95, which is at least £1 more than other platforms.
  Supermarkets like Ocado are now playing catch up to compete with Q-Commerce and quick delivery services. Ocado has launched a new “Zoom” service promising delivery in 60 minutes, and Amazon is now delivering “same day” groceries (but both have a minimum spend of £15)
Which Retailers were the quickest to make price changes?

Average price change across months by Retailer

Competitive pricing is critical to winning the eCommerce race. Competitive pricing involves tracking your competitor’s pricing & strategically tweaking your own prices without hurting margins. We tracked the month-wise average Price change from Jan – June across all 5 retailers to see which retailer was making price changes and at what frequency.
- The main observation was – across all 6 months, all retailers were likely tracking each other’s prices and making minor price changes accordingly – the need of the hour in this hyper-competitive environment.
- Gorillas made significant changes to prices between Jan & Feb. And Getir in the May/ June time period.
Discounts & Promos in a turbulent UK Grocery Market

Average discount across months by Retailer

Although customer acquisition starts with building awareness, discounts are a proven way to attract customers quickly. When approached with the right strategy, promotional discounts can promote long-term customer loyalty, drive customer acquisition, and improve customer lifetime value. However, deep discounting can risk margins and create more problems than benefits. We wanted an insight into discounting trends in the Grocery space, so we looked at our data. Here’s what we saw:
- Getir offered by far the highest discounts compared to Ocado & Gorillas. In fact, in most cases, they offered discounts close to 2-3% higher than the retailer with the 2nd highest discounts!
- Our data showed that Gorillas offered the lowest discounts. As reported in The Sun & other sources, newer Q-Commerce players like Gorillas have been showering users with discount codes, and that is why this data surprised us!
We went & looked back at the Price Index earlier in this blog, we noticed that Gorillas had a low price index overall, with most products priced at a 90%, way below other retailers. Perhaps this already lower price is why they’re offered very few discounts?

Conclusion

The UK grocery delivery market saw a huge rise in new retailers who are currently fighting for better discounts, competitive prices, and quick delivery. Although Tesco and Ocado were the price leaders in our findings, new players like Gorillas, Weezy, and Getir are attracting customers with quicker delivery times and low delivery costs.
July 24, 2022
The Rise of On-Demand Grocery Delivery after the Pandemic

Before the pandemic, the grocery industry was set around brick-and-mortar stores, and there was a slow movement towards on-demand grocery. Online grocery delivery was still considered a peripheral channel. However, grocery shoppers started turning to on-demand platforms since the onset of COVID-19. According to Acosta’s report, since the pandemic, 45% of customers prefer online grocery shopping over physical stores.

COVID-19 drastically accelerated the online grocery delivery trend, increasing 10% and 15% of total grocery sales during the peak COVID-19 time. In the U.S., online grocery shopping reached nearly $90 billion in sales in 2020, increasing by more than $30 billion.

In this article, you’ll learn about the early pioneers of online grocery delivery in the U.S., the modern players, and the impact of COVID-19 on grocery trends.

Early pioneers of online grocery delivery

Early pioneers of online grocery delivery

In the late 1990s, consumers had just started ordering products online. Online grocery shopping was an early area of focus. It offered lucrative rewards to high-spending consumers, increased convenience, and saved them time. Peapod, founded in 1989 by brothers Andrew and Thomas Parkinson, was the first online grocery delivery service. Back when they started, users had to install software from CD-ROMs and then place orders. Though it took years to become a well-known name in the industry, Peapod is still in business.

Webvan and HomeGrocer.com were two other early pioneers of online grocery delivery that started in 1996 in California and 1997 in Washington respectively. Webvan had a successful launch in California, and they had aggressive expansion plans to operate in 26 major cities around the United States. However, the company filed for bankruptcy less than two years later. HomeGrocer.com quickly created the infrastructure needed to support the business, including a fleet of vans and a huge warehouse. They had impressive early growth, and sales reached over $1 million a day by mid-2000. They expanded into other markets, including California, Georgia, Oregon, Texas, and Illinois.

Modern players of the on-demand grocery delivery

Modern players of the on-demand grocery delivery

Online Grocery Trends Post-Pandemic

When COVID-19 first began to engulf the world, supermarkets and grocery delivery platforms like Amazon Fresh and Instamart became overwhelmed with huge demands. To handle the surge of online orders, stores had to make drastic changes to accommodate the switch to on-demand delivery requests. Popular grocery delivery brands had to introduce waitlists and online queues for new customers. According to a poll, 53% of shoppers would continue online grocery shopping because they had a good experience, indicating that the on-demand grocery trend will continue post-pandemic.

Mckinsey Grocery Report

As shoppers prefer more digital channels in their path to purchase, the on-demand grocery trend is becoming much more significant for both consumers and brands. According to a McKinsey and company survey, frozen fruits, health care items, fresh fruits and vegetables, packaged foods, household care items, beverages, and deli meats categories are likely to remain popular among U.S. consumers post-pandemic. Meanwhile, CoreSight Research found that fresh fruits and vegetables were the biggest bestsellers from 2020-to 2021 followed by fresh dairy, meat, eggs, frozen food, and bread and baked goods.

Why Grocery Shoppers are going digital

Online ordering offers a more personalized experience to shoppers as they get recommendations for products that are often bought together. When paired with data analysis and AI-powered algorithms, grocery stores could work on targeted marketing and offer quick delivery services.

1. Flexibility

On-demand grocery shopping offers customers a wide range of delivery options, including subscription services, buy online pick up in-store, click and collect, option-based pricing, and much more. This offers choice and accessibility to modern customers looking for speed and convenience.

2. Convenience

With the increasing focus on social distancing and safety, shoppers started to rely on delivery services rather than waiting in long queues and risking exposure. The focus and priority of grocery shoppers shifted from discounts and pricing to convenience, speed, and safety. Online grocery shopping order methods also differ by generation. 40% of millennials prefer to shop groceries on mobile, and 52% prefer computers. Similarly, 66% of Gen X prefer to shop on computers, and only 27% prefer to shop on smartphones.

Grocery Shoppers are going digital

3. Speed

The fierce competition in the on-demand grocery delivery space has led to small delivery times. Startups like GoPuff (30 minutes), and Jiffy (15 minutes) are competing with the big boys like Walmart and Amazon Fresh to deliver groceries in under an hour. Quick delivery options like two-hour delivery and same-day delivery have made it easier for customers to shop for fresh produce. Customers can quickly order a few items for a specific recipe and get it delivered within a few hours.

4. Multiple payment methods

At store checkouts, cash and card are the only two acceptable options. Customers prefer to have more options in today’s modern world. Online grocery shopping makes buying easier by offering multiple payment options like PayPal, credit/debit cards, and monthly payment plans that negate the delivery fees for each delivery.

How to successfully run a Grocery Delivery Business?

The increasing demand for speed and convenience puts pressure on the grocery industry that faces inventory issues like fresh produce and product availability. However, the benefit of online grocery delivery services is that it provides insight into the end-to-end view of the customer journey. Grocery delivery brands can use the data to design services and models that meet customer demand and minimize costs across the supply and distribution chain.

If you’re a Grocery Delivery company and want to track your delivery time, or product catalogue so you can boost sales with an in-demand product assortment, or you want to drive more revenue & margin by making sure your products are priced right v/s your competition, reach out to us at DataWeave! Sign up for a demo with our team to know how we can help you optimize your online sales.

April 5, 2022