The DataWeave Blog

Category: Amazon

Beyond Basic Price Monitoring: Advanced Applications of Competitive Intelligence
It’s up to senior leadership, whether you’re a Chief Strategy Officer, Pricing Executive, or Commercial Director, to think big picture about your company’s competitive intelligence strategy. For more junior team members, it’s easy to get caught in the “this is how we’ve always done it” mindset and continue to go through the motions of price monitoring.

You don’t have that luxury—it’s up to you to find and implement new ways to move beyond basic price monitoring and usher your company into an era of achieving actionable insights through competitive intelligence. There is much more to gain from competitive data than simple price monitoring.

How can retailers leverage clean, competitive data to uncover strategic insights beyond basic price comparisons? This article will help you shift your mindset from tactical monitoring to strategic insight generation. We’ll see how sophisticated analysis of clean and refined competitive data can reveal competitor strategies, regional and geographic opportunities, and overall market trends.

It’s time to shift away from standard reporting, which should be left for your pricing owners and end users, and towards gaining competitive intelligence to shape your holistic company pricing strategy. With the right tools, you can make this shift a reality.

Regional Price Intelligence

One significant opportunity you should take advantage of is a greater understanding of regional price intelligence. Understanding the nuances that shape how products, categories, and other retailers’ prices according to geographical differences can set your company up to win customer trust and dollars at checkout.

Understanding geographic and regional pricing strategies

Geographic price intelligence helps leaders leverage market opportunities based on where sales are happening. Variations in how products and categories are priced across regions often reflect competitor tactics, local demand, and cost structures.

Let’s consider an example that impacts a broad geography, such as the entire continental United States – egg prices. Eggs are a staple grocery item and are frequently a loss leader in stores. This means they are products priced below their cost specifically to draw customers into stores.

However, Avian Flu outbreaks affecting millions of birds have become more common recently. These outbreaks drive the cost of eggs higher as flocks must be culled to prevent the spread of the disease. This means that retailers must act to maintain acceptable margins or losses without frightening away customers or losing their trust.

Avian Flu has been especially bad in Iowa and California. Retailers in these regions face tough decisions during outbreaks. They need to figure out how to balance the high prices required to cover the supply shortages with maintaining consumer trust that this staple product will not be perceived as ‘overpriced.’ Customers expect retailers to be fair even when supply chain issues make it challenging to keep prices stable.

Another example impacting the broader USA is credit card defaults. Credit card defaults are reaching levels unseen since the financial crisis of 2008. $46 billion worth of credit card balances were written off in the first nine months of 2024 alone. This unprecedented figure highlights the fact that many Americans are struggling financially. Higher-income earners continue to do ok, but lower-income families are feeling the pressure more than ever.

Understanding the differences between the geographies you sell in can help you construct your pricing strategies better. This is especially true as consumers brace themselves for more anticipated economic hardship.

Retailers must set realistic financial targets without overpricing their catalogs. Otherwise, they risk losing customers who would otherwise have bought their products. Competitive intelligence can help retailers understand how economic disparities impact core consumer bases.

Pricing leaders can leverage insights around geographic variations in supply, demand, and competitor pricing to help in situations like these. With how important eggs are, changes to their price can spill over into other categories. And with credit card defaults affecting hundreds of thousands of Americans, having a way to dive into these topics can help shape overarching strategies.

Customer perception is a recurring theme in competitive intelligence. It’s not only about the actual value your brand offers but the perceived value based on historical context, current events, and competition.

Leveraging Regional Price Differences for Strategic Advantage

On the topic of customer perception, there are strategic ways to use customer perception to your advantage. One of these is detecting cross-market arbitrage opportunities using competitive intelligence and actioning them.

But what is cross-market arbitrage? It’s the practice of exploiting the differences in price across different markets or regions. As a retailer, you can use cross-market arbitrage to your advantage by finding disparities in market conditions and strategically pricing your products to entice customers or offer more value. These opportunities can be in demand, supply, or competitive pricing. Acting quickly in markets where frequent disruptions happen can drive your business forward.

DataWeave’s advanced competitive intelligence tools can analyze regional market trends to help you respond to real-time local demand fluctuations or cost pressures.

Local Market Dynamics

Pricing isn’t a one-size-fits-all operation. Where and what you’re pricing truly matters. Pricing teams should take price zones into account when constructing pricing strategies. This is because pricing isn’t equivalent across locations; it’s localized. Understanding this fact is critical for category-specific considerations at the macro and micro levels.

This map shows a retailer’s regional price differentials on a breakfast basket. With the ability to access and refine your data, you can better construct maps like this one to track local market dynamics. Determine where you need to differentiate prices based on locality, understand the strategic stance of your competitors, and plan if you start to see changes in competitive price zones.

Competitor Strategy Detection

As a retailer, you should continuously monitor your competitors, whether they’re succeeding or stagnating. One example of a major retailer that is seeing growth even during this challenging economic time is Costco. Costco is an interesting case because they do not have stores in every major city or even in every state.

Costco has its brand strategy down, and it is tied to the pricing strategy. Costco has committed to its customers to provide quality items at competitive prices, and they’ve delivered even in a volatile economy. Costco has managed to maintain competitive prices on core merchandise and make strategic pricing adjustments on items that matter most to members. Their private label brand, Kirkland Signature, highlights their value-first approach. They continue to lead with price reductions like:
- Organic Peanut Butter: $11.49 → $9.99
- Chicken Stock: $9.99 → $8.99
- Sauvignon Blanc: $7.49 → $6.99
Costco has figured out how to balance premium offerings for cost-conscious consumers with standardly priced items filling the shopper’s basket. This demonstrates that they have a pricing strategy that relies on competitive intelligence and market trends.

With the correct data and tools, any retailer can conduct research to discover more about their competitors and gain usable insights into their implemented pricing strategies. Once established, this can act as an early warning signal so you can take action.

For example, understanding whether a retailer operates with a stable Everyday Low Price (EDLP) strategy or a more dynamic High/Low pricing approach is crucial when building and maintaining the integrity of your pricing strategy.

Data should be able to show you things like:
- When holiday price decreases start to accelerate
- How quickly a retailer responds to cost increases (especially at the category or item level)
- The cadence of seasonal campaigns and their impact on pricing behavior
When we move beyond the numbers, these patterns tell a story about how to win in today’s competitive retail landscape. After all, pricing isn’t just a standard reporting tactic. In its truest form, it’s a strategy rooted in understanding the bigger picture of your consumers, competition, and the economy.

Actionable Intelligence Framework

With a practical system to turn insights into action, your company’s pricing strategy is much more likely to drive actual results. Merely collecting data and churning out out-of-date reports won’t cut it. Instead, begin to identify patterns and insights for accurate competitive intelligence. Use this simple framework to start setting up a comprehensive competitive intelligence process.
- Setting up monitoring systems: Leverage technology to monitor and aggregate data on your competition, market trends, and consumer behavior. Ensure the system chosen can clean and refine the data along the way so it’s ready to be analyzed.
- Creating action triggers: Define clear thresholds and triggers based on key insights. These can be things like price changes of a certain amount, competitor moves, assortment changes, or regional and geographic trends. These triggers should prompt specific, pre-planned actions for your team to capitalize on opportunities.
- Response protocol development: Change management is easier with a plan. Work on building out and training your teams on protocols for specific triggers. When something arises, they know the protocol to take advantage of the opportunity or mitigate the challenge effectively.
- Performance measurement: Measure the impact of your team’s protocol-based actions with the help of pre-determined KPIs and then hone your approach to competitive intelligence based on the results.
Competitive Intelligence at Your Fingertips

Shifting from a latent standard reporting and price monitoring mindset to a growth mindset centered around competitive intelligence doesn’t need to be a struggle. The key is to lean on the tools that will accelerate your company’s journey to finding the right insights and putting action behind them quickly.

Start by conducting a competitive intelligence maturity assessment to evaluate your organization’s current state and identify areas for improvement. Then, create a capability development roadmap for your company to track efficacy and progress toward your goal.

Want to talk to the experts in competitive pricing intelligence? Click here to speak with the DataWeave team!
February 3, 2025
How AI Can Drive Superior Data Quality and Coverage in Competitive Insights for Retailers and Brands
Managing the endlessly growing competitive data from across your eCommerce landscape can feel like pushing a boulder uphill. The sheer volume can be overwhelming, and ensuring that data meets standards of high accuracy and quality, and the insights are actionable is a constant challenge.

This article explores the challenges eCommerce companies face in having sustained access to high-quality competitive data and how AI-driven solutions like DataWeave empower brands and retailers with reliable, comprehensive, and timely market intelligence.

The Data Quality Challenge for Retailers and Brands

Brands and retailers make innumerable daily business decisions relying on accurate competitive and market data. Pricing changes, catalog expansion, development of new products, and where to go to market are just a few. However, these decisions are only as good as the insights derived from the data. If the data is made up of inaccurate or low-quality inputs, the outputs will also be low-quality.

Managing eCommerce data at scale gets more complex every year. There are more market entrants, retailers, and copy-cats trying to sell similar or knock-off products. There are millions of SKUs from thousands of retailers in multiple markets. Not only that, the data is constantly changing. Amazon may add a new subcategory definition in an existing space, or Staples might decide to branch out into a new industry like “snack foods for the office”, an established brand might introduce new sizing options in their apparel, or shrinkflation might decrease the size of a product.

Given this, it is imperative that conventional data collection and validation methods need to be revised. Teams that rely on spreadsheets and manual auditing processes can’t keep up with the scale and speed of change. An algorithm that once could match products easily needs to be updated when trends, categories, or terminology change.

With SKU proliferation, visually matching product images against the competition becomes impossible. Knowing where to look for comprehensive data becomes impossible with so many new sellers in the market. Luckily, technology has advanced to a place where manual intervention isn’t the main course of action.

Advanced AI capabilities, like DataWeave’s, tackle these challenges to help gather, categorize, and extract insights that drive impactful business decisions. It performs the millions of actions that your team can’t accomplish with greater accuracy and in near real-time.

Improving the Accuracy of Product Matching

DataWeave’s product matching capabilities rely on an ensemble of text and image-based models with built-in loss functions to determine confidence levels in all insights. These loss functions measure precision and recall. They help in determining how accurate – both in terms of correctness and completeness – the results are so the system can learn and improve over time. The solution’s built-in scoring function provides a confidence metric that brands and retailers can rely on.

The product matching engine is configurable based on the type of products that we are matching. It uses a “pipelined mode” that first focuses on recall or coverage by maximizing the search space for viable candidates, followed by mechanisms to improve the precision.

How ‘Embeddings’ Enhance Scoring

Embeddings are like digital fingerprints. They are dense vector representations that capture the essence of a product in a way that makes it easy to identify similar products. With embeddings, we can codify a more nuanced understanding of the varied relationships between different products. Techniques used to create good embeddings are generic and flexible and work well across product categories. This makes it easier to find similarities across products even with complex terminology, attributes, and semantics.

These along with advanced scoring mechanisms used across DataWeave’s eCommerce offerings provide the foundation for:
- Semantic Analysis: Embeddings identify subtle patterns and meanings in text and image data to better align with business contexts.
- Multimodal Integration: A comprehensive representation of each SKU is created by incorporating embeddings from both text (product descriptions) and images or videos (product visuals)
- Anomaly Detection: AI models leverage embeddings to identify outliers and inconsistencies to improve the overall score accuracy.
Vector Databases for Enhanced Accuracy

Vector databases play a central role in DataWeave’s AI ecosystem. These databases help with better storage, retrieval, and scoring of embeddings and serve to power real-time applications such as Verification. This process helps pinpoint the closest matches for products, attributes, or categories with the help of similarity algorithms. It can even operate when there is incomplete or noisy data. After identification, the system prioritizes data that exhibits high semantic alignment so that all recommendations are high-quality and relevant.

Evolution of Embeddings and Scoring: A Multimodal Perspective

Product listings undergo daily visual and text changes. DataWeave takes a multimodal approach in its AI to ensure that any content shown on a listing is accounted for, including visuals, videos, contextual signals, and text. DataWeave is continually evolving its embedding and scoring models to align with industry advancements and always works within an up-to-date context.

DataWeave’s AI framework can:
- Handle Diverse Data Types: The framework captures a holistic view of the digital shelf by integrating insights from multiple sources.
- Improve Matching Precision: Sophisticated scoring methods refine the accuracy of matches so that brands and retailers can trust the competitive intelligence.
- Scale Across Markets: Additional, expansive datasets are easy for DataWeave’s capabilities, meaning brands and retailers can scale across markets without pausing.
Quantified Improvements: Model Accuracy and Stats
- Since we deployed LLMs and CLIP Embeddings, Product Matching accuracy improved by > 15% from the previous baseline numbers in categories such as Home Improvement, Fashion, and CPG.
- High precision in certain categories such as Electronics and Fashion. Upwards of 85%.
- Close to 90% of matches are auto-processed (auto-verified or auto-rejected).
- Attribute tagging accuracy > 75% and significant improvement for the top 5 categories.
Business Use Case: Multimodal Matching for Price Leadership

For example, if you’re a retailer selling consumer electronics, you probably want to maintain your price leadership across your key markets during peak times like Black Friday Cyber Monday. Doing so is a challenge, as all your competitors are changing prices several times a day to steal your sales. To get ahead of them, this retailer could use DataWeave’s multimodal embedding-based scoring framework to:
- Detect Discrepancies: Isolate SKUs with price mismatches with your competition and take action before revenue is lost.
- Optimize Coverage: Establish a process to capture complete data across the competition so you can avoid knowledge gaps.
- Enable Timely Decisions: Address the ‘low-hanging fruit’ by prioritizing products that need pricing adjustments based on confidence scores on high-impact products. Leverage confidence metrics to prioritize pricing adjustments for high-impact products.
This approach helps retailers stay competitive even as eCommerce evolves around us. By acting fast on complete and reliable data, they can earn and sustain their competitive advantage.

DataWeave’s AI-Driven Data Quality Framework

Let’s look at how our AI can gather the most comprehensive data and output the highest-quality insights. Our framework evaluates three critical dimensions:
- Accuracy: “Is my data correct?” – Ensuring reliable product matches and attribute tracking
- Coverage: “Do I have the complete picture?” – Maintaining comprehensive market visibility
- Freshness: “Is my data recent?” – Guaranteeing timely and current market insights
Scoring Data Quality

To maintain the highest levels of data quality, we rely on a robust scoring mechanism across our solutions. Every dataset that is evaluated is done so based on several key parameters. These can include things like accuracy, consistency, timeliness, and completeness of data. Scores are dynamically updated as new data flows in so that insights can be acted upon.
- Accuracy: Compare gathered data with multiple trusted sources to reduce discrepancies.
- Consistency: Detect and rectify variations or contradictions across the data with regular audits.
- Timeliness: Scoring emphasizes data recency, especially for fast-changing markets like eCommerce.
- Completeness: Ensure all essential data points are included and gaps in coverage are highlighted by analysis.
Apart from this, we also leverage an evolved quality check framework:

Statistical Process Control

DataWeave implements a sophisticated system of statistical process control that includes:
- Anomaly Detection: Using advanced statistical techniques to identify and flag outlier data, particularly for price and stock variations
- Intelligent Alerting: Automated system for notifying stakeholders of significant deviations
- Continuous Monitoring: Real-time tracking of data patterns and trends
- Error Correction: Systematic approach to addressing and rectifying data discrepancies
Transparent Quality Assurance

The platform provides complete visibility into data quality through:
- Comprehensive Data Transparency & Statistics Dashboard: Offering detailed insights into match performance and data freshness
- Match Distribution Analysis: Tracking both exact and similar matches across retailers and locations as required
- Product Tracking Metrics: Visibility into the number of products being monitored
- Autonomous Audit Mechanisms: Giving customers access to cached product pages for transparent, on-demand verification
Human-in-the-Loop Validation (Véracité)

DataWeave’s Véracité system combines AI capabilities with human expertise to ensure unmatched accuracy:
- Expert Validation: Product category specialists who understand industry-specific similarity criteria
- Continuous Learning: AI models that evolve through ongoing expert feedback
- Adaptive Matching: Recognition that similarity criteria can vary by category and change over time
- Detailed Documentation: Comprehensive reasoning for product match decisions
Together, these elements create a robust framework that delivers accurate, complete, and relevant product data for competitive intelligence. The system’s combination of automated monitoring, statistical validation, and human expertise ensures businesses can make decisions based on reliable, high-quality data.

In Conclusion

DataWeave’s AI-driven approach to data quality and coverage empowers retailers and brands to navigate the complexities of eCommerce with confidence. By leveraging advanced techniques such as multimodal embeddings, vector databases, and advanced scoring functions, businesses can ensure accurate, comprehensive, and timely competitive intelligence. These capabilities enable them to optimize pricing, improve product visibility, and stay ahead in an ever-evolving market. As AI continues to refine product matching and data validation processes, brands can rely on DataWeave’s technology to eliminate inefficiencies and drive smarter, more profitable decisions.

The evolution of AI in competitive intelligence is not just about automation—it’s about precision, scalability, and adaptability. DataWeave’s commitment to high data quality standards, supported by statistical process controls, transparent validation mechanisms, and human-in-the-loop expertise, ensures that insights remain actionable and trustworthy. In a digital landscape where data accuracy directly impacts profitability, investing in AI-powered solutions like DataWeave’s is not just an advantage—it’s a necessity for sustained eCommerce success.

To learn more, reach out to us today or email us at contact@dataweave.com.
January 22, 2025
Black Friday vs Boxing Day: Which Sale Event Offered Better Deals?
When it comes to shopping events, Black Friday stands out as one of the most anticipated dates for scoring deals. Typically occurring the day after Thanksgiving, the weekend kicks off the holiday shopping season with a frenzy of discounts. But Boxing Day, celebrated on December 26, is also well-known for its post-Christmas clearance sales.

This Black Friday, US eCommerce sales increased by a hefty 14.6% in 2024, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse. While Black Friday leads in overall revenue generation for retailers, Boxing Day presents unique opportunities for clearing post-holiday inventory.

For a consumer, which sale event is likely to offer the most attractive deals?

At DataWeave, we analyzed discounts across retailers and categories to uncover the answer.

Our Methodology

For this analysis, we tracked pricing data across major retailers for Black Friday and Boxing Day. To provide a comprehensive analysis of Black Friday pricing strategies, we explored a matched products dataset, comparing identical 14,000+ SKUs across retailers within key categories.
- Categories included: Consumer Electronics, Home & Furniture, Apparel, Health & Beauty, Grocery
- Retailers included: Amazon, Target, Walmart, Sephora, Ulta Beauty, Overstock, Home Depot, Best Buy, Saks Fifth Ave, Nordstrom, Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Neiman Marcus
- Timeline: November 26 (Black Friday), December 26 (Boxing Day)
Average Discounts: Black Friday vs Boxing Day

Our analysis reveals that Black Friday generally offered steeper discounts across most categories, although Boxing Day wasn’t far behind. Here’s a breakdown:

While Black Friday led in most categories, Apparel saw a slight edge on Boxing Day, with discounts averaging 40.22% compared to 37.67% on Black Friday. Electronics, Beauty, and Home, however, remained more lucrative during Black Friday.

Top 5 Products Higher Discounts on Black Friday

Diving deeper into specific products, here are our top 5 picks offering better discounts during Black Friday.
- Appliances like an Immersion blender set offering a discount of 88.29%, significantly higher than its Boxing Day offer of 86.62%.
- High-end electronics like the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 also saw substantial markdowns at 84.60%.
- In beauty and fashion, both La Roche Posay’s retinol serum and Vera Bradley’s satchel offered discounts above 80%.
- Even everyday essentials like paper towels enjoyed generous discounts, with markdowns reaching 82.35% during Black Friday compared to 76.47% on Boxing Day.
Top 5 Products With Higher Discounts on Boxing Day

Boxing Day revealed some remarkable deals across diverse categories, with certain products offering significantly better value than their Black Friday counterparts.
- The JBL Go 2 portable speaker emerged as the standout, with an extraordinary 82% Boxing Day discount compared to just 20% on Black Friday—a dramatic 62% difference.
- Home furnishings showed strong Boxing Day performance, with the Costway accent armchair set reaching 80.30% off.
In Conclusion

Black Friday reigns supreme in driving early holiday sales, offering deeper discounts and drawing larger crowds. However, Boxing Day remains critical for retailers to offload surplus inventory and attract post-holiday shoppers.

By combining insights from both events, retailers can refine their strategies to maximize revenue and enhance customer satisfaction. For shoppers, the decision comes down to timing—shop early for better deals or wait to capitalize on clearance markdowns. The products and categories with more attractive offers tend to vary between these two sale events. Hence, as a shopper, it’s a good idea to keep track of prices all through the holiday season to take advantage of the best deals.

Check out our comprehensive coverage of Black Friday 2024 deals and discounts across categories.

For a deeper dive into the world of competitive pricing intelligence and to explore how our solutions can benefit apparel retailers and brands, reach out to us today!
January 21, 2025
Black Friday 2024 in Canada: Insights on Consumer Electronics and Home & Furniture
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are major retail events in Canada, with 43% and 29% of the population making purchases during these sales respectively, according to a YouGov report. Consumer electronics continue to lead the Canadian retail market during these events, with 55% of surveyed shoppers choosing to buy tech products on Black Friday. Household appliances come in second, with 25% of shoppers opting for these items, while 18% prefer to shop for furniture deals.

These statistics highlight the importance of delivering value during the Thanksgiving sales week. Retailers must cater to shoppers’ expectations with competitive pricing, attractive deals, and a seamless shopping experience. So, what unique offerings did Canadian retailers present to shoppers this season?

To understand the pricing and discount dynamics during BFCM 2024 in Canada, DataWeave analyzed discounts across leading consumer electronics and home & furniture retailers. Using our AI-powered pricing intelligence platform, we analyzed 37,108 SKUs across these categories for major retailers including Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Home Depot, and Canadian Tire from the 10th to 29th November. We focused on the top 500 products ranked for each search keyword on each retail site, using targeted terms aligned with categories like “sofa” and “wearables”.

In the following insights, the Absolute Discount represents the reduction of the selling price compared to the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP). The Additional Discount reflects how much lower the selling price is during Black Friday compared to its price a week before the sale. This metric reveals the actual or effective value of the sale event, beyond the standard discounts typically offered.

Also check out our detailed analysis of discounts and pricing for the consumer electronics, apparel, health & beauty, grocery, and home & furniture categories across major US retailers this Black Friday.

Consumer Electronics

Retailers in Focus

Consumer electronics saw robust participation from major retailers, with Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart leading the charge. Here’s how they stacked up in terms of discounts:
- Best Buy emerged as the frontrunner in absolute discounts at 31.2%, while Amazon impressed with a notable 19.7% additional discount, indicating a strong Black Friday-specific markdown strategy.
- Walmart offered steady competition, particularly in audio and video products, which reached an average absolute discount of 37.2%. However, it’s average additional discount was only 3.1%, indicating muted BFCM-specific price reductions in this category.
Subcategory Insights

Diving deeper into consumer electronics subcategories, we observed varied discounting strategies.
- Audio & Video stood out as the most discounted subcategory, with Walmart leading at 37.2%.
- In Wearables, Walmart again took the top spot with 36.4%, while Amazon offered higher additional discounts (22.4%).
- Discounting for computers and gaming was less aggressive, highlighting strategic pricing to maintain profitability in these high-demand segments.
Brand Performance

Brand-level data highlighted how key players used Black Friday to drive visibility and sales.
- Dell led in average absolute discounts (36.7%) followed by Samsung at 36.68%
- Audio brand JBL offered significant absolute discounts at 35.9%.
- Apple and Lenovo offered comparatively fewer discounts but maintained strong visibility, as seen in their increase in the Share of Search during the sale period.
- MSI (laptop brand) and Bose (audio and earphone brand) experienced significant increases in visibility, with Share of Search increases of 5% and 3.6%, respectively.
- Notably, HP faced a decline (-3.2%) in the Share of Search, suggesting missed opportunities to align promotions with consumer interest.
Home & Furniture

Retailers in Focus

The home and furniture category saw competitive discounting, with Walmart, Canadian Tire, and Home Depot vying for consumer attention.
- Walmart took the lead with the highest absolute discounts at 36.8%. The retailer’s additional discounts were more conservative at 3.6%. This is similar to their discount levels in Consumer Electronics.
- Canadian Tire offered stiff competition, providing 31.6% absolute discounts and 25% additional discounts.
- Home Depot matched its absolute and additional discounts, maintaining consistency at 24.1%.
Subcategory Insights

Home and furniture subcategories revealed targeted discount strategies.
- Bedding emerged as the most discounted subcategory at Walmart (50.6%) and Canadian Tire (35.3%).
- Kitchenware saw competitive pricing, with Walmart leading at 42.9%, followed by Canadian Tire at 33.9%.
- Canadian Tire focused on lighting, offering the highest absolute discounts in this subcategory (38.2%)
Brand Performance

Brand-level analysis revealed stark contrasts in discounting approaches.
- Furniture brands Homcom led in absolute discounts (36.4%), while South Shore stood out with the highest additional discounts (30.2%).
- Value-oriented brands like furnishings brand Mainstays and mattress and bedding brand Zinus offered more modest discounts, focusing on consistent affordability.
- Zinus (mattresses and sofa brand) experienced a significant 7.9% increase in the Share of Search, driven by aggressive promotions.
- Home furnishings brands like Costway and Safavieh faced declines, reflecting the importance of aligning promotional strategies with consumer expectations.
Insights for Retailers and Brands

This Black Friday, Canadian retailers effectively balanced deep discounts with category-specific strategies to maximize sales. However, the fluctuating Share of Search highlights the critical need for brands to align promotions with consumer interest.

For brands and retailers looking to stay ahead of the competition, DataWeave’s pricing intelligence platform offers unparalleled insights to refine discounting strategies and boost visibility. Contact us to learn how we can help you stay competitive in this dynamic retail landscape.
December 18, 2024
A Deep Dive into Consumer Electronics Pricing During Black Friday 2024
Americans spent a whopping total of $10.8 billion online this Black Friday. As Thanksgiving Week 2024 wraps up, one thing is clear: the consumer electronics category continues to dominate seasonal shopping trends. Fueled by a blend of enticing deals and high consumer demand, the sector delivered competitive discounts across subcategories like wearables, gaming, and mobile devices.

At DataWeave, we analyzed discounting trends in the U.S. consumer electronics market during this year’s sales events. Using our AI-powered pricing intelligence platform, we tracked pricing and promotions for 22383 SKUs across Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Best Buy from November 10 to 29. We focused on the top 500 products ranked for each search keyword on each retail site, using targeted terms aligned with categories like “gaming” and “apple.” Here’s what we uncovered.

Also check out our insights on discounts and pricing for health & beauty, grocery, apparel, and home & furniture categories this Black Friday.

Retailers Battle It Out with Competitive Discounts

Discount trends reveal clear leaders in terms of markdowns:
- Walmart offered the deepest average absolute discounts at 36.9%.
- Amazon and Target followed closely, highlighting a diverse range of deals designed to appeal to budget-conscious shoppers
- Best Buy, the specialist consumer electronics retailer, offers the lowest discounts this Black Friday at 26.2%.
Note: The Absolute Discount represents the reduction of the selling price compared to the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP). The Additional Discount reflects how much lower the selling price is during Black Friday compared to its price a week before the sale. This metric reveals the actual or effective value of the sale event, beyond the standard discounts typically offered.

Subcategory Spotlight: Where the Best Deals Happened

From audio & video to wearables, each retailer carved out competitive advantages across subcategories.
- Both Amazon and Walmart offered high discounts in audio & video and wearables, but Walmart led, with discounts up to 46.3%.
- Best Buy, meanwhile, offered high absolute discounts on Mobile Devices(34%) and Storage (31%), followed by high discounts on wearables and Audio & Video.
- Amazon maintained a balanced approach, excelling in audio & video and mobile devices.
Brand-Level Insights: HP and Samsung Dominate

The biggest winners this year were brands that strategically leveraged Black Friday discounts to boost visibility and sales:
- HP took the top spot with average discounts of 36.9%, followed by Samsung at 31.4%.
- Despite its premium reputation, Apple offered an average discount of 29.3%, signaling a shift in strategy to attract deal hunters.
Share of Search: Shifting Consumer Attention

Search trends reveal how discounts shaped brand visibility:
- Microsoft saw the largest spike in share of search (+8.6%), thanks to aggressive pricing on gaming consoles and accessories.
- Marshall and Amazon also saw significant gains in visibility.
- Surprisingly, HP experienced a sharp decline (-9.8%), indicating missed opportunities despite steep discounts.
Consumer Electronics: Lowest-Priced Retailer Analysis

In the previous analysis, we focused on the top 500 products within each subcategory for each retailer, showcasing the discount strategies for their highlighted or featured items. However, to identify which retailer offered the lowest or highest prices for the same set of products, it’s necessary to match items across retailers. For this, we analyzed a separate dataset of 340 matched products across retailers to compare their pricing during Black Friday. This approach provides a clearer picture of price leadership and competitiveness across categories.

Here are the key takeaways from this analysis.

Category-Level Highlights
- Amazon leads with the highest average discount (41.35%), offering the most value to consumers. It is followed by Target (39.37%) and Walmart (36.15%).
- Best Buy, the specialist consumer electronics retailer, ranks last with an average discount of 31.53%, emphasizing a less aggressive pricing strategy compared to competitors.
Subcategory Highlights
- Wearables: Amazon offers the steepest discounts (55.40%), followed by Best Buy (50.60%) and Walmart (45.75%).
- Mobile Devices: Amazon also leads (37.94%), with Walmart (29.30%) in second place and Target trailing at 19.48%.
- Gaming: Target takes the lead (37.47%), with Amazon and Best Buy offering similar discounts around 30%.
- Computers: Target again emerges as the leader (39.18%), narrowly surpassing Walmart (36.13%).
Brand Highlights
- Apple: Amazon dominates with 53.06%, closely followed by Walmart (50.55%), while Target and Best Buy hover around 43%.
- Nintendo: Target edges out Amazon (37.62% vs. 36.54%), with Best Buy (33.21%) and Walmart (25.92%) trailing.
- Beats by Dr. Dre: Amazon leads (46.07%), with Target (37.14%) as the runner-up. Best Buy and Walmart offer comparatively modest discounts around 25%.
- Bose: Walmart emerges as the value leader (23.90%), surpassing Target (16.09%) and Best Buy (15.29%).
- Cricut: Amazon sets a high benchmark (54.13%), with Target far behind (36.43%) for this viral portable printer brand. Best Buy (12.32%) and Walmart (10.79%) offer significantly lower discounts.
What This Means for Retailers and Brands

Retailers looking to stay competitive should focus on strategic discounting and enhanced brand visibility. Brands must align with consumer expectations by:
- Leveraging platforms like DataWeave to analyze discount trends.
- Optimizing pricing and assortment strategies for seasonal demand.
For more insights into consumer electronics pricing, contact DataWeave to discover how our AI-powered solutions can drive success in today’s fast-paced market. Stay tuned for more category-specific analyses in the coming weeks!
December 6, 2024
The Apparel Market: A Closer Look at Black Friday Discounts
As the holiday shopping season kicked off, savvy shoppers embraced the spirit of the season, drawn by enticing deals. The apparel category is forecasted as the second highest earning category (Source: Statista), expected to generate revenues up to $43.9 billion, closely following consumer electronics. To understand the pricing strategies of top retailers amidst the sale season, DataWeave analyzed the pricing trends for the Apparel category this Black Friday.

We leveraged our AI-powered data platform to analyze the discounting across key retailers. Our analysis focused on the Apparel category, examining how Amazon, Walmart, Target, Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom, Bloomingdales, Neiman Marcus and Macy’s differentiated themselves through their discounts.

Also check out our in-depth insights on discounts and pricing for health & beauty, grocery, and home & furniture categories this Black Friday.

Our Methodology

For this analysis, we tracked the average discounts of apparel products among leading US retailers during the Thanksgiving weekend sale, including Black Friday. Our sample was chosen to encompass the top 500 ranked products in each product subcategory across during the sale.
- Sample size: 37,666 SKUs
- Retailers tracked: Amazon, Walmart, Target, Nordstrom, Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus
- Subcategories reported on: Footwear, Kid’s Clothing, Men’s Clothing, Women’s Clothing, Activewear, Plus Size Clothing, Accessories
- Timeline of analysis: 10 to 29 November 2024
We focused on the top 500 products ranked for each search keyword on each retail site, using targeted terms aligned with categories like “athleisure” and “plus size clothing”. Our methodology distinguished between standard discounts and Black Friday-specific ‘additional discounts’ or price reductions during the sale compared to the week before, to reveal true consumer value.

Key Findings

This year’s fashion discounts were unprecedented. Let’s take a look.

Retailer Level Insights
- Nordstrom leads with the highest average absolute discount at 59%, followed by Saks Fifth Avenue at 35.5% and Bloomingdale’s at 41.5%. Macy’s shows the lowest average discount at 24.1%, while Amazon has an average discount of 30.4%.
- Amazon ranks lower in both average absolute and additional discounts compared to competitors, indicating a more conservative discounting strategy.
Subcategory Analysis
- Kids’ Clothing saw the deep discounts (up to 55% at Nordstrom), reflecting growing pressure on family budgets and heightened competition to attract budget-conscious parents.
- Plus-Size Clothing emerged as a major focus, with Nordstrom leading at 53.22% average absolute discounts, signaling that retailers are increasingly prioritizing size inclusivity and appealing to a broader consumer base.
- Footwear experienced robust discounting, particularly at Bloomingdale’s with 37% average absolute discounts, showing a competitive approach to attract customers looking for seasonal footwear deals.
- Activewear displayed substantial discounts, with Walmart offering up to 41% on average, aligning with the trend of consumers looking for practical and comfortable attire during the winter season.
Brand Level Insights

Apparel brands, meanwhile, also offer telling insights.
- Top Discounting Brands: Aqua leads with an average absolute discount of 44.58%, followed by Boss at 42.33% and Burberry at 37.84%.
- Lowest Discounts: Athletic Works shows the lowest average absolute discount at 31.23%, with a minimal additional discount of 3.73%.
- Competitive Advantage: Brands like Ralph Lauren and Boss show strong discounts, indicating aggressive marketing during the sale.
Share of Search Insights
- Top Gainers: Adidas and Nike each saw an increase of 1.20% in their share of search during Black Friday/Cyber Monday, highlighting their strong brand presence and consumer interest.
- Top Losers: Reebok experienced a sharp decline, losing 2.60% in its share of search, while Levi’s also dropped by 0.60%.
- Search Trends: The data suggests a strong consumer preference for activewear brands like Nike and Adidas and a decline in interest for traditional apparel brands like Levi’s.
Who Offered Most Value This Black Friday

In the previous analysis, we focused on the top 500 products within each subcategory for each retailer, showcasing the discount strategies for their highlighted or featured items. However, to identify which retailer offered the lowest or highest prices for the same set of products, it’s necessary to match items across retailers. For this, we analyzed a separate dataset of 418 matched products across Apparel specific retailers to compare their pricing during Black Friday. This approach provides a clearer picture of price leadership and competitiveness across categories.

Here are the key takeaways from this analysis.

Category-Level Analysis

At the overall category level, Macy’s emerged as the lowest-priced retailer, offering the highest average discount of 28.72%, followed closely by Nordstrom (26.06%). The steep decline in average discounts from Saks Fifth Avenue (14.42%) and Neiman Marcus (7.93%) highlights a clear gap in discounting strategies.
- Macy’s and Nordstrom are aggressively competitive on pricing in the overall apparel category, likely capturing consumer attention with substantial discounts.
- Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus may rely more on brand perception and luxury positioning rather than heavy discounting.
Subcategory-Level Analysis
- Neiman Marcus tops the ranking with an impressive 60.85% average discount, outperforming Macy’s (52.86%) and Nordstrom (43.04%) for Men’s Clothing. We see a similar trend with Neiman Marcus offering more value across Women’s Clothing as well, compared to other retailers.
- The competition in footwear was intense, with Neiman Marcus narrowly securing the top spot at 31.03%, slightly ahead of Saks Fifth Avenue (30.28%) and Macy’s (30.07%).
- Saks Fifth Avenue led by a significant margin in the Activewear category, offering 39.89% average discounts, indicating a strong push in this growing segment.
- Macy’s followed at 32.16% in Activewear, while Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom had comparatively lower discounts of 26.40% and 19.52%, respectively.
Brand-Level Analysis
- Kate Spade New York: Neiman Marcus leads with the highest discount of 55.23%, reflecting strong price leadership in premium fashion, closely followed by Saks Fifth Avenue at 51.66%.
- Coach: Neiman Marcus dominates with a significant 75.85% discount, showcasing an aggressive promotional strategy for this luxury brand.
- Spanx: While Neiman Marcus leads with 28.22%, discounts across other retailers like Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy’s, and Nordstrom are clustered within a competitive range of 17–19%.
- Montblanc: Macy’s takes the lead with 20.32%, signaling its competitiveness even in high-end accessories, with Saks Fifth Avenue and Nordstrom closely behind.
- Ugg: Saks Fifth Avenue leads with 31.42%, focusing on maintaining price leadership for this popular brand, while other retailers remain competitive with discounts around 25–30%.
What’s Next

To win over price-conscious shoppers, retailers need to stay competitive and consistently offer the lowest prices.

For a deeper dive into the world of competitive pricing intelligence and to explore how our solutions can benefit apparel retailers and brands, reach out to us today!

Stay tuned to our blog for more insights on different categories this Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
December 6, 2024
Breaking Down Grocery Discounts This Black Friday
As shoppers flocked online and to stores during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the grocery category stood out as a key battleground for retailers. With inflation affecting consumer spending, discounted groceries have become a critical driver for both shopper savings and retailer competitiveness.

In fact, according to the NRF, one of the top shopping destinations during Thanksgiving weekend were department stores (42%), online (42%),and grocery stores and supermarkets (40%). Clearly, consumers are looking to stock up in bulk on their groceries to maximize their savings.

To understand the pricing dynamics in the grocery category, DataWeave analyzed grocery discounts across leading grocers, uncovering significant trends that shaped consumer choices during this holiday shopping period.

Our research encompassed retailers like Amazon, Target, and Walmart, examining their discounting strategies across subcategories, alongside trends in share of search for leading CPG companies.

Also check out our detailed analysis of discounts and pricing for health & beauty and home & furniture this Black Friday.

Key Grocery Market Stats for Black Friday-Cyber Monday 2024
- Retailer Discounts: Walmart offered the highest average absolute discount at 27.6%, followed by Amazon at 20.4% and Target at 14.0%
- Subcategory Insights: Beverages Category at Walmart saw the deepest discounts, with an average of 33.4%
- Top Gaining Brands: Cesar experienced the largest increase in share of search during the sales period (+3.89%)
This blog will dive deeper into grocery discount trends and brand-level strategies, offering insights for retailers looking to stay competitive in the grocery sector.

Our Methodology

For this analysis, we tracked the average discounts offered by major U.S. grocery retailers during the Thanksgiving weekend, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday. We focused on key subcategories within the grocery segment, capturing trends in discounting strategies.
- Sample Size: 18,324 SKUs
- Retailers Tracked: Amazon, Walmart, Target
- Subcategories Reported On: Fresh Produce, Dairy & Eggs, Pantry Essentials, Snacks, Frozen Foods, Meat & Seafood, Household Essentials, Beverages, Pet Products, Baby Products
- Timeline of Analysis: November 10 to 29, 2024
In the following insights, the Absolute Discount represents the reduction of the selling price compared to the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP). The Additional Discount reflects how much lower the selling price is during Black Friday compared to its price a week before the sale. This metric reveals the actual or effective value of the sale event, beyond the standard discounts typically offered.

Key Findings

Retailer-Level Insights
- Walmart emerged as the leader in grocery discounting, offering the highest average absolute (27.6%) and additional (18%) discounts.
- Amazon adopted a mid-tier discounting strategy, with average absolute discounts of 20.4%.
- Target, while more conservative, maintained competitiveness in select subcategories like baby products.
Subcategory Insights
- Pantry Essentials saw Walmart leading with an average discount of 31.2%, appealing to budget-conscious consumers stocking up for the holidays.
- Fresh Produce showed consistent discounting across retailers, with Amazon slightly ahead at 27%.
- Beverages stood out for significant discounting at Walmart, with an impressive 33.4% average discount.
Brand-Level Insights
- Lay’s led in absolute discounts (37.52%) and additional discounts (26.23%) showcasing aggressive pricing in the snacks subcategory.
- Good & Gather maintained its competitive edge with strong discounts, appealing to price-conscious consumers seeking value.
- Brands like Blue Buffalo (pet food brand) offered significant absolute discounts, but with a low additional discount of just 2%, the overall impact of the sale event on effective value was limited.
Share of Search Insights
- Cesar (dog food brand), Tide (laundry staple) and Doritos saw significant gains in share of search, reflecting successful promotional strategies.
- Brands like Pampers (baby diapers brand), Healthy Choice, (frozen foods brand) and Pedigree (pet food brand) experienced a decline, indicating less effective engagement during the sale period.
Who offered the lowest prices?

In the previous analysis, we focused on the top 500 products within each subcategory for each retailer, showcasing the discount strategies for their highlighted or featured items. However, to identify which retailer offered the lowest or highest prices for the same set of products, it’s necessary to match items across retailers. For this, we analyzed a separate dataset of 1433 matched products across retailers to compare their pricing during Black Friday. This approach provides a clearer picture of price leadership and competitiveness across categories.

Here are the key takeaways from this analysis.

Category-Level Analysis
- Walmart is the lowest priced retailer overall for the grocery category, with an impressive average discount of 44.60%. This significant discount advantage makes Walmart a leading option for value-seeking consumers.
- Target follows with strong discounts of 36.73%, indicating solid pricing in comparison but less aggressive than Walmart.
- Interestingly, Amazon was the most expensive in Grocery, with an average discount of only 6.3%.
Subcategory-Level Analysis
- Walmart leads in various subcategories such as Pet Products (21.12%), Dairy & Eggs (13.79%), Household Essentials (13.05%), Frozen Foods (15.07%), and Meat & Seafood (17.60%), showcasing its extensive value across the board.
- Target excels in Beverages (14.58%) and Baby Products (15.00%) with competitive discounts, standing out in these specific subcategories.
- Kroger provides notable value in Pantry Essentials (20.04%) and Fresh Produce (15.85%), although its overall average discount is lower than Walmart’s.
- Amazon consistently ranks lower in terms of average discounts across most subcategories, highlighting it as less competitive for consumers seeking the lowest prices.
Brand-Level Analysis
- Walmart also holds the top position for several key brands like Cheetos (14.92%) and Dannon (8.81%), making it the best option for consumers looking for budget-friendly choices across popular brands.
- Target takes the lead for brands like Betty Crocker (25.20%) and Chobani (11.37%), showing that it can offer value for specific products.
- Kroger maintains strong discounts for brands such as Delmonte (9.19%), but it does not outpace Walmart in the overall grocery brand comparison.
- Amazon generally lags behind in average discounts for most brands, with Dannon (1.12%) and Chobani (2.43%) showing significantly lower discounts.
Walmart is the lowest priced retailer in the grocery category and provides substantial value across a wide range of subcategories and popular brands. This ties in with Walmart’s ELDP pricing strategy. The retailer leads in overall average discounts and maintains its position as the go-to for price-conscious consumers. Target offers strong value in certain subcategories and brands but falls short of Walmart’s broad value based pricing advantages.

What’s Next

For grocery retailers, competitive pricing and targeted promotions are critical to driving sales during key shopping events. As consumers continue to prioritize value, staying ahead in the discounting game can significantly impact market share.

For detailed insights into grocery discounting strategies and to explore how DataWeave’s solutions can help retailers optimize their pricing, contact us today!

Stay tuned to our blog for further analyses of other categories during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
December 5, 2024
Black Friday 2024: Home & Furniture Pricing Trends Analyzed
The Home & Furniture category continues to thrive, propelled by consumer interest in creating personalized and functional living spaces. In 2023, the U.S. furniture and home furnishings market was valued at approximately $641.7 billion in 2023 and is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 5.1% from 2024 to 2032. Black Friday and Cyber Monday play a crucial role in fueling this growth, offering consumers a mix of premium and affordable options across subcategories.

To better understand market trends and discount strategies this Black Friday, at DataWeave we tracked over 18,149 SKUs across major home & furniture retailers, including Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, and Overstock, from November 10 to 29, 2024. Using our AI-powered pricing intelligence platform, we focused on the top 500 products in subcategories like kitchenware, furniture, decor, lighting, outdoor items, and bedding.

In our analysis, the Absolute Discount represents the reduction of the selling price compared to the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP). The Additional Discount reflects how much lower the selling price is during Black Friday compared to its price a week before the Black Friday sale. This metric reveals the actual or effective value of the sale event, beyond the standard discounts typically offered.

Also check out our insights on discounts and pricing for the health & beauty category this Black Friday.

Retailer Performance: Who Led the Discount Race?

Retailers showed varying discount strategies for Home & Furniture products. Walmart emerged as the leader in absolute discounts (37.5%) while Amazon offered the highest additional discount of 14%. Best Buy maintained competitive pricing across all subcategories, while Overstock and Home Depot offered relatively modest discounts.

Subcategories in Focus

Breaking down the discounts by subcategory provides deeper insights into consumer priorities and retailer strategies:
- Kitchenware saw strong competition, with Walmart (30.40% absolute discounts) and Amazon (29% absolute discounts) dominating.
- Lighting became a discount hotspot, with Walmart offering up to 45.8% in absolute discounts and 25.3% additional markdowns.
- Furniture remained a core focus for Target, delivering an impressive 34% average absolute discount.
- Bedding stood out at Walmart, where discounts peaked at 49.6%.
Brand Spotlight: Who Stood Out?

Among top-performing brands, furniture brand Costway offered the highest discounts, with an average of 48.4%. Meanwhile, Adesso (lighting solutions), Mainstays and Safavieh (both home furnishings brands) balanced discounts and premium appeal.

Search Visibility: The Winners and Losers

Share of search dynamics revealed significant shifts in brand visibility during Black Friday:
- Furniture brand Costway (+1.2%) and home improvement player Black+Decker (+1.5%) gained visibility.
- On the flip side, premium brands like Safavieh known for rugs and home furnishings (-16.8%) and furniture brand Burrow ( -1.7%) saw declines.
Who Offers the Lowest Prices?

In the previous analysis, we focused on the top 500 products within each subcategory for each retailer, showcasing the discount strategies for their highlighted or featured items. However, to identify which retailer offered the lowest or highest prices for the same set of products, it’s necessary to match items across retailers. For this, we analyzed a separate dataset of 735 matched products across Home & Furniture specific retailers to compare their pricing during Black Friday. This approach provides a clearer picture of price leadership and competitiveness across categories.

Here are the key takeaways from this analysis.

Category-Level Highlights
- Amazon emerges as the lowest-priced retailer across Home & Furniture categories, with the highest average discount of 27.50%, closely followed by Walmart (26.09%).
- Overstock and Wayfair trail with average discounts of 22.93% and 20.71%, respectively, while Home Depot offers the least aggressive pricing at 18.14%. This is notable, as all 3 players are known specialists in the category.
Subcategory Highlights
- Amazon stands out as the leader in multiple subcategories, including Appliances, Furniture, Decor, and Outdoor, offering competitive average discounts of around 26-29%.
- Overstock leads in Bedding and Kitchenware, with strong average discounts of 24.26% and 20.72%, respectively.
- Wayfair is notable for Lighting, with an average discount of 19.95%, and is also competitive in Outdoor and Furniture categories.
- Walmart consistently ranks high in several subcategories like Appliances and Bedding, providing solid discounts of around 22-23%.
What’s Next

For home & furniture retailers, driving maximum value during mega sale events like Black Friday involves offering bundles and sets to meet customer demands and trend expectations. Gaining insights into competitor discounts and pricing can help furniture retailers get an edge amid this environment.

Want to know how DataWeave’s intelligence platform can empower your business during peak sales events? Contact us to discover more about competitive insights, price intelligence, and data-driven decision-making.
Stay tuned to our blog to see more coverage on Black Friday 2024.
December 4, 2024
Health & Beauty Deals on Black Friday 2024: Insights from Top Retailers and Brands
The U.S. health and beauty retail sector shows remarkable resilience amid economic uncertainties, with the skincare market projected to hit $21.83 billion in 2024. Black Friday data reinforces this trend, with health and beauty products seeing a 14.6% surge in web traffic compared to last year.

At DataWeave, we conducted an in-depth analysis of Black Friday discounting trends in the U.S. health and beauty sector. DataWeave’s AI-powered pricing intelligence platform was used to monitor pricing and discounts across Sephora, Ulta Beauty, Walmart, Target, and Amazon during Black Friday 2024. The study covered 19985 SKUs from November 10-29. We focused on the top 500 products ranked for each search keyword on each retail site, using targeted terms aligned with categories like “skincare” and “fragrance”.

The results? Beauty leads across categories in discount depth this year, with some retailers offering significant markdowns.

The Beauty Boom: More Than Just Looking Good

If there’s one thing the pandemic taught us, it’s that self-care isn’t just a luxury – it’s a necessity. This Black Friday proved that beauty has become an indispensable part of consumers’ lives, with retailers offering unprecedented discounts and crafting strategic promotions to capture the growing demand.

The Absolute Discount represents the reduction of the selling price compared to the Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP). The Additional Discount reflects how much lower the selling price is during Black Friday compared to its price a week before the sale. This metric reveals the actual or effective value of the sale event, beyond the standard discounts typically offered.

Ulta Beauty led with 45% average discounts, followed by Sephora at 38.1% and Walmart at 35.2%. In terms of additional Black Friday discounts, Ulta maintained dominance at 35%, with Sephora following at 28%.

Hair care emerged as the standout category, with Ulta Beauty offering up to 56% discounts, reflecting sustained demand for at-home beauty routines. Skincare saw fierce competition, with Sephora emphasizing premium discounts (37%) while Walmart focused on value pricing (32.5%).

Fragrance and Makeup attracted consumers with targeted promotions from Walmart and Ulta Beauty, signaling strong demand for gifting items.

Major beauty brands echoed the sentiment. Premium skincare brand Clinique leads with 50.6% average discounts. Meanwhile, drugstore staples like Revlon (29.1%) and Maybelline (24.4%) balanced accessibility and affordability, driving mass-market appeal. Popular beauty and makeup brand L’Oreal Paris also offered a modest 22.8% average discount, reinforcing its position as a value-oriented brand.

The more interesting story? The massive shift in brand visibility, as our share of search rankings denote:
- Shampoo and hair care brand Tresemmé saw an unexpected 5.5% jump in the share of search results
- Beauty brand Herbal Essences gained 5.1% in share of search well
Declines in share of search were noted for brands like L’Oreal Paris (-1.8%) and Pantene (-0.6%), indicating missed opportunities in promotional visibility.

Insight: What’s driving this beauty boom? TikTok and social media continue to fuel beauty purchases, with viral products driving significant search and sales spikes. Plus, the “skinification” of hair care has turned basic shampoo shopping into a full-blown beauty ritual.

Who Offered the Lowest Prices?

In the previous analysis, we focused on the top 500 products within each subcategory for each retailer, showcasing the discount strategies for their highlighted or featured items. However, to identify which retailer offered the lowest or highest prices for the same set of products, it’s necessary to match items across retailers. For this, we analyzed a separate dataset of 1133 matched products across Health & Beauty specific retailers to compare their pricing during Black Friday. This approach provides a clearer picture of price leadership and competitiveness across categories.

Here are the key takeaways from this analysis.
- Bloomingdale’s emerges as the overall leader, offering the highest average discount of 14.87%, closely followed by Bluemercury (12.41%).
- Ulta Beauty ranks third (10.94%), demonstrating competitiveness across key subcategories, while Sephora trails with the lowest average discount (7.33%), reflecting a more premium positioning.
- Ulta Beauty leads in Hair Care with the highest discount (22.62%), while Bluemercury dominates in Skin Care (13.81%), Makeup (22.98%), and Fragrance (10.6%).
- Sephora consistently offers the lowest discounts across all subcategories, reflecting their premium positioning.
- Bluemercury offers the lowest prices for luxury brands like Kiehl (27.02%) and Laura Mercier (34.87%), with Bloomingdale’s closely trailing.
- Bloomingdale’s leads for Bumble and Bumble (13.59%) and Hourglass (23.41%), showcasing strong promotional efforts.
- Sephora maintains a more restrained discount strategy, with notable leadership only for Estée Lauder (7.18%).
- Ulta Beauty shines in offering the steepest discount for Briogeo (33.26%), emphasizing competitiveness in key brands.
What’s Next for Holiday Discounting?

For retailers, the message is clear: traditional holiday playbooks need a serious update. For shoppers, it means unprecedented opportunities to score deals in categories that traditionally held firm on pricing.

Want to stay ahead of retail trends and optimize your holiday shopping strategy? DataWeave’s commerce intelligence platform helps brands and retailers strategically navigate these shifts. Contact us to learn more about how we can help you make data-driven decisions in this rapidly evolving retail landscape.

Stay tuned to our blog for forthcoming analyses on pricing and discounting trends across a spectrum of shopping categories, as we continue to unravel the intricacies of consumer behavior and market dynamics.
December 3, 2024
Early Black Friday Deals Analyzed: How Top Retailers Stack Up on Discounts
Black Friday, once confined to a single weekend, has evolved into a shopping season that now stretches well before Thanksgiving. With inflation hovering around 3% and consumer confidence showing signs of recovery, retailers are adapting their promotional calendars to capture early-bird shoppers and maintain a competitive edge.

Major retailers, including Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Best Buy, have capitalized on this trend by launching promotions weeks in advance, signaling the traditional holiday rush is now a month-long event. At DataWeave, we put these deals under a microscope.

Our Methodology

Using DataWeave’s advanced, AI-powered pricing intelligence platform, we tracked early Black Friday deals across Consumer Electronics, Home & Furniture, Health & Beauty, and Apparel categories. We monitored dedicated Black Friday deal pages on Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, and Sephora to gather and analyze discount data a week prior to Black Friday weekend.

Who’s Offering the Best Deals Across Categories?

Our pre- Black Friday analysis reveals a clear pattern of premium brands offering deeper discounts across categories ahead of the holiday. Here are some key findings around retail players:
- Walmart emerges as the most aggressive discounter across categories, leading in Health & Beauty (57.07%), Apparel (48.97%), and Consumer Electronics (43.35%).
- Amazon maintains consistent but lower discounts (28-29%) across categories, suggesting potential deeper cuts ahead.
- Best Buy and Sephora, both category specialists, play it conservative compared to mass retail players.
Let’s look at each category more closely to get a detailed snapshot of the deals this Thanksgiving week:

Health & Beauty

Our analysis reveals that it’s not electronics, but the health & beauty category that leads with the widest discount range pre Black Friday, making it the category to watch out for.
- Walmart takes the lead with an aggressive 57.1% average discount in this category, capitalizing on its value-oriented reputation.
- Beauty specialist Sephora holds modest beauty discounts (32.81%) compared to other retailers.
- Amazon offers the broadest range of SKUs (571) in the category.
Among the health & beauty brands we analyzed, cosmetics brand Tarte and viral K-Beauty skincare brand COSRX stand out with discounts above 40%, appealing to cost-conscious beauty enthusiasts.

Consumer Electronics

Our pre- Black Friday analysis reveals interesting insights about consumer electronics deals this season.
- Walmart, once again, emerges as the frontrunner in the category with 43.4% average discounts.
- Best Buy plays it conservative in electronics (30.75%), despite being a category specialist, but offers the most extensive SKU coverage (3030).
- Amazon’s consistent 29.7% discount across 1,749 SKUs suggests they’re probably holding back their best deals for Prime members during Black Friday.
Brand-specific data for the category reveals significant deals on Speck (48.07%) and smart TV brand Insignia (39.22%), making accessories and mid-tier electronics attractive for early shoppers. Core computing (HP at 32.14%) and electronics brands maintain more conservative discounts. It remains to be seen if this changes on Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

Apparel

Our analysis of the apparel category reveals several highlights:
- In the apparel category too, Walmart dominates with an impressive 49% average discount, effectively targeting price-sensitive shoppers in the fashion segment.
- Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, both known for apparel, offer significant discounts at 43.2% and 37.8% respectively.
- Amazon’s expansive SKU coverage (1344) is countered by a modest 29.5% discount, showing its focus on variety over depth of discounts.
Premium fashion brands dominate the highest discounts this Black Friday in the apparel category. Vince Camuto leads with over 45.1% average discount. Notably, Levi and Nike’s aggressive 44.43% and 43.50% discounts suggests significant inventory positions or intent to capture market share.

Home & Furniture

Our analysis reveals an interesting trend across the category.
- In the home & furniture category too, Walmart leads at 41.8% average discounts. Target follows closely, but with significantly lesser SKUs on offer.
- Amazon’s 28.1% discount, though the lowest among major players, spans a substantial 1,982 SKUs, reinforcing its position as a marketplace for diverse needs.
Top 3 Products With the Highest Discounts Across Retailers

To provide a clearer picture of the early Black Friday landscape, we analyzed the top 3 products with the most substantial discounts in consumer electronics and health & beauty categories. These insights highlight how retailers are leveraging strategic discounts on high-value items to attract early shoppers.

Top Discounted Products in Consumer Electronics

Premium TVs dominate the discount scene, with LG’s 83″ OLED offering up to 44.5% off on Amazon, closely followed by a 44.4% discount on Best Buy, showcasing aggressive competition. The same product has much lower discounting on Walmart, but notably, the product is retailed at $3999.9, at least $1000 less than other retailers, highlighting Walmart’s commitment to offering lowest prices.

Gaming consoles, like the PlayStation 5 Slim Bundle, show moderate discounts (ranging from 15% on Walmart and Target to 25% at Best Buy), appealing to tech-savvy shoppers.

Notable competition is evident in price matching across major retailers, particularly in TVs and high-value electronics like the Nikon Z 8 camera, where Walmart offers the deepest discount at 13.75%, edging past Amazon and Best Buy.

Top Discounted Products in Health & Beauty

Viral skincare staples like Tatcha’s Water Cream show tight discounting consistency, with Walmart offering 19.47% off compared to Amazon’s 20% and Sephora’s 20.83%.

Trending haircare brand Olaplex displays greater disparity, with Walmart leading with a 33.33% discount, surpassing Amazon and Sephora. Luxury brand, Yves Saint Laurent’s Satin Lipstick is one of the highest discounted items across retailers.

Looking Ahead

Our analysis suggests that while some early deals offer genuine value, particularly in premium beauty and high-end electronics, many retailers might be holding their best discounts for Black Friday.

For shoppers, the key is being selective: jump on premium brand discounts now (since they’re likely to remain the same though the weekend), but wait on mid-range electronics and home goods where better deals are likely to emerge on Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

For retailers, the imperative is clear: dynamic pricing intelligence is crucial for maintaining a competitive edge while protecting margins. Competitive insights will be critical as the holiday season progresses to balance market share against profitability.

Stay tuned for our Black Friday Cyber Monday analysis next week, where we’ll track how these early discounts compare to the main event’s deals!
November 28, 2024
10 SEO Tactics to Help Retail Brands Win More Search Visibility on Amazon

Today, the first name that comes to anybody’s mind when they hear about online shopping is Amazon. In the US alone, Amazon accounted for over 37.6 percent of total online retail sales in 2023 with the second place Walmart not even managing to win double-digit numbers on the same scale.

With such a phenomenal market share, it is not surprising that any retail brand would want to have their products listed on Amazon for sale. However, as enticing as the potential exposure could be, the overwhelming presence of brands selling similar products on Amazon is so huge that getting fair visibility for your products may require some heavy-lifting support.

Will the Same SEO You Use for Google Work with Amazon?

Unfortunately, no, as Google and Amazon have different objectives when it comes to search rankings on their respective customer platforms. Google makes the lion’s share of its revenue from search advertising, whereas Amazon makes money when customers buy products listed on its platform by sellers.

Relying on traditional search engine optimization (SEO) techniques may not get the desired results as they are more optimized for search engines like Google. Amazon embraces its unique DNA when it comes to product display rankings on its search option.

How Does SEO Work in Amazon?

Over the years, Amazon amassed data about shopping experiences that billions of customers globally had on its platform. With this data, they developed their custom search algorithm named A9. Contrary to the gazillion objectives that Google has for its intelligent search algorithms, Amazon has tasked A9 with just a simple straightforward target—when a customer keys in a search query, provide the best choice of products that they will most probably purchase, as search results.

A9 works to fulfill the mission of guiding shoppers to the right product without worrying about semantics, context, intent, mind mapping, etc. of the search query in contrast to what Google does. As with Google search, Amazon does have paid advertising and sponsored results options such as Amazon PPC, Headline ads, etc. but their SEO algorithms are aware of how to support and boost search rankings of genuine products and brands that have taken an effort to follow best practices in Amazon SEO as well as have a great offering with attractive prices.

As additional knowledge, Amazon also has clear guidelines on what it prioritizes for search rankings. Known in the SEO world as Amazon ranking signals, these are core factors that influence how a product is ranked for search queries. Some of the top Amazon ranking signals that carry heavy influence on search rankings include on-page signals, off-page signals, sales rank, best sellers rank, etc.

What Brands Need to Strategize to Master the Amazon SEO Algorithms

From a broad perspective, we can classify the actions brands need to take in this regard in 3 core stages:

Pre-Optimization

This deals with getting first-hand knowledge about both customers who are likely to purchase your product and the competitors who are vying for sales from these very same customers. Filtering your target customer or audience is essential to ensure that you get the most ROI from marketing initiatives and that sales cycles are accelerated. For example, if your product is a premium scented candle, there is no point in wasting advertising dollars trying to win attention from customers who are not likely to ever spend on luxury home décor items.

Knowing how your competitors are performing on Amazon search, the keywords, and SEO strategies they have adapted is critical to ensure that you stay one step ahead.

Product Listing Page Optimization

This includes strategies that a brand can adopt so that its product description page gets the much-needed content optimizations to sync with Amazon’s A9 algorithm. It has a mix of keyword-integrated content, relevant images, descriptions in easy-to-understand language, localized content flavors to resonate with target buyers, etc. For example, a kitchen tool like a grater might be used for different kinds of food preparation techniques in different regions of the same country.

The brand must ensure that the description adequately localizes the linguistic or usage preference representation of the target audience. If the grater is used for grating coconut shells to extract the fibrous pulp in the Midlands and for grating ginger skin in the Far East, both use cases should be part of the product description if the target customers are from both regions.

Sales Optimization

This deals with options that have more sales strategies integrated into their core. For example, blogs on popular websites with the Amazon purchase link embedded in the content, collaboration with social media influencers, paid advertising on Amazon itself as well as on search engines, video ads, banner and display ads, etc.

The key intent here is to drive organic and inorganic traffic to the Amazon product listing page and ultimately win sales.

How Can Your Products Rank High in Amazon Search Results? Top 10 Tactics

Now that you have a clear understanding of the strategies that help in mastering Amazon’s ranking algorithms, here are some great tips to help achieve higher search rankings for your products on Amazon search:

1. Target Relevant Keywords

You need to figure out the best keywords that match what customers put as queries into the Amazon search bar. Your brand needs to clearly understand customer behavior when they arrive on Amazon to search for a product or category of products. The best place to begin looking for the same would be on competitor pages on Amazon. The keywords that helped them rank well on Amazon can help you as well. Manually investigating such a large pool of competitors is nearly impossible but with the right tools, you can easily embrace capabilities to know which keywords can help you in mimicking the success of your competitors.

2. Focus on Product Titles

Every single part of the content in your brand’s Amazon storefront or product page needs dedicated focus. Beginning with the product titles, effort needs to be made to ensure that they include the brand name, key product category or features, and other relevant keyword information.

In other words, product titles must be optimized for searchability. This searchability for product titles needs to be optimized for both mobile and desktop screens.

3. Create Product Descriptions that Resonate with the Audience

For product descriptions on your Amazon webpage, you need to figure out the optimal quality levels needed for the intended audience. Effective content can help achieve better search ranking visibility and convince the incoming traffic of shoppers to make a purchase. It is important to periodically review and modify your page content to suit the interests of visitors from both web and mobile devices.

Leveraging solutions like DataWeave can help with regular content audits to ensure you are putting out the best product content that will delight shoppers and deliver on sales conversion targets.

4. Use High-Quality Media Assets like Images and Videos

Promoting your product doesn’t have to be restricted to just textual content in Amazon product description sections. You can use other multimedia assets of high quality. These include images, videos, brochure images, etc. Every content asset must aim to educate shoppers on why your product should be their number one choice. For example, look at this detailed product description for the viral K-Beauty product COSRX Mucin Essence.

Moreover, images can help attract more attention span from visitors, thereby increasing the probability of purchases.

5. Strengthen the Backend Keywords As Well

Amazon also supports hidden backend keywords that sellers add to their product listings. They help add more relevance to products similar to meta descriptions and titles in traditional SEO for search engines like Google. A typical backend keyword may comprise synonyms, misspelled keywords, textual variations, etc. However, knowing how to pick the right ones is crucial. By analyzing your keyword rankings against competitors and higher-ranking product results in search, the platform can help you consistently optimize your content backend to help grow visibility.

6. Focus on Reviews and Ratings

Reviews and ratings on product pages are key insights that help customers with their purchasing decisions. So, it is natural for brands to keep a close eye on how their products are faring in this regard. Reviews and ratings are a direct indication of the trustworthiness of your product. When previous buyers rate you high and leave favorable reviews on your product, it will directly promote trust and help you secure a better rapport with new customers.

This upfront advantage can help boost sales conversions better. Leveraging solutions like DataWeave can help you understand the sentiments that customers have for your products by intelligently analyzing reviews and ratings.

7. Implement Competitive Pricing Strategies

The goal of most customers when shopping online is to get their desired product at the most affordable prices. The eCommerce price wars every year are growing in scale today and getting your product pricing right is crucial for sales. However, there is a need to gain comprehensive insights into how your competitors are pricing their offerings and how the market responds to specific price ranges. Solutions like DataWeave help your brand access specific insights into pricing. By analyzing competitor pricing, you can create a winning price model that is sustainable for your brand and favorable for target customers.

8. Track Share of Search

Content and other SEO activities will help improve your search rankings on Amazon. However, it is equally important to know how well your products are performing periodically against your competitors for the same set of specific keyword searches. You need to understand the share of search that your products are achieving to formulate improvement strategies. DataWeave’s Digital Shelf Analytics solution provides share of search insights helping you uncover deep knowledge on your discoverability on Amazon (and other marketplaces) for your vital search keywords.

9. Ensure Stock Availability

To achieve better ranking results, brands need to ensure that the relevant products matching the search keywords are available for quick delivery at the desired ZIP codes where users are more likely to search and order them. Out-of-stock items seldom show up high on search results. Certain products, especially if they’re popular, can get stocked out frequently in certain locations. Keeping a close eye on your stock availability across the map can help minimize these scenarios.

10. Optimize Your Brand Presence

While optimizing content and other key areas within the Amazon webpage for your product is critical, there are other avenues to help boost search rankings. One such option includes registering in the Amazon Brand Registry, which provides more beneficial features like protection against counterfeits and ensuring that your brand page is optimized according to Amazon storefront standards.

The Bottom Line

Winning the top spot in Amazon search ranking is crucial for brands that aim to capitalize on online sales revenue to grow their business. Knowing your workaround for Amazon’s proprietary SEO frameworks and algorithms is the first step to succeeding. The key element of success is your ability to gain granular insights into the areas we covered in this blog post such as competitor prices, sentiments of customers, market preferences, and content optimization requirements.

This is where DataWeave’s Digital Shelf Analytics solution becomes the biggest asset for your eCommerce business. Contact us to explore how we can empower your business to build the most visible and discoverable Amazon storefront that guarantees higher search rankings and ultimately increased sales. Talk to us for a demo today.

November 8, 2024
Mastering Retail Media Metrics: A Deep Dive into Share of Media
Brands are investing millions of dollars in digital retail media to make their products stand out amid unrelenting competition.

The ad spend on digital retail media worldwide was estimated at USD 114.4 billion in 2022, and the current projections indicate that it will grow to USD 176 billion by 2028. This amounts to a 54% increase in just six years.

The current surge in digital retail media advertising has led brands to find an effective way to monitor the efficacy of their ad spend. While Share of Search has long been used to measure brand visibility effectively, the metrics often missed tracking ads on retail sites.

DataWeave’s Share of Media solution helps solve this problem.

What is the Share of Media?

At DataWeave, Share of Media is a metric used to measure a brand’s presence in sponsored listings and banner ads on eCommerce platforms. It captures how often a brand appears in paid promotions compared to competitors, offering insights into advertising visibility and effectiveness.

These days most marketplaces seamlessly blend banner ads and sponsored listings into organic search results. Let’s take a closer look.

Banner Advertising

Banner advertising strategically places creative banners across websites—often at the top, bottom, or sides. Some eCommerce platforms also integrate these banners into product search listings.

What makes banner ads so special is the unique ability to allow marketers to use various types of media in a single ad, such as images, auto-play videos, and animations. Brands can also present curated collections of products. This flexibility provides marketers with creative opportunities to differentiate from competitors, capture customer interest, and encourage conversions.

Sponsored Listings

Sponsored listings are paid placements within search engine results or eCommerce platforms. They are usually marked as ‘sponsored’ or ‘ad,’ and they often appear at the top of search results and alongside organic product listing results.

Unlike organic search results, sponsored listings are prioritized based on the advertiser’s bid amount and relevance to users’ search queries.

Sponsored listings offer a strategic advantage by enabling businesses to connect directly with consumers who are actively searching for their products. This targeted approach ensures that marketing efforts are focused on individuals with high intent of making a purchase, maximizing the potential return on investment.

The Power of Banner Ads and Sponsored Listings

Banner ads and sponsored listings are great choices for boosting customer engagement and product sales. Here are four key advantages they offer:
- Enhanced Visibility: Digital retail media strategically places your brand where it will stand out—outshining competitors and grabbing the attention of high-purchase-intent consumers.
- Precision in Reach: These ads target specific keywords or categories, allowing for highly focused advertising based on demographics and search intent.
- Minimal Conversion Friction: Smooth transitions from ads to a brand’s native store or product listing on the marketplace keep conversion friction to a minimum.
- Brand Awareness and Recall: Consistent exposure to your brand through banner ads and sponsored product listings can leave lasting impressions and build brand recognition.
The bottom line is that it’s increasingly important for brands to monitor their Share of Media.

How to Monitor Your Brand’s Share of Media

DataWeave’s Digital Shelf Analytics (DSA) platform extends beyond the traditional Share of Search metrics and provides robust support for monitoring the Share of Media.

DataWeave monitors the Share of Media in two ways: keywords and product categories. Users can view Share of Media insights through aggregated views, trend charts, and detailed tables. The views are designed to show brand visibility and the overall competitive landscape. For example, the screenshot below, taken from DataWeave’s dashboard, showcases the Share of Media across keywords, categories, and retailers.

Share of Media by Keyword

The Share of Media metric captures a brand’s advertising presence within search listings for a designated keyword. This provides a comprehensive view of a brand’s visibility and promotional efforts across retail platforms, helping brands validate and gauge the effectiveness of their ad spend.

For example, the screenshot below shows the trend of manufacturer’s Share of Media by keyword—‘baby food.’

Share of Media by Category

The Share of Media metric measures the presence of brands’ banner ads and sponsored listings across product categories on retail sites. This helps brands see which product categories require more investment, making it easier for them to spend their ad budget wisely.

The screenshot below illustrates manufacturers’ Share of Media by category across retailers.

Share of Media: An Essential Ecommerce Metric

As retail media continues to evolve, our analytics must follow—after all, knowledge is a competitive advantage. In the dynamic world of eCommerce, where competition is fierce and consumer attention is scarce, understanding your share of media is crucial.

Analyzing the Share of Media can give brands a competitive edge. By regularly monitoring and analyzing this metric, you can make data-driven decisions to improve your brand’s visibility, attract more customers, and ultimately drive sales growth. With a deeper understanding of their target audience and market dynamics, brands can refine promotional efforts to drive more effective results and optimize return on ad spend (ROAS).

For more information on how Digital Shelf Analytics can enhance your brand’s digital shelf presence, request a demo or contact us at contact@dataweave.com.
October 14, 2024
Back-to-School 2024 Pricing Strategies: What Retailers and Brands Need to Know
As summer winds down, families across the US have been gearing up for the annual back-to-school shopping season. The back-to-school season has always been a significant event in the retail calendar, but its importance has grown in recent years. With inflation still impacting many households, parents and guardians are more discerning than ever about their purchases, seeking the best value for their money.

The National Retail Federation has forecasted that this season could see one of the highest levels of spending in recent years, reaching up to $86.6 billion. As shoppers eagerly stock up on back-to-school and back-to-college essentials, it’s crucial for retailers and brands to refine their pricing strategies in order to capture a larger share of the market.

To understand how retailers are responding to the back-to-school rush this season, our proprietary analysis delves into pricing trends, discount strategies, and brand visibility across major US retailers, including Amazon, Walmart, Kroger, and Target. By examining 1000 exactly matching products in popular back-to-school categories, our analysis provides valuable insights into the pricing strategies adopted by leading retailers and brands this year.

Price Changes: A Tale of Moderation

The most notable trend in our analysis is the much smaller annual price increases this year, in contrast to last year’s sharp price hikes. This shift is a reaction to growing consumer frustration about rising prices. After enduring persistent inflation and steep price growth, which peaked last year, consumers have become increasingly frustrated. As a result, retailers have had to scale back and implement more moderate price increases this year.

Kroger led the pack with the highest price increases, showing a 5.3% increase this year, which follows a staggering 19.9% rise last year. Walmart’s dramatic price increase of 14.9% is now followed by a muted 3.1% hike. Amazon and Target demonstrated a similar pattern of slowing price hikes, with increases of 2.3% and 2.7% respectively in the latest period. This trend indicates that retailers are still adjusting to increased costs but are also mindful of maintaining customer loyalty in a competitive market.

When examining specific product categories, we observe diverse pricing trends. Electronics and apparel saw the largest price increases between 2022 and 2023, likely due to supply chain disruptions and volatile demand. However, the pace of these increases slowed in 2024, indicating a gradual return to more stable market conditions. Notably, backpacks remain an outlier, with prices continuing to rise sharply by 22%.

Interestingly, some categories, such as office organization and planners, experienced a price decline in 2024. This could signal an oversupply or shifting consumer preferences, presenting potential opportunities for both retailers and shoppers.

Brand Visibility: The Search for Prominence

In the digital age, a brand’s visibility in online searches can significantly impact its success during the back-to-school season. Our analysis of the share of search across major retailers provides valuable insights into brand prominence and marketing effectiveness.

Sharpie and Crayola emerged as the strongest performers overall, with particularly high visibility on Target. This suggests strong consumer recognition and demand for these traditional school supply brands. BIC showed strength on Amazon and Target but lagged on Kroger, while Pilot maintained a more balanced presence across most retailers.

The variation in brand visibility across retailers also hints at potential partnerships or targeted marketing strategies. For instance, Sharpie’s notably high visibility on Target (5.16% share of search) could indicate a specific partnership.

Talk to us to get more insights on the most prominent brands broken down by specific product categories.

Navigating the 2024 Back-to-School Landscape

As we look ahead to the 2024 back-to-school shopping season, several key takeaways emerge for retailers and brands:
1. Price sensitivity remains high, but the rate of increase is moderating. Retailers should carefully balance the need to cover costs with maintaining competitive pricing.
2. Strategic discounting can be a powerful tool, especially for lesser-known brands looking to gain market share. However, established brands would need to rely more on quality, visibility, and brand loyalty.
3. Online visibility is crucial. Brands should invest in strong SEO and retail media strategies, tailored to different retail platforms.
4. Category-specific strategies are essential. What works for backpacks may not work for writing instruments, so a nuanced approach is key.
5. Retailers and brands should be prepared for potential shifts in consumer behavior, such as increased demand for value-priced items or changes in category preferences.
By staying attuned to these trends and remaining flexible in their strategies, businesses can position themselves for success in the competitive back-to-school retail landscape of 2024. As always, the key lies in understanding and responding to consumer needs while maintaining a keen eye on market dynamics.

Stay tuned to our blog to know more about how retailers can stay aware of changing pricing trends. Reach out to us today to learn more.
September 12, 2024
Do Amazon’s Competitors Lower Prices During Prime Day?

As the retail landscape continues to evolve, events like Amazon Prime Day have become more than just shopping extravaganzas—they’ve transformed into strategic battlegrounds where retailers assert their market positions and brand identities. Prime Day 2024 was no exception, serving as a crucial moment for retailers to showcase their pricing prowess, customer loyalty programs, and category expertise.

In an era where consumer expectations for deals are at an all-time high, the impact of Prime Day extends far beyond Amazon’s ecosystem. Retailers like Walmart, known for its “everyday low prices,” Target with its emphasis on style and value, and Best Buy, the electronics specialist, have all adapted their strategies to compete. These companies didn’t just react to Prime Day; they proactively launched their own pre-emptive sales events, with Target Circle Week, Walmart July Deals and more, effectively extending the shopping bonanza and challenging Amazon’s dominance.

For Prime Day, we analyzed over 47,000 SKUs across major retailers and product categories to publish insights on Amazon’s pricing strategies as well as the performance of leading consumer brands. Here, we go further to delve into the discounts offered (or not offered) by Amazon’s competitors during Prime Day. Our analysis reveals that some retailers chose to compete on price during the sale for certain categories, while others did not.

Below, we highlight our findings for each product category. The Absolute Discount is the total discount offered by each retailer during Prime Day compared to the MSRP. These are the discounts consumers are familiar with, displayed on retail websites prominently during sale events. The Additional Discount, on the other hand, is the reduction in price during Prime Day compared to the week prior to the sale, revealing the level of price markdowns by the retailer specific to a sale event.

Consumer Electronics

In the Consumer Electronics category, Best Buy stood out as a strong competitor, offering an Additional Discount of 5.9%—the highest among all competitors analyzed. This is unsurprising, as Best Buy is well-known for its focus on consumer electronics and is likely aiming to reinforce its reputation for offering attractive deals in order to maintain its strong consumer perception in the category.

Walmart was a close second with a 4.3% Additional Discount while Target reduced its prices by only 2% during the sale.

Apparel

In the Apparel category, Walmart’s Additional Discount was 3.1%, demonstrating its willingness to be priced competitively on a small portion of its assortment during the sale, without compromising much on margins.

Target, on the other hand, opted out of competing with Amazon on price during the sale, choosing instead to maintain its Absolute Discount level of around 11%.

Home & Furniture

The Home & Furniture category showcased diverse strategies from retailers. Specialty furniture retailers such as Overstock and Home Depot provided Additional Discounts of 3.9% and 2.5%, respectively, compared to Amazon’s 6.9%. This indicates a clear intent to maintain market share and remain top-of-mind for consumers despite Amazon’s competitive pricing.

Although Target didn’t significantly lower its prices during the sale, its Absolute Discount remains substantial at 18.9%. This suggests that Target’s markdowns were already steep before the event, which could explain the lack of further reductions during the sale.

Health & Beauty

The Health & Beauty category saw minimal participation from Amazon’s competitors, with the exception of Sephora, which reduced prices by 3.7% during Prime Day.

Ulta Beauty chose not to adjust its prices, likely reflecting its strategy to uphold a premium brand image. Walmart, on the other hand, offered a modest Additional Discount of 2% on select items. Given Walmart’s generally affordable product range, its total discount remained relatively low, around 3.5%.

In Conclusion

During Prime Day, Walmart was the only major retailer that made an effort to compete, albeit modestly. Target, on the other hand, largely chose not to offer any additional markdowns. However, several category-specific retailers, such as Best Buy in Consumer Electronics, Overstock and Home Depot in Furniture, and Sephora in Health & Beauty, aimed to retain market share by providing notable discounts.

What this means for consumers is that even on Amazon’s Prime Day, it’s not a bad idea to compshop to identify the best deal.

For retailers, the key takeaway is the importance of quickly analyzing competitor pricing and making agile, data-driven decisions to improve both revenues and margins. By utilizing advanced pricing intelligence solutions like DataWeave, retailers can optimize their discount strategies, better navigate pricing complexities, and drive revenue growth — all while staying prepared for major shopping events and beyond.

Reach out to us today to learn more!

August 21, 2024
Amazon Prime Day India 2024: Key Insights on Pricing and Visibility Across Categories and Brands
As the dust settles on Amazon’s 8th Prime Day extravaganza in India, held on July 20-21, 2024, the eCommerce giant has once again shattered records. This year’s event saw unprecedented engagement, with 24% more Prime members participating compared to 2023, marking the highest-ever Prime member involvement in the sale’s history.

At DataWeave, we’ve conducted an extensive analysis of this landmark event, examining over 47,000 SKUs across major categories for Flipkart and Amazon to uncover compelling insights into pricing strategies, competitive positioning, and emerging trends in the Indian eCommerce space. This follows our comprehensive analysis of Prime Day in the USA across categories and brands, which readers can explore for a global perspective on Amazon’s strategies.

Key Highlights:
- Tier-2 Cities Drive Growth: This year’s exponential growth was notably fueled by orders from tier-2 cities, highlighting the expanding reach of eCommerce in India.
- Swift Deliveries: Most Prime members’ orders from metros were delivered the same day or the next, while tier-2 cities saw deliveries in less than 2 days, highlighting the importance of delivery time when it comes to purchase decisions.
- Brand Participation: Over 450 top Indian and global brands participated, including Intel, Samsung, OnePlus, and Puma, alongside 3,200 new product launches from small and medium Indian businesses. This highlights Amazon’s policy to promote small, local businesses globally in 2024.
- Premium Products in Demand: Despite modest discounts across electronics and similar offerings, consumers chose to purchase premium products during Prime Day. With financial flexibility and no-cost EMI options, Indian consumers, especially Gen Z and millennials, are now ready to invest in premium products and experiences.
Our analysis focused on both the Additional Discounts offered during Prime Day (calculated relative to prices the week prior to the event), highlighting the event’s genuine benefits, and the Absolute Discounts offered during Prime Day, representing the total markdown relative to the MRP.

Cross-Category Discount Strategy

Our analysis this year reveals that the Consumer Electronics category saw the highest Absolute Discounts with an average of 48.9%, closely followed by Apparel at 46.9%. The Health & Beauty category had the lowest Absolute Discount at 32.1%.

However, Amazon offered the highest Additional Discount in Health & Beauty at 9.3%. Electronics and Apparel had additional discounts of 8.6% and 7.7% respectively.

Overall, Flipkart chose to not compete aggressively with Amazon during Prime Day this year. Only in Electronics did Flipkart offer an additional discount of 3.2% during the sale. Price changes in Apparel and Health & Beauty were negligible.

Category Deep Dive

Consumer Electronics

In Electronics, Earbuds (14.7%) and Wireless Headphones (12.5%) saw the highest Additional Discounts on Amazon, likely due to high demand for personal audio devices. Smartwatches followed closely at 12.5%, indicating a strong push in the wearable technology sector.

Larger electronic appliances like TVs saw more modest Additional Discounts (5.2%), despite a significant Absolute Discount (42.3%).

Smartphones, interestingly, had the lowest Additional Discount (2.8%) among the subcategories, potentially due to their already competitive pricing or brand-specific strategies.

Brand-level Insights in Consumer Electronics

During the sale event, Soundcore (headphone and earphone brand from Anker) led with the highest Additional Discount of 10.3%, followed closely by OnePlus at 9.3%. These brands clearly leveraged Prime Day to drive sales and potentially gain market share.

Sennheiser and Sony also offered significant additional discounts, indicating aggressive promotional strategies during the event.

Notably, some well-known brands like Apple and HP offered more conservative discounts, possibly due to their established market positions or differing promotional strategies.

Despite modest discounts though, Amazon revealed that the iPhone 13 and OnePlus 12R were among the top premium smartphones customers bought this Prime Day. Prime members shopped from top brands such as LG, IFB, Bosch, and Haier and upgraded to premium appliances through affordability options of no cost EMI, Bank discounts and exchange offers, claims Amazon.

These learnings offer valuable insight into the mindset of the modern Indian consumer, who is ready to purchase premium products. Brands can leverage more detailed market intelligence to drive their positioning in India.

Share of Search Analysis

The Share of Search (SoS) for a brand represents the number of its products in the top 20 search results for relevant search keywords on Amazon, relative to that of its competitors. It provides insights into a brand’s visibility during the sale event.

HP saw the most significant improvement in its Share of Search during Prime Day, gaining 9.2%, with strong growth in both organic (7.5%) and sponsored (1.7%) listings. LG also made substantial gains of 8.2% and 5.3% respectively. Both brands offered significant markdowns on laptops and accessories.

Surprisingly, some popular brands like Apple (-0.6%) and Acer (-1.0%) experienced slight decreases in their SoS. Lenovo notably lost 7.2% of its visibility share, with a significant decline in organic listings (-7.6%). Samsung maintained its strong position with an increase in SoS (3.7%).

Key Takeaways:

While some brands like Soundcore and OnePlus used aggressive discounting to drive sales, others like HP and LG focused on improving their search visibility. The data suggests that a combination of attractive discounts and improved search visibility was key to success during the event. Brands that managed to balance these factors effectively, like HP and Samsung, seemed to perform particularly well. Interestingly, some brands with lower discounts (like HP) still managed to significantly increase their SoS, indicating that factors beyond pricing played a role in visibility during the event.

Apparel

Within the subcategories analyzed, Women’s Shoes (13.4%) and Men’s Shoes (11.6%) saw the highest Additional Discounts on Amazon, indicating a strong focus on footwear during the event. Men’s Shirts followed closely at 11.1%

Women’s Tops had a more modest Additional Discount of 7.9% despite a high Absolute Discount before the event. Similarly, Women’s Dresses showed substantial Additional Discounts (10.4%).

Swimwear for both men and women saw low Additional Discounts (3.7% and 3.0% respectively). Innerwear categories for both men and women had more conservative discounts, with Men’s Innerwear showing the lowest Absolute Discount (19.9%) among all subcategories.

Brand-level Insights in Apparel

During the sale event, Sangani (innerwear brand) led with the highest Additional Discount of 41%, followed by Louis Philippe at 25%. These brands clearly leveraged Prime Day to drive sales and gain market share.

Puma offered the highest Absolute Discount at 60% with a significant Additional Discount of 20%, indicating a consistently aggressive promotional strategy. Chromozome (men’s innerwear brand) and Bacca Bucci (homegrown shoe brand of Shark Tank India fame) also offered substantial Absolute Discounts (57% and 56% respectively), but their Additional Discounts varied significantly (16% and 6% respectively).

Again, some well-known brands like Adidas, and Pepe Jeans offered more moderate Additional Discounts, possibly due to their established market positions.

Share of Search Analysis

Biba (women’s ethnic wear brand) saw the most significant improvement in its SoS, gaining 3.60%, entirely through investments in sponsored listings. Allen Solly and New Balance (shoe brand) also made substantial gains of 3.3% and 3.2% respectively.

Surprisingly, some popular brands like Louis Philippe (-2.00%) and Sangani (-2.10%) experienced decreases in their SoS. Louis Philippe lost its share due to a roll back of its sponsored listings, while Sangini lost ground organically.

Key Takeaways:

While some brands like Sangani and Louis Philippe used aggressive discounting to drive sales, others like Biba and Allen Solly focused on improving their search visibility through sponsored listings.

Some brands with high discounts (like Sangani) saw a decrease in SoS, while others with more modest discounts (like Biba) significantly increased their visibility. This indicates that factors beyond pricing played a crucial role in brand performance during the event.

The significant use of sponsored listings by some brands highlights the importance of paid advertising in gaining visibility during competitive events like Prime Day.

Health & Beauty

Health & Beauty emerged as a standout category during Amazon Prime Day India 2024, with significant discounts and competitive strategies at play.

Within the subcategories we analyzed, Moisturizer (11.9%) and Sunscreen (11.8%) saw the highest additional price reductions on Amazon, likely due to seasonal demand during Prime Days. Make-up followed closely at 10.6%.

Electric Toothbrushes had the highest Absolute Discount at 47.1%, but a lower Additional Discount of 6.0%, highlighting that these products were already significantly discounted before the event. Similarly, Beard Care products showed high Absolute Discounts (43.7%) but lower Additional Discounts (5.7%) during Prime Day.

Everyday essentials like Toothpaste saw more modest discounts (19.9% Absolute, 8.4% Additional), reflecting steady demand for these products.

Brand-level Insights in Health & Beauty

Vaseline led with the highest Additional Discount of 13.1%, followed by Maybelline at 9.5%. These brands clearly leveraged Prime Day to drive sales and potentially gain market share.

Honest Amish (beard care brand) and Nivea also offered substantial Absolute Discounts (15.6% and 8.2% respectively), but their Additional Discounts were lower, indicating pre-existing promotional strategies.

Once again, some well-known brands like Colgate, Dove, and Neutrogena offered more conservative discounts, possibly due to their established market positions or differing promotional strategies.

Share of Search Analysis

Maybelline saw the most significant improvement, gaining 5.6% in SoS, all through organic listings. The brand has been aggressively increasing market share with several new product launches and influencer campaigns. Nivea and Vaseline also made substantial gains of 5.2% and 3.8% respectively.

In this category as well, some popular brands like Dove (-0.4%), Pond’s (-0.8%), and Honest Amish (-0.8%) experienced slight decreases in their SoS. Parodontax (toothpaste brand) notably lost 1.3% SoS, with most of the decline in sponsored listings. Colgate maintained its strong position with a slight increase in SoS (0.2%), reflecting its dominant market presence.

Key Takeaways:

While some brands like Vaseline and Maybelline used aggressive discounting and improved visibility to drive sales, others like Colgate and Dove relied more on their established market positions.

None of the brands made any significant strides in sponsored listings, revealing that brands in this category are not yet fully leveraging retail media to help manage and boost their visibility on online marketplaces.

Final Thoughts

Amazon Prime Day 2024 has redefined the eCommerce landscape in India, yet again, showcasing diverse strategies employed by brands to maximize their impact. By understanding and leveraging these insights, brands and retailers can better navigate future sales events, optimizing their eCommerce strategies to achieve sustained growth and success.

Stay tuned to our blog for more in-depth analyses of brand and retailer performance across various retail events.

Reach out to us today to learn how you can leverage data-driven insights to optimize your eCommerce strategy.
August 1, 2024
Insights on Pricing and Visibility of Leading Consumer Brands During Prime Day 2024
Amazon Prime Day 2024 saw U.S. shoppers spending a staggering $14.2 billion online during the two-day event—an 11% increase from last year. This surge in spending reflects a significant shift in consumer behavior and presents a wealth of insights for brands and retailers alike.

Unlike last year’s focus on essentials, Prime Day 2024 saw Americans enthusiastically embracing both necessities and discretionary purchases. The Consumer Electronics and Health & Beauty categories, for example, experienced a notable uptick in interest, driven by major retailers slashing prices across CPG and Grocery segments, amid other reasons. Check out our first article in the Prime Day series 2024, analyzing retail insights across categories during the event.

This year, small businesses gained unprecedented visibility on Amazon, pushing relatively new brands into visibility.

At DataWeave, we recognize the critical importance of understanding these market dynamics for brands navigating the competitive eCommerce landscape. To provide actionable insights, we conducted an extensive analysis of over 47,000 SKUs across key categories before and during Amazon during Prime Day 2024. Our study delves into:
- Pricing strategies: How did brands adjust their discounts to capitalize on the Prime Day frenzy?
- Share of Search: Which brands achieved the highest visibility for major search keywords?
Dive into these insights below to uncover how brands performed during Amazon Prime Day 2024, and learn how you can leverage these findings to enhance your brand’s digital shelf performance.

Our Findings

Most brands offered substantial discounts before Prime Day, then added smaller discounts during the event. This strategy creates a perception of value while still allowing room for Prime Day-specific deals. To understand the real value offered by brands, we conducted an extensive analysis of brand performance, examining both pricing strategies and visibility on the platform. Our approach focuses on two key metrics:
1. Discounts: We analyzed both the Absolute Discount (total markdown relative to MSRP a week before Prime Day) and the Additional Discount (the price reduction during Prime Day compared to the week before).
2. Share of Search (SoS): We examined the visibility of brands in the top 20 search results. We also separately tracked this metric for organic and sponsored search results.
Let’s dive into the category and brand specific insights:

Consumer Electronics

Once again, in 2024, the Consumer Electronics category dominated discounts. Amazon’s own brands lead with the highest average Absolute Discount (44.2%) and a significant Additional Discount (12.5%), showcasing its aggressive push for Prime Day.

In a surprising twist, Amazon’s homepage wasn’t dominated by its own brands. Instead, tech giants like Apple and Samsung took centre stage. Despite this, Amazon’s own brands offered significant discounts across electronics products, including Amazon Kindle, Fire TVs, Fire TV Sticks, Echo Dot, and more, aiming to capture market share via markdowns.

Soundcore (earphone audio products brand) offered the highest discount during Prime Day, at 30.10%. Other headphone, earbuds, and wireless headphone brands including Sony, Beats, JBL, and more also offered significant discounts.

Premium brands like Apple (17.90% Absolute, 9.00% Additional) and Bose (23.10% Absolute, 16.00% Additional) offered relatively modest discounts, aligning with their brand positioning, but also taking advantage of the Prime Day frenzy.

Share of Search Insights in Consumer Electronics

JBL emerged as the standout performer, with the most significant increase in SoS, jumping from 14.3% pre-event to 25.8% during Prime Day, driven entirely by organic growth. Beats also saw a remarkable rise, increasing from 2.8% to 12.8%, again through organic listings only. Samsung maintained its strong presence, growing from 18.6% to 26.8%, with most of its growth influenced by increased ad spend.

Apple, despite already having a high pre-event SoS, managed to increase its share further from 23.0% to 31.0%, with some contribution via sponsored ads. LG saw a substantial increase from 1.3% to 6.9%, primarily through sponsored listings, opting for an inorganic approach to drive visibility during the sale.

Amazon and its AmazonBasics brand both saw notable increases in SoS, relying solely on organic growth. This is, of course, not surprising since Amazon controls its organic ranking algorithm.

Interestingly, some brands experienced decreases in SoS. Sony, Motorola, and Hisense all saw reductions in their share, with Hisense’s decline coming entirely from a reduction in sponsored listings.

Key Takeaway: Prime Day 2024 saw a significant reshuffling of brand visibility in the Consumer Electronics category. While some established brands like JBL, Beats, Samsung, and Apple strengthened their positions through a mix of organic and sponsored growth, others faced increased competition for consumer attention. The event highlighted the importance of a balanced approach to visibility, with successful brands leveraging both organic search optimization and strategic use of sponsored listings to maximize their presence during this high-traffic period.

Apparel

In the Apparel category, Adidas led with the highest Absolute Discount (27.2%) and a significant Additional Discount (9.8%). Value brands like Hanes (innerwear brand) and Anrabess offered substantial discounts, while Amazon Essentials maintained high discounts across the board (16.5% Absolute, 15.3% Additional).

Some brands like Cupshe (swimwear and vacation apparel brand) offered relatively lower additional markdowns. Meanwhile CRZ Yoga (athleisure brand) did not offer additional markdowns on Prime Day.

Share of Search Insights in Apparel

Gildan (activewear brand) emerged as the top performer in terms of SoS growth, increasing from 8.1% pre-event to 12.1% during Prime Day, driven entirely by organic growth. CRZ Yoga (an athleisure apparel brand) and Dokotoo (women’s casualwear brand) also saw significant increases in their SoS, rising by 2.8 and 2.3 percentage points respectively, again through organic listings only.

Amazon Essentials continued to perform well, increasing its visibility from 7.0% to 9.1%, aligning with its competitive pricing strategy. Coofandy also saw a notable increase, growing from 7.8% to 9.9%.

Interestingly, some brands that were previously highlighted for growth actually experienced decreases in SoS. Automet (clothing & accessories brand) saw a slight decline from 12.5% to 12.1%, while Anrabess (women’s fashion brand) dropped from 15.8% to 14.5%. Cupshe (swimwear brand) experienced the most significant decrease, falling from 10.6% to 5.5%.

Adidas, despite leading in discounts, saw only a modest increase in SoS from 7.0% to 8.0%. Notably, none of the brands visible in the top search results utilized sponsored listings, with all changes in SoS coming from organic growth or decline. This indicates a lack of maturity in this category in leveraging retail media.

Key Takeaway: Prime Day 2024 in the apparel category showcased the importance of organic search optimization. While some brands like Gildan and CRZ Yoga significantly improved their visibility, others faced challenges in maintaining their pre-event positions. The absence of sponsored listings across all brands highlights a unique dynamic in the apparel category, where organic search performance appears to be the primary driver of visibility during high-traffic events like Prime Day.

This suggests that Apparel brands may need to focus more on SEO strategies and organic content optimization to maximize their presence during major shopping events, rather than relying on paid promotions. On the other hand, smartly leveraging retail media to boost visibility can give apparel brands a competitive edge.

Health & Beauty

The Health & Beauty category this year got a push thanks to Amazon’s subscription offering. Prime members who subscribed for regular usage products like toothpaste and health aids or medicines availed higher discounts.

Amid Health & Beauty brands, Neutrogena led with the highest Absolute Discount (32.7%) and a significant Additional Discount (11.7%). Sun Bum moisturizers & sunscreen (23.3%) and Viking Revolution (23.1%) offered the highest Additional Discounts, indicating a strong Prime Day focus.

Premium brands like L’Oreal Paris and Philips Sonicare offered moderate discounts, balancing promotions with their intended brand image.

Share of Search Insights in Health & Beauty

Banana Boat (sunscreen brand) emerged as the standout performer, seeing the largest increase in SoS from 6.5% to 13.4%, achieved entirely through organic growth. Nyx Professional Makeup also saw a significant jump, rising from 3.9% to 8.9%, again solely through organic listings.

Contrary to previous analysis, e.l.f. actually experienced substantial growth, increasing from 9.0% to 13.1% SoS, with a strong focus on organic growth (4.4%) slightly offset by a minor decrease in sponsored listings (-0.2%).

Neutrogena maintained its strong performance, aligning with its aggressive discounting strategy, as its SoS increased from 14.6% to 18.5% through organic growth. Colgate also saw a notable increase from 11.0% to 13.7% SoS.

Interestingly, some brands employed a mixed strategy. Dove and Garnier saw overall increases in SoS, but achieved this through different means. Dove relied heavily on sponsored growth, while Garnier offset a decrease in organic listings with strong sponsored content growth.

Contrary to previous observations, Oral-B experienced a decrease in SoS from 18.5% to 15.3%, entirely in organic listings. Without any additional spend on sponsored listings to compensate, it lost significant ground in its visibility. Other brands facing significant declines include Tresemme, OGX, Philips Sonicare, and most notably, Viking Revolution, which dropped from 17.2% to 10.7% in its SoS.

Key Takeaway: The Health & Beauty category during Prime Day 2024 showcased a diverse range of strategies and outcomes. While some brands like Banana Boat and Nyx Professional Makeup achieved significant visibility gains through organic growth, others like Dove and Garnier relied more on sponsored content.

The success of e.l.f. and Neutrogena in aligning discounting strategies with increased visibility stands in contrast to the challenges faced by previously strong performers like Oral-B and Viking Revolution. This varied landscape shows the fierce competition in the category and the need for brands to employ multi-faceted strategies that balance organic optimization, sponsored content, and competitive pricing to succeed in high-stakes events like Prime Day.

Brand Strategies and Future Implications

Our analysis reveals several key trends:
- Brand Positioning Matters: Premium brands like Apple and Bose maintained their positioning with modest discounts, while value-oriented brands like Soundcore and Hanes offered deeper cuts to attract price-sensitive shoppers.
- Visibility vs. Discounting: Some brands, particularly in the Consumer Electronics category, prioritized increasing their visibility (Share of Search) over offering steep discounts. This strategy suggests a focus on long-term visibility and brand perception rather than short-term sales boosts.
- Category-Specific Approaches: Apparel brands uniquely relied on organic search visibility, eschewing sponsored listings entirely. In contrast, several Health & Beauty brands leveraged sponsored content significantly to boost their presence.
- Emerging Brand Opportunities: Lesser-known brands, especially in the Apparel and Health & Beauty categories, used Prime Day as a launchpad to increase their visibility, often outpacing established names in Share of Search growth.
- Amazon’s Dual Strategy: As both a platform and a brand, Amazon showcased its ability to offer deep discounts on its own products while also providing a stage for other brands to shine.
Stay tuned to our blog for more in-depth analyses of brand and retailer performance and strategies across various retail events. Reach out to us today to learn how you can leverage data-driven insights to optimize your brand’s eCommerce strategy and performance.
July 26, 2024
Amazon Prime Day Pricing Trends 2024: Deals and Discounts Galore Across Categories

Amazon Prime Day 2024 has once again shattered records, with more items sold during the two-day event than any previous Prime Day. Prime members worldwide saved billions across all categories, while independent sellers moved an impressive 200 million items.

At DataWeave, we conducted an extensive analysis of the discounts offered by Amazon across major categories. By examining over 47,000 SKUs, we’ve uncovered compelling insights into pricing strategies, competitive positioning, and emerging trends in the eCommerce space.

Since products on Amazon and other eCommerce websites are often sold at discounts even on normal days not linked to a sale event, we delved into the real value that Prime Day offers to shoppers by focusing on price reductions or the Additional Discount during the sale compared to the week before. As a result, our approach highlights the genuine benefits of the event for shoppers who count on lower prices during the sale. At the same time, our report also includes the Absolute Discounts offered during Prime Day, which represents the total markdown relative to the MSRP.

Amazon’s Cross-Category Discount Strategy

Our analysis reveals that the Electronics category saw the highest discounts with an average absolute discount of 20.4% and additional discounts on Prime Day amounting to 10.4%. Meanwhile the Home & Furniture had the lowest discount at 13.1%.

The Health & Beauty category saw significant additional discounts during Prime Day, at 9.26%. The Apparel category offered attractive absolute (16.10%) and additional (8.90%) discounts.

Category Deep Dive

Consumer Electronics

Still the star of the show, the electronics category saw the highest markdowns this Prime Day with absolute discounts at 20.40% and across 14.61% of their inventory.

Across Electronics subcategories, Earbuds had the highest markdowns at 34.80%, followed closely by Wireless Headphones at 30.60% and Headphones at 29.00%, with steep additional discounts during Prime Day as well. Apple AirPods Pro, for example, retailed at $168 (down from $249) at a 32% discount.

Meanwhile, smartphones had the lowest markdowns at 9.30%, followed by Laptops at 10.50%. Laptops also had the lowest additional discount during Prime Day at just 1.28%, significantly lower than other subcategories. Speakers (20.80%), Drones (19.10%), and Smartwatches (25.00%) offered moderate to high markdowns.

Notably, all Amazon products including Kindle, Echo, Echo Earbuds, Alexa, Fire TV, Fire TV Stick, and Fire Tablets, were aggressively discounted upwards of 30% this Prime Day. These products also came with the label “Climate Pledge Friendly.”

These aspects indicate Amazon’s push to promote its own ecosystem of products to the top, as well as cater to changing consumer preferences.

Apparel

Discounts offered this Prime Day increased from 13.2% in 2023 to 16.1% in 2024.

Amid apparel subcategories, Amazon appears to be pushing Women’s apparel categories more aggressively, particularly in Tops, Shoes, and Athleisure.

Women’s Shoes lead with the highest discounts at 26.50%, followed by Women’s Tops at 22.50% and Men’s Shoes at 22.80%. Women’s Tops also maintained the highest additional discount at 15.27%, followed by Women’s Athleisure at 13.03% and Men’s Swimwear at 12.44%.

Similar to 2023, Men’s Innerwear offered significantly lower discounts, with only 1% absolute discount and 0.72% additional discount. Women’s Innerwear also shows low discounts at 3.20% absolute and 2.23% additional.

Health & Beauty

Amid health & beauty subcategories, Moisturizes witnessed the highest markdowns at 20.10%, followed by Make Up at 18.90%. The Moisturizer subcategory also offers highest additional discounts at 12.20%, followed closely by Sunscreen at 10.25% and Beard Care at 10.22%.

The Toothpaste subcategory has the lowest discounts, at 10.90%. The lower discounts on everyday essentials like this might indicate a steady demand or an attempt to maintain margins on frequently purchased items.

Most Health & Beauty subcategories fall in the 15-18% range for actual discounts and 8-10% range for additional discounts. Electric Toothbrush (16.90% actual, 9.91% additional) and Shampoo (16.50% actual, 8.78% additional) represent the middle of the pack. There were a few highly attractive deals though, such as the Philips Sonicare toothbrush retailing at $122.96 (down from $199.99), with a 39% discount.

Amazon also offered significant discounts on Open Box products (products that are returned, but unused, out of mint condition boxes) to Prime members.

Home & Furniture

This category saw the lowest discounts for this Prime Day event at 13.1%. Across subcategories, Rugs lead with the highest average discount at 21.50%, closely followed by Luggage at 20.90%. Amazon seems to be pushing decorative and organizational items (Rugs, Bookcases) more aggressively, possibly due to higher margins. Rugs also stood out as the subcategory with the highest additional discount of 11.54%.

Sofas have the lowest additional discount at 2.76%, followed by Dining Tables at 3.21%. Items like Cabinets (15.80% absolute, 6.66% additional) and Coffee Tables (14.40% absolute, 6.25% additional) represent the middle range of discounts.

Watch Out For More

As the holiday season approaches, it’s clear that the retail landscape continues to evolve. While Amazon remains a formidable force, there are opportunities for savvy competitors to carve out their niches and attract deal-hungry shoppers. By analyzing these trends and adjusting strategies accordingly, retailers can position themselves for success in the high-stakes world of summer sales events.

Stay tuned to our blog for more insights on how Amazon’s competitors reacted to Prime Day, and how leading brands across categories fared in terms of their pricing and their visibility during the sale event. Reach out to us today to learn more.

July 20, 2024
Cinco de Mayo 2024 Pricing Insights: An Analysis of Discounts Amid Inflation
Cinco de Mayo is a vibrant celebration of Mexican-American and Hispanic heritage, marked by lively parades, festive tacos, and refreshing tequila across North America. For the service industry, brands, and retailers, this day offers a golden opportunity to roll out enticing promotions on beloved Mexican foods and beverages, drawing in large crowds and boosting sales.

Americans love to indulge in Mexican cuisine during Cinco de Mayo. Take avocados, for example: despite inflation, avocado sales soared to 52.3 million units this year, marking a 25% increase from last year, according to the Hass Avocado Board’s 2023 Holiday Report. Such festive events see a significant sales spike, largely driven by appealing discounts and special offers.

So, what discounts did retailers roll out this Cinco de Mayo?

At DataWeave, our cutting-edge data aggregation and analysis platform tracked and analyzed the prices and deals on Mexican food and alcohol products offered by leading retailers. Our in-depth analysis sheds light on their pricing competitiveness during Cinco de Mayo, revealing how pricing strategies differed across various subcategories and brands.

We conducted a similar analysis in 2022, allowing us to compare the prices of identical products this year versus last year. This comparison helps us understand the impact of inflation over the past two years on the prices offered today.

Our Methodology

For our analysis, we monitored the average discounts offered by major US retailers on over 2,000 food and beverage products during Cinco de Mayo, as well as in the days leading up to the event. Many retailers kick off their Cinco de Mayo promotions a week before, so we included the entire week leading up to May 5th in our analysis.

Key Details:
- Number of SKUs: 2000+
- Retailers Analyzed: Target, Amazon Fresh, Safeway, Walmart, Total Wines & More, Sam’s Club, Meijer, Kroger
- Categories: Food, Alcohol
- Analysis Period: April 28 – May 5
To truly demonstrate the value of Cinco de Mayo for shoppers, we concentrated on price reductions and additional discounts during the event. By comparing these with regular day discounts, we were able to highlight the genuine savings and benefits that Cinco de Mayo promotions offer to budget-conscious consumers.

Our Findings

Safeway led the pack with the highest average additional discount of 4.91%, covering 38.6% of their food inventory for Cinco de Mayo. Total Wine & More followed closely, offering an average discount of 3.46% across 70.8% of its tequila, whiskey, mezcal, and other spirit products during the Cinco de Mayo week.

In contrast, Target provided minimal additional discounts, averaging just 0.8% over a small fraction (11.6%) of its SKUs. Similarly, Kroger’s additional discounts were also 0.8%, but they were spread across over 60% of its tracked products. Walmart (1.4%) and Amazon Fresh (1.2%) offered relatively conservative discounts during the sale period.

During Cinco de Mayo, various brands rolled out attractive discounts to entice shoppers. Among beverage brands, The American Plains vodka led the way with the highest average discount of 20.80%. Coffee brands also joined the festivities with significant discounts: Death Wish Coffee at 14.30%, Dunkin’ at 11.10%, and Starbucks at 5.70%. Notably, Dunkin’ and Death Wish Coffee introduced complimentary beverages such as whiskey barrel-aged coffee and spiked coffee products to celebrate the event.

In the wine category, Erath stood out with a 10% additional discount. However, brands like Jose Cuervo and Franzia offered more modest discounts of 0.70% and 1.80%, respectively.

Food brands associated with traditional Mexican ingredients or products, such as tortillas, salsas, and spices, provided higher discounts compared to mainstream snack brands. For instance, McCormick (25%), El Monterey (13.3%), and La Tortilla Factory (16.7%)—known for ready-to-eat frozen foods, seasonings, and condiments—delivered the highest discounts. Other notable discounts included Jose Ole (12.5%), a frozen food brand, and Yucatan (8.3%), known for its guacamole.

Safeway’s private label brand, Signature Select, offered a 5.20% discount. Additionally, Safeway provided deep discounts on brands like Pace, Herdez, and Taco Bell, indicating an aggressive discounting strategy. In contrast, brands closely associated with Mexican or Tex-Mex cuisine, such as Old El Paso, Mission, Rosarita, and La Banderita, offered relatively modest discounts ranging from 0.5% to 3.3%.

The discount patterns varied between alcohol and food categories, with food brands generally offering higher discounts. This trend may be attributed to pricing being regulated in the alcohol industry. These differing discount levels highlight how brands navigated the balance between driving sales and maintaining profit margins during Cinco de Mayo, particularly in the context of inflation affecting costs.

Impact of Inflation on Cinco de Mayo Prices (2024 vs 2022)

To gauge the impact of inflation on popular Cinco de Mayo products, we analyzed the average prices at Walmart and Target between 2022 and 2024. These two retailers were chosen due to their prominence in the retail sector and the robustness of our sample data.

At Walmart, the Tex Mex category saw the highest average price increase, rising by 22.51%. Other notable subcategories with significant price hikes include Condiments (23.21%), Vegetables/Packaged Vegetables (21.22%), and Lasagne (14.10%). Categories like Dips & Spreads (13.77%), Pantry Staples (14.92%), and Salsa & Dips (8.23%) experienced relatively lower increases.

At Target, the Snacks subcategory had the steepest average price rise at 27.94%, followed by Meal Essentials (16.07%) and Deli Pre-Pack (8.82%). Categories such as Dairy (0.51%), Frozen Meals/Sides (7.11%), and Adult Beverages (7.41%) saw smaller price increases.

Brands associated with traditional Mexican or Tex-Mex cuisine faced higher price hikes. Examples include Old El Paso (24.59% at Walmart, 8.70% at Target), Tostitos (35.44% at Walmart, 11.41% at Target), Ortega (30.59% at Walmart, 19.69% at Target), and Rosarita (14.39% at Walmart).

In contrast, private label or store brands generally experienced lower price increases compared to national brands. For instance, Good & Gather (Target’s private label) saw a 9.55% increase, while Market Pantry (Walmart’s private label) had a 17.27% rise. This trend is understandable as retailers have more control over their costs with private label brands.

The data clearly indicates that both Walmart and Target have significantly raised prices across various categories and brands, reflecting the broader inflationary environment where the cost of goods and services has been steadily climbing.

Interestingly, we observed higher price increases at Walmart compared to Target. Although Walmart is renowned for its consumer-friendly pricing strategies, it too had to elevate grocery prices post-2022 to combat inflationary pressures. As consumers become more cost-conscious and reduce spending on discretionary items, Walmart and other retailers are now cutting prices across categories to align with shifting consumer behaviors.

Mastering Pricing Strategies During Sale Events

Our pricing analysis for Cinco de Mayo reveals compelling insights into the dynamics of retailer landscapes in the US. It highlights the enduring relevance of private label brands, even amidst fluctuating demand, showing the emergence of local, national, and small players vying for market share.

As retailers navigate inflationary pressures and evolving consumer behaviors, understanding these pricing dynamics becomes crucial for optimizing strategies and bolstering market competitiveness. This analysis offers actionable intelligence for retailers seeking to navigate the intricate terrain of sale event promotions while addressing shifting consumer preferences and economic challenges.

Access to reliable and timely pricing data equips retailers and brands with the tools needed to make informed decisions and drive profitable growth in an increasingly competitive environment. To learn more and gain guidance, reach out to us to speak to a DataWeave expert today!
May 22, 2024
How Monitoring and Analyzing End-User Prices can Help Retailers and Brands Gain a Competitive Edge
Retailers and brands are constantly engaged in a fierce battle over prices and discounts. Whether it’s major events like Amazon Prime Day, brand-led sales, or everyday price wars, they depend on pricing intelligence and digital shelf analytics to fine-tune their strategies. With a variety of offers such as sales, promotions, and bundles, determining the actual cost to the customer becomes a complex task. The price set by the brand, the retailer’s offer, and the final amount paid by the customer often vary significantly.

In their analysis, retailers and brands frequently focus on the listed price or the final sale price, overlooking a critical factor: the “end-user price.” This includes all discounts, taxes, and shipping costs, providing a more accurate picture of what customers are truly willing to pay at checkout.

Grasping this end-user price is vital for both retailers and brands. For retailers, it helps them stay competitive and refine their promotional strategies. For brands, it offers insights into competitive positioning, net revenue management, and shaping customer price perception.

However, emphasizing the end-user price is challenging, as it involves comprehending all the intricate elements of pricing.

How end-user pricing is calculated

The list price, also known as the manufacturer’s recommended retail price (MSRP), is the initial price set by the brand. This may not always be displayed on marketplaces, especially in categories like grocery. The selling price, on the other hand, is the amount at which a retailer offers the product, often reduced from the list price. The end-user price is the actual amount the customer pays at checkout, which includes taxes, promotions, and other factors that affect the final cost.

The process involves 3 key stages:

Step 1: Identifying and categorizing promotional offers

The first critical step in calculating end-user pricing is to identify and categorize the various promotional offers available for a given product that can reduce the final amount paid by the consumer. These promotions span a wide range of types:
- Bank Offers: Involving discounts or cash back incentives when paying with specific bank credit or debit cards. For instance, a customer may receive 10% cashback on their purchase by using a specific bank’s card.
- Bundled Deals: Combining multiple products or services at a discounted bundle price. A common example is a smartphone bundle including the phone itself, a protective case, and earphones at a reduced total cost.
- Promo Codes/Coupons: Customers can enter promo codes or coupons during checkout to unlock special discounted prices or percentage-off offers, like 20% off a hotel booking, or even a special brand discount personalized for their needs (think loyalty offers and in-app promotions).
- Shipping Offers: These include free shipping or reduced shipping fees for certain products or orders, such as free delivery on orders above a set amount.
- TPRs (Temporary Price Reductions): TPRs play a significant role in the strategies of most retailers. Brands and retailers use them to encourage shoppers to purchase more of a product or to try a new product they wouldn’t usually buy. A TPR involves reducing the price of a product by more than 5% from its regular shelf price.
By accurately identifying and classifying each type of promotion available, brands can then calculate the potential end-user pricing points.

Step 2: Accounting for location and fulfilment nuances (delivery, in-store pickup) that impact final pricing

Product pricing and promotional offers can vary based on the consumer’s location or ZIP code. Additionally, customers may opt for different fulfilment modes like delivery, shipping, or in-store pickup, which can further impact the final cost. Accurately calculating the end-user price necessitates considering these location-based pricing nuances as well as the chosen fulfilment method.

In the example below, the selling price is $4.32 for one retailer (on the left in the image) after a discount for online purchase. In another case with Meijer, the item total shows $17.91, but the consumer ends up paying $15.74 after taxes and fees are applied (on the right in the image).

Step 3: Applying each eligible promotion or offer to the selling price to determine potential end-user price points

With the various promotional offers and discounts categorized in the previous steps, retailers and brands can now apply each eligible promotion to the product’s selling price. This involves deducting percentages for bank cashback, implementing bundled pricing, applying coupon code discounts, and incorporating shipping promotions.

For retailers, this step allows them to calculate their true effective selling price to customers after all discounts and promotions. They can then compare this end-user price against competitors to ensure they remain competitively priced.

For brands, by systematically layering every applicable offer onto the baseline selling price, they can accurately calculate the multiple potential end-user price points a customer may pay at checkout for their products across different retailers and regions.

Why the end-user price matters

Optimizing pricing strategies using the end-user price can benefit retailers and brands in several ways:
- Price Competitiveness: By monitoring end-user pricing, retailers can adjust for discounts and promotional offers to attract customers, while brands can refine their pricing models to stay ahead in the market.
- Customer Acquisition and Loyalty: Offers, promotions, and discounts directly impact the final price paid by customers, playing a crucial role in attracting new customers and retaining existing ones. For example, Walmart’s competitive pricing in groceries boosts customer loyalty and repeat purchases.
- Consumer Perception: End-user pricing significantly shapes how consumers perceive both retailers and brands. Competitive pricing and promotional transparency enhance reputation and conversion rates. Amazon, for instance, is known for its competitive pricing and fast deliveries, which strengthen its consumer perception and satisfaction.
- Sales Volumes: The final checkout price influences affordability and perceived value, directly affecting sales volumes. Both retailers and brands benefit from understanding this, as it guides consumer purchasing decisions and drives revenue streams.
- Brand Perception: Consistent and transparent pricing enhances the perception of both the retailer and the brand. This not only strengthens the value proposition but also builds consumer trust and fosters long-term loyalty.
While the listed and selling prices are readily available, calculating the true end-user price is quite complex. It involves meticulous tracking and application of various types of promotions, offers, location-based pricing nuances, and fulfillment costs – an uphill task without robust technological solutions.

Track and Analyze end-user prices with DataWeave

DataWeave’s end-user price tracking capability empowers retailers and brands with the insights and tools necessary to comprehend the complexities of pricing dynamics. For retailers, it offers the ability to monitor end-user pricing across various products and categories compared to competitors, ensuring competitiveness after all discounts and enabling optimization of promotional strategies. Brands benefit from informed pricing decisions, optimized strategies across retail channels, and a strengthened position within their industries.

Our intuitive dashboard presents classified promotions and corresponding end-user prices across retailers, providing both retailers and brands with a transparent, comprehensive view of the end-user pricing landscape.

Within the detailed product view of DataWeave’s dashboard, the Price and Promotions panel showcases diverse promotions available across different retailers for each product, along with the potential end-user price post-promotions.

Harness the power of DataWeave’s sophisticated Pricing Intelligence and Digital Shelf Analytics to gain an accurate, real-time understanding of your end-user pricing dynamics. Make data-driven pricing decisions that resonate with customers and propel your brand toward sustained success.

Find out how DataWeave can empower your eCommerce pricing strategy – get in touch with us today or write to us at contact@dataweave.com!
May 15, 2024
Capturing and Analyzing Retail Mobile App Data for Digital Shelf Analytics: Are Brands Missing Out?
Consumer brands around the world increasingly recognize the vital role of tracking and optimizing their digital shelf KPIs, such as Content Quality, Share of Search, Availability, etc. These metrics play a crucial role in boosting eCommerce sales and securing a larger online market share. With the escalating requirements of brands, the sophistication of top Digital Shelf Analytics providers is also on the rise. Consequently, the adoption of digital shelf solutions has become an essential prerequisite for today’s leading brands.

As brands and vendors continue to delve further and deeper into the world of Digital Shelf Analytics, a significant and often overlooked aspect is the analysis of digital shelf data on mobile apps. The ability of solution providers to effectively track and analyze this mobile-specific data is crucial.

Why is this emphasis on mobile apps important?

Today, the battle for consumer attention unfolds not only on desktop web platforms but also within the palm of our hands – on mobile devices. As highlighted in a recent Insider Intelligence report, customers will buy more on mobile, exceeding 4 in 10 retail eCommerce dollars for the first time.

Moreover, thanks to the growth of delivery intermediaries like Instacart, DoorDash, Uber Eats, etc., shopping on mobile apps has received a tremendous organic boost. According to an eMarketer report, US grocery delivery intermediary sales are expected to reach $68.2 billion in 2025, from only $8.8 billion in 2019.

In essence, mobile is increasingly gaining share as the form factor of choice for consumers, especially in CPG. In fact, one of our customers, a leading multinational CPG company, revealed to us that it sees up to 70% of its online sales come through mobile apps. That’s a staggering number!

The surge in app usage reflects a fundamental change in consumer behavior, emphasizing the need for brands to adapt their digital shelf strategies accordingly.

Why Brands Need To Look at Apps and Desktop Data Differently

Conventionally, brands that leverage digital shelf analytics rely on data harnessed from desktop sites of online marketplaces. This is because capturing data reliably and accurately from mobile apps is inherently complex. Data aggregation systems designed to scrape data from web applications cannot easily be repurposed to capture data on mobile apps. It requires dedicated effort and exceptional tech prowess to pull off in a meaningful and consistent way.

In reality, it is extremely important for brands to track and optimize their mobile digital shelf. Several digital shelf metrics vary significantly between desktop sites and mobile apps. These differences are natural outcomes of differences in user behavior between the two form factors.

One of these metrics that has a huge impact on a brand’s performance on retail mobile apps is their search discoverability. Ecommerce teams are well aware of the adverse impact of the loss of even a few ranks on search results.

Anyone can easily test this. Searching something as simple as “running shoes” on the Amazon website and doing the same on its mobile app shows at least a few differences in product listings among the top 20-25 ranks. There are other variances too, such as the number of sponsored listings at the top, as well as the products being sponsored. These variations often result in significant differences in a brand’s Share of Search between desktop and mobile.

Share of Search is the share of a brand’s products among the top 20 ranked products in a category or subcategory, providing insight into a brand’s visibility on online marketplaces.

Picture a scenario in which a brand heavily depends on desktop digital shelf data, confidently assuming it holds a robust Share of Search based on reports from its Digital Shelf Analytics partner. However, unbeknownst to the team, the Share of Search on mobile is notably lower, causing a detrimental effect on sales.

To fully understand the scale of these differences, we decided to run a small experiment using our proprietary data analysis and aggregation platform. We restricted our analysis to just Amazon.com and Amazon’s mobile app. However, we did cover over 13,000 SKUs across several shopping categories to ensure the sample size is strong.

Below, we provide details of our key findings.

Share of Search on The Digital Shelf – App Versus Desktop

Our analysis focused on three popular consumer categories – Electronics, CPG, and Health & Beauty.

In the electronics category, brands like Apple, Motorola, and Samsung, known for their mobile phones, earbuds, headphones, and more, have a higher Share of Search on the Amazon mobile app compared to the desktop.

Meanwhile, Laptop brands like Dell, Acer, and Lenovo, as well as other leading brands like Google have a higher Share of Search on the desktop site compared to the app. This is the scenario that brands need to be careful about. When their Share of Search on mobile apps is lower, they might miss the chance to take corrective measures since they lack the necessary data from their provider.

In the CPG category, Ramen brand Samyang, with a lot of popularity on Tiktok and Instagram, shows a higher Share of Search on Amazon’s mobile app. Speciality brands like 365 By Whole Foods, pasta and Italian food brands La Moderna, Divinia, and Bauducco too have a significantly higher Share of Search on the app.

Cheese and dessert brands like Happy Belly, Atlanta Cheesecake Company, among others, have a lower Share of Search on the mobile app. Ramen brand Sapporo is also more easily discovered on Amazon’s desktop site. Here, we see a difference of more than 5% in the Share of Search of some brands, which is likely to have a huge impact on the brand’s mobile eCommerce sales levels and overall performance.

Lastly, in the Health & Beauty category, Shampoos and hair care brands like Olaplex, Dove, and Tresemme exhibited a higher Share of Search on the mobile app compared to the desktop.

On the other hand, body care brands like Neutrogena and Hawaiian Tropic, as well as Beardcare brand Viking Revolution displayed a higher Share of Search on Amazon’s desktop site.

Based on our data, it is clear that there are several examples of brands that do better in either one of Amazon’s desktop sites or mobile apps. In many cases, the difference is stark.

So What Must Brands Do?

Our findings emphasize the imperative for brands to move beyond a one-size-fits-all approach to digital shelf analytics. The striking variations in Share of Search between mobile apps and desktops conclusively demonstrate that relying solely on desktop data for digital shelf optimization is inadequate.

If brands see that they’re falling behind on the mobile digital shelf, there are a few things they can do to help boost their performance:
- If a brand’s Share of Search is lower on the mobile app, they can divert their retail spend to mobile in order to inorganically compensate for this difference. This way, any short-term impact due to lower discoverability is mitigated. This is also likely to result in optimized budget allocation and ROAS.
- Brands also need to ensure their content is optimized for the mobile form factor, with images that are easy to view on smaller screens, and tailored product titles that are shorter than on desktops, highlighting the most important product attributes from the consumer’s perspective. Not only will this help brands gain more clicks from mobile shoppers, but this will also gradually lead to a boost in their organic Share of Search on mobile.
- CPG brands, specifically, need to optimize their digital shelf for delivery intermediary apps (along with marketplaces). The grocery delivery ecosystem is booming with companies like DoorDash, Delivery Hero, Uber Eats, Swiggy, etc. leading the way. Using Digital Shelf Analytics to optimize performance on delivery apps is quite an involved process with a lot of bells and whistles to consider. Read our recently published whitepaper that specifically details how brands can successfully boost their visibility and conversions on delivery apps.
But first, brands need to identify and work with a Digital Shelf Analytics partner that is able to capture and analyze mobile app data, enabling tailored optimization approaches for all eCommerce platforms.

DataWeave leads the way here, providing the world’s most comprehensive and sophisticated digital shelf analytics solution, rising above all other providers to provide digital shelf insights for both web applications and mobile apps. Our data aggregation platform successfully navigates the intricacies of capturing public data accurately and reliably from mobile apps, thereby delivering a comprehensive cross-device view of digital shelf KPIs to our brand customers.

So reach out to us today to find out more about our digital shelf solutions for mobile apps!
January 19, 2024
The Indian E-Commerce Showdown: Unveiling the Price War Between Flipkart’s Big Billion Days and Amazon’s Great Indian Festival
India’s homegrown eCommerce giant Flipkart, now backed by Walmart, reported a record 1.4 Billion customer visits during the early access phase and throughout the seven days of its premier shopping event, the Big Billion Days, launched on 8th October 2023. Competing with Flipkart, Amazon’s Great Indian Festival sale event started on October 8th as well and saw a whopping 95 Million customer visits to the website within the first 48 hours of the event.

For consumers, the most pressing question was, “Who offered more attractive deals and lower prices during these sale events?”

To answer this question, we leveraged our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform and analyzed the prices and discounts on Amazon and Flipkart across key product categories..

The details of our sample are mentioned below:
- Number of SKUs Analyzed: 30,000+
- Websites: Amazon.com and Flipkart.com
- Categories: Apparel, Home & Furniture, Electronics, Health & Beauty
- Dates: 7th Oct 2023 to 22nd Oct 2023
Key Findings

Based on our analysis, the Big Billion Days by Flipkart showcased relatively higher price reductions across categories compared to the Great Indian Festival sale by Amazon. The Apparel category on Flipkart saw the highest average discount at 50.6%. The Health & Beauty category had the lowest discount across Flipkart at 39.4% and Amazon at 33%.

Overall, Flipkart offered higher discounts in each product category. It is clear that the retailer invested heavily in leveraging its supplier partnerships with key brands or sellers to enable them to offer higher discounts, thereby attracting more customers.

Next, let’s take a closer look at each product category.

Apparel

While a majority of retailers expected demand for apparel and clothing to dip this festive season in India, eCommerce giants like Amazon and Flipkart are likely to recognize the strong consumer inclination towards apparel during this period.

In the detailed assessment of Apparel sub-categories, Women’s Dresses, Women’s Tops, Men’s Shirts, Men’s Shoes, and Women’s Innerwear emerged as the segments showcasing the most substantial discounts during the sale events. While Flipkart offered higher average discounts across all sub-categories, Amazon offered competitive discounts as well.

We observed significant differences in the average discounts across brands between Flipkart’s Big Billion Days and Amazon’s Great Indian Festival. Reinforcing the significant discounts on the Shoes subcategory, brands like Red Tape, Arrow, Adidas, Reebok, Nike, and more offered extensive discounts on both Flipkart and Amazon. Notably, Adidas and Reebok offered better deals on Amazon’s Great Indian Festival as compared to Flipkart.

One8 by Virat Kohli had a significantly lower discount on Amazon compared to Flipkart, indicating an exclusive partnership.

For brands, however, reducing prices is just one approach to entice shoppers. They must also guarantee their prominent presence and easy discoverability within Amazon and Flipkart search results. To gain insight into this, we monitored brands’ Share of Search across various frequently used search terms in addition to the discounts they provided. The Share of Search denotes the portion of a brand’s products within the top 20 search results for a specific search query.

Our data indicates that Jockey and Speedo gained in Share of Search on Flipkart, but reduced discoverability on Amazon. Van Heusen fell behind in search results on Flipkart but showed a higher Share of Search on Amazon.

Home & Furniture

With demand for home and furniture products picking up in October, right before the festive season, Amazon and Flipkart offered significant discounts in this category.

Discounts on both Amazon and Flipkart hovered around 50%. Across a few subcategories, Flipkart offered slightly lower discounts compared to Amazon. Only Luggage, Rugs, Sofas, and Entertainment Units saw lower markdowns on Flipkart during the Big Billion Days.

Dishwashers and Washer/ Dryers saw higher discounts on Amazon compared to Flipkart. The significant discounts on these products on Amazon possibly point to changing consumer preferences, as demand for these products is traditionally low in India, but seems to be growing.

When it comes to Home & Furniture brands, Nasher Miles, Safari, Aristocrat, VIP, and American Tourister, luggage brands mostly, offered higher discounts on Flipkart, followed closely by Amazon.

In terms of Share of Search, Skybags had high discoverability on both Flipkart and Amazon. The brand leveraged a strategy of offering big discounts this festive season as well as ensuring prominent placement in search results. Wildcraft lost out on its discoverability on Flipkart in contrast to its prominence on Amazon. Duroflex saw lower searchability on Amazon compared to Flipkart’s Big Billion Days.

Consumer Electronics

The Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA) expected an uptick in sales of consumer electronics products this festive season in India. With more consumers buying premium products using credit cards and EMIs, demand for expensive, high-end electronics was expected to increase.

Again, average discounts in this category hovered around 50% on Flipkart and Amazon.

Across electronics subcategories, Smartwatches, Earbuds, and Drones had the highest markdowns with Flipkart leading the pack during the Big Billion Days. Amazon offered relatively higher discounts at 44.9% on the TV subcategory, compared to Flipkart’s 40.6%.

Speakers, Laptops, Smartphones, and Tablets also saw lower markdowns on Amazon compared to Flipkart. Amazon was the official partner for the launch of many high-level smartphones and products in September-October, contributing to the higher markdowns in the subcategory.

Across brands, Lenovo’s discounts were the most differentiated between the two sites, with the brand offering higher discounts on Amazon (45.4%) compared to Flipkart (24.7%). Noise offered the highest discounts at 72.5% on Amazon and 52.8% on Flipkart. Brands like Boat and Zebronics, also saw lower discounts on Flipkart.

Mi and JBL offered deeper discounts on Flipkart’s Big Billion Days. Apple meanwhile stands out with only 11.83% discounts on Amazon, but the brand offered impressive 31.4% discounts on Flipkart.

Samsung dominated the Share of Search on Amazon at 15.7%, compared to only 2.6% on Flipkart. Apple and Lenovo also saw higher discoverability on Amazon. On Flipkart, JBL and Skullcandy stand out as brands with high search visibility.

Health & Beauty

The Health & Beauty category saw the lowest markdowns with only 39.4% discounts on Flipkart and 33% on Amazon.

In the subcategories analyzed, Electric Toothbrushes had relatively high markdowns across both sites. Staple and lower priced subcategories like Toothpaste had the lowest markdowns across both sale events, with Amazon offering only 17.4% average discounts.

Across brands, Beardo, a leading beard care brand, offered significantly higher discounts on Amazon compared to Flipkart. Most other well-known brands, including Nivea and Vaseline, saw higher discounts on Amazon compared to Flipkart. Only Tresmme and Dove were exceptions with higher discounts on Flipkart.

In terms of Share of Search, once again, Beardo was the most discoverable brand in this category. Brands like Dove, Pond’s, Swiss Beauty, and Tresemme saw a lower Share of Search on Flipkart compared to Amazon.

Navigating the Competitive Landscape: How To Thrive During Sale Events

Amazon and Flipkart’s strategic pricing during the Big Billion Days and the Great Indian Festival Sale reflects a balance of profitability, inventory, and competition. Competitive pricing insights empower retailers to make informed decisions, optimize strategies, and thrive during high-stakes sale events with timely and relevant insights at a massive scale.

To learn more about how you can leverage competitive pricing insights to stay ahead of the game during sale events, reach out to us today!
December 20, 2023
Black Friday Cyber Monday 2023: Unveiling Health & Beauty Pricing and Discount Trends
On Black Friday this year, Health & Beauty brands saw a significant increase with a 13% jump in foot traffic, according to a report by RetailNext. Despite caution from various sources, higher prices for everyday goods, and high interest rates, consumers chose to spend big this cyber week.

So what kind of deals did top retailers and brands offer in the Health & Beauty category this BFCM? At DataWeave, we harnessed the power of our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform to track and analyze the prices and deals of Health & Beauty products across prominent retailers to uncover unique insights into their price competitiveness this BFCM, as well as understand how pricing strategies varied across diverse subcategories and brands.

Also check out our insights on discounts and pricing for Consumer Electronics, Apparel, and Home & Furniture categories this Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Our Methodology

For this analysis, we tracked the average discounts among leading US retailers in the Health & Beauty category during the Thanksgiving weekend sale, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday. We noticed prices and discounts didn’t change significantly over the course of the weekend, and hence the average prices of products between the 24th and 27th of November are being reported. Our sample was chosen to encompass the top 500 ranked products in each product subcategory across leading retailers during the sale.
- Sample size: 15,253 SKUs
- Retailers tracked: Amazon, Walmart, Target, Sephora, Ulta Beauty
- Subcategories reported on: Shampoo, Toothpaste, Conditioner, Sunscreen, Makeup, Electric Toothbrush, Beard Care, Moisturizer
- Timeline of analysis: 24 to 27 November 2023
Our Key Findings

Average Discounts Across Retailers

Amazon leads the pack with a huge margin, offering an average discount of 31.9%, covering 62% of its products analyzed. Target follows an 18.8% average discount across only 5% of its analyzed assortment. The other retailers aren’t even close.

Ulta Beauty was the next in line, providing a 9.2% average discount followed by Walmart with a 6.8% average discount. Sephora, known for its premium beauty offerings, adopted a more conservative approach with a 3.5% average discount, targeting only 9% of its top products

Across retailers, it is clear that Amazon led the charge by far this cyber week, with the other retailers choosing to markdown prices conservatively in the Health & Beauty category.

Average Discounts: Subcategories

Amazon offered high discounts on lower priced subcategories like Toothpaste (49.4%), Sunscreen (46.3%), Moisturizers (38.5%), and Conditioners (37.5%), highlighting its focus on products with high demand that consumers would look to stock up on. Ulta Beauty also focused its discounts on Toothpaste (15.6%), Moisturizers (14.9%), and Conditioners (12.6%), targeting skincare and grooming.

Sephora, meanwhile, offered the most attractive deals on the Makeup subcategory at 5.3% across 12.67% of its analyzed assortment, banking on the demand generated due to the brand’s popularity in this subcategory.

Target prioritized discounts on Toothpaste (22.5%), Shampoo (21.6%), and Moisturizers (18.9%). Walmart too offered significant discounts on Shampoo (21.6%) and Toothpaste (22.5%).

Retailers prioritized staple subcategories like Toothpaste and Moisturizer with substantial discounts during this Black Friday Cyber Monday, ensuring a broad consumer appeal. In contrast, discretionary items like Makeup may be less motivated by discounts alone, and hence saw lower discounts during the sale.

Average Discounts: Brands

Brands offered the most attractive deals on Amazon, with OGX leading the pack at 58.4% average discount. Neutrogena and Colgate followed with an average discount of 50.4% and 44%. This mirror’s Amazon’s subcategory focus on shampoos, conditioners, and toothpastes.

Other instances of brands offering attractive deals across retailers include Belif (27.9%) and Anastasia Beverly Hills (17.6%) on Sephora, Johnson’s (20%) and Philips Sonicare (18.8%) on Target, and Olay (12.2%) and Colgate (10.6%) on Walmart.

Ulta Beauty hosted several attractive deals by specific brands, including Moon (30.7%), Joico (24%), and Clinique (22.3%).

Share of Search For Health & Beauty Brands Across Subcategories

Our Share of Search analysis illuminates the strategic moves made by brands to enhance their visibility, playing a crucial role in influencing consumer choices during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Among some of the leading brands, Head & Shoulders and Oral-B increased their Share of Search by 2.3% and 1% respectively, reflecting a successful strategy to boost brand visibility during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping events. On the other hand, L’Oreal Paris, Colgate, and Neutrogena faced marginal decreases in Share of Search.

Overall, since the difference in Share of Search values did not change dramatically, the visibility levels of leading brands across key subcategories remained consistent during the Thanksgiving weekend.

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For deeper insights on pricing and discounting trends across a diverse range of shopping categories during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, check out our blog!

To learn more about our AI-powered Pricing Intelligence and Digital Shelf Analytics platform, contact us today!
December 6, 2023
Black Friday Cyber Monday 2023: Insights on Pricing and Discounts in Home & Furniture
Insider Intelligence‘s forecast of a 4.5% growth in US Holiday Sales this year has been validated by the sustained robust spending observed during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Despite multiple challenges impacting consumer spending, such as escalating prices of everyday products and elevated interest rates, shoppers continued to spend significantly, aligning with these earlier predictions.

However, in response to these projections, retailers strategically adjusted their approach. Our analysis indicates substantial discounts prevalent in the Consumer Electronics and Home & Furniture segments during Cyber Week. Prominent retailers specializing in Home & Furniture, such as Wayfair, Overstock, and Home Depot, notably led the charge in offering attractive discounts.

At DataWeave, we harnessed the power of our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform to track and analyze the prices and deals of home & furniture products across prominent retailers to uncover unique insights into their price competitiveness this BFCM, as well as understand how pricing strategies varied across diverse subcategories and brands.

We’ve also recently published our analysis of the Consumer Electronics and Apparel categories this Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Our Methodology

For this analysis, we tracked the discounts offered by leading US retailers in the Home & Furniture category during the Thanksgiving weekend sale, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday. We noticed prices and discounts didn’t change significantly over the course of the weekend, and hence the average prices of products between the 24th and 27th of November are being reported. Our sample was chosen to encompass the top 500 ranked products in each product subcategory across leading retailers during the sale.
- Sample size: 44,716 SKUs
- Retailers tracked: Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Overstock, Wayfair, Home Depot
- Subcategories reported on: Dishwasher, Washer/Dryer, Mattresses, Beds, Dining Tables, Entertainment Units, Rugs, Luggage, Bookcases, Cabinets, Sofas, Coffee Tables
- Timeline of analysis: 24 to 27 November 2023
Our Key Findings

Discounts Across Retailers

Wayfair led the pack with the highest average discount of 27.5%, covering an impressive 88% of its Home & Furniture inventory. This bold strategy positions Wayfair as a go-to destination for consumers seeking substantial savings on high-quality Home & Furniture items during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Home Depot offered an average discount of 17.5%, covering a substantial 69% of the products analyzed, choosing to cash in on the Cyber Week madness. Overstock followed next with an average discount of 16.6%.

Interestingly, Home & Furniture happens to be one of the few categories in which Amazon did not offer the highest discount among the analyzed retailers, choosing a moderate average discount of 13.8%.

Best Buy also maintained a competitive stance in the category, providing an average discount of 12.8% across 58% of their assortment. Target adopted a conservative markdown strategy, offering a relatively low average discount of 6.5%.

In summary, the Home & Furniture category exhibited a diverse range of discounting strategies among retailers, reflecting a balance between competitiveness and profit margins. Consumers could have chosen from a spectrum of discounts based on their preferences and budget considerations during Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Average Discounts: Subcategories

Among subcategories, Amazon offered a moderate 8.3% average discount on 32.9% of its products in this Dishwasher category, while Best Buy took a more aggressive stance with a 14.7% average discount covering 55.9% of its products.

Home Depot emerged as a standout player in the Washer/Dryer category, providing a substantial 21.3% discount on 78.4% of its analyzed inventory. Best Buy closely followed with a 15.1% average discount targeting 67.6% of its products.

Wayfair grabbed attention with a generous 36.9% average discount on Mattresses, covering almost all (99%) of its analyzed products. In addition, Wafair led the discount war in Beds, Dining Tables, Cabinets, Sofas, Coffee Tables, and Entertainment Units. Overstock took an aggressive pricing stance on Rugs, offering a substantial 52.3% average discount, covering 100% of its Rugs inventory.

Average Discounts: Brands

Among brands, Signature Design by Ashley maintained a consistent presence with substantial discounts on both Best Buy (25.24%) and Overstock (16.19%). This could be indicative of the brand’s commitment to appealing to a diverse customer base through varied retail channels. Costway emerges as a standout brand offering exceptionally high discounts at both Target (61.6%) and Walmart (51.7%).

Home Decorators Collection, Home Depot’s in-house brand, offered a significant 30.9% discount at Home Depot. High-margin private label brands like these afford retailers the opportunity to offer markdowns while retaining significant margins.

Strategic positioning on specific platforms, as seen with Alwyn Home on Wayfair and Noble House at Home Depot, suggests brands tailor their approach to the strengths and customer demographics of each retailer. The data suggests a nuanced interplay between brand positioning, discount strategies, and the perceived value offered.

Share of Search For Home & Furniture Brands

The Share of Search data for the Home & Furniture category unveils intriguing insights into brand visibility and performance during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday events. In this competitive landscape, where consumer decisions are influenced not only by discounts but also by brand visibility, the dynamics of Share of Search become pivotal.

Samsung strategically increased its Share of Search during the sale, showcasing a 1.2% improvement. This suggests a deliberate effort to reinforce brand visibility and capture the attention of potential buyers actively searching for Home & Furniture products, in this case, Washer/Dryers and Dishwashers.

Bosch too experienced a notable surge in Share of Search by 1.1%. LG, meanwhile, maintained a consistent Share of Search, with a marginal decrease of 0.1%. American Tourister experienced a modest increase in Share of Search by 0.4%.

Like in the other categories analyzed, the dynamics of Share of Search in the Home & Furniture category reflect brand strategies aimed at not only offering discounts but also ensuring heightened visibility during the critical Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping events. Positive shifts indicate effective marketing efforts, while stable performers demonstrate a resilient brand presence in a competitive online marketplace.

To explore how our insights can help retailers and brands boost their pricing strategies during sale events, reach out to us today!

For more in-depth analyses and trends across various shopping categories, stay tuned to our blog.
December 1, 2023
Black Friday Cyber Monday 2023 Insights: A Report on Pricing and Discounts in Apparel
As the highly anticipated shopping season approached, industry analysts, including Deloitte, had forewarned consumer spending caution owing to persistent inflationary pressures tightening budgets. Despite these concerns, the holiday spirit was buoyed by sensational deals that delighted bargain-hunting shoppers.

According to the National Retail Federation (NRF), over 200 million consumers participated in both in-store and online shopping activities over the Thanksgiving weekend. This marked an almost 2% uptick from the previous year, surpassing the NRF’s initial estimates of 182 million and showcasing a robust start to the holiday shopping season.

So what was all the hype about this Black Friday and Cyber Monday? How did top retailers react to reports of possibly decreased consumer spending? At DataWeave, we harnessed the power of our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform to track and analyze the prices and deals of products across prominent retailers and categories to uncover unique insights into their price competitiveness this BFCM, as well as understand how pricing strategies varied across diverse subcategories and brands.

In this article, we focus on the pricing and discounting strategies of Amazon, Walmart, and Target in the Apparel category.

(Read Also: Black Friday Cyber Monday 2023: Insights on Pricing and Discounts in Consumer Electronics)

Stay tuned to our blog for insights on other shopping categories like Home & Furniture, and Health & Beauty!

Our Methodology

For this analysis, we tracked the average discounts of apparel products among leading US retailers during the Thanksgiving weekend sale, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday. We noticed prices and discounts didn’t change significantly over the course of the weekend, and hence the average prices of products between the 24th and 27th of November are being reported. Our sample was chosen to encompass the top 500 ranked products in each product subcategory across during the sale.
- Sample size: 17,981 SKUs
- Retailers tracked: Amazon, Walmart, Target
- Subcategories reported on: Women’s Tops, Men’s Swimwear, Men’s Innerwear, Women’s Innerwear, Women’s Athleisure, Women’s Dresses, Men’s Athleisure, Men’s Shirts, Women’s Shoes, Men’s Shoes, Women’s Swimwear
- Timeline of analysis: 24 to 27 November 2023
Our Key Findings

Average Discounts Across Retailers

Amazon offered the most attractive deals, showcasing an average discount of 19.5%, applying to a substantial 61% of their apparel inventory.

Trailing closely behind was Target, offering an average discount of 14.8% across 52% of the products analyzed. Walmart, however, took a more conservative approach, providing an average discount of 8.5%, applicable to 29% of its products.

The contrast in discounting strategies highlights the diverse tactics employed by retailers to entice Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers within the Apparel category. Amazon remains the forerunner, balancing competitive discounts with a significant coverage of discounted items.

Target follows suit with a competitive stance, while Walmart opts for a more reserved markdown approach, given that the retailer tends to carry a large number of products in the affordable price ranges.

Average Discounts: Subcategories

Examining the Black Friday and Cyber Monday discount landscape within the Apparel category reveals intriguing patterns among major retailers. Amazon led the charge, boasting an impressive 24.9% average discount on Women’s Tops, covering a substantial 76.5% of its products. In the same subcategory, Target competed fiercely with a 25.1% average discount, covering 87.5% of its products. Walmart, taking a measured approach, presented a 14.6% average discount across 45.1% of its Women’s Tops inventory.

Notably, Men’s Swimwear at Target has no discounts. Meanwhile, Amazon remained aggressive across various subcategories, particularly in Women’s Shoes and Women’s Tops, aiming to capture a significant market share through both competitive pricing and a broad coverage of discounted items.

Average Discounts: Brands

Across brands, Tommy Hilfiger and Jockey took the lead on Amazon with an enticing average discount of 28.3% and 24.6% respectively, appealing to savvy shoppers. Calvin Klein followed closely with a 17.3% discount, offering a balance of style and affordability.

In Walmart, Crocs stood out with a 39.9% average discount, followed by Reebok (15.7%) and Hanes (14.9%) Xhilaration, Target’s in-house brand, stole the spotlight on the retailer platform with an impressive 50% average discount. Reebok (32.3%) and Levi’s (22.9%) maintained competitive discounts, appealing to diverse tastes.

Our analysis sheds light on the dynamic landscape of apparel discounts, showcasing how brands adopt varying pricing strategies to position themselves competitively for Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers.

Share of Search For Apparel Brands Across Subcategories

The dynamics of Black Friday and Cyber Monday extend beyond price reductions, with brands strategically vying for increased visibility through Share of Search metrics. This metric signifies a brand’s prominence among the top 20 ranked products in a given subcategory, offering valuable insights into their online marketplace visibility.

Among the standout performers in the Apparel category, Jockey experienced a significant surge in Share of Search, leaping from 1.70% before the event to an impressive 13.30% during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. Speedo, in the Women’s Swimwear subcategory, demonstrated a substantial increase from 4.40% to 13.30%, solidifying its presence and gaining an 8.90% boost in Share of Search.

Tommy Hilfiger and Adidas also exhibited notable gains in Share of Search, increasing by 5.30% and 5.60%, respectively. However, some brands experienced a slight dip, with Speedo in the Men’s Swimwear subcategory seeing a 2.50% dip in their search visibility, and Reebok in Men’s Shoes witnessing a 3.3% decrease.

These fluctuations highlight the dynamic nature of brand strategies during Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the Apparel category, where gaining visibility also proves to be crucial alongside offering competitive discounts.

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For a deeper dive into the world of competitive pricing intelligence and to explore how our solutions can benefit apparel retailers and brands, reach out to us today!

Stay tuned to our blog for forthcoming analyses on pricing and discounting trends across a spectrum of shopping categories, as we continue to unravel the intricacies of consumer behavior and market dynamics.
November 29, 2023
Black Friday Cyber Monday 2023: Insights on Pricing and Discounts in Consumer Electronics
As Black Friday and Cyber Monday unfolded across the globe, there was a noticeable subdued atmosphere compared to previous years. TD Cowen brokerage adjusted its forecast for US holiday spending, revising it down from an initial 4-5% growth to a more conservative estimate of 2-3%.

Compounded by persistent inflation and elevated interest rates, many consumers find themselves financially strained, leading to the projection of the slowest growth in US holiday spending in five years.

In this context, it would be relevant to investigate whether this restrained reaction from consumers had an influence on the extent of attractive deals and discounts provided by top retailers and brands during the sale event.

At DataWeave, we harnessed the power of our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform to track and analyze the prices and deals of consumer electronics products across prominent retailers to uncover unique insights into their price competitiveness this BFCM, as well as understand how pricing strategies varied across diverse subcategories and brands.

Keep an eye on our blog for insights on other shopping categories like Apparel, Home & Furniture, and Health & Beauty!

Our Methodology

For this analysis, we tracked the average discounts among leading US electronics retailers during the Thanksgiving weekend sale, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday. We noticed prices and discounts didn’t change significantly over the course of the weekend, and hence the average prices of products between the 24th and 27th of November are being reported. Our sample was chosen to encompass the top 500 ranked products in each product subcategory across leading retailers during the sale.
- Sample size: 23,505 SKUs
- Retailers tracked: Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy
- Subcategories reported on: Headphones, Laptops, Smartphones, Tablets, Speakers, TVs, Earbuds, Wireless Headphones, Drones, Smartwatches
- Timeline of analysis: 24 to 27 November 2023
Our Key Findings

Average Discounts Across Retailers

The observed Black Friday and Cyber Monday discount strategies reveal a distinct competitive landscape among major retailers. Amazon emerged as the frontrunner, offering the highest average discounts at 23.30%, spanning a significant 74% of their consumer electronics inventory. Best Buy closely followed, with an average discount of 19.40% across 76% of their products.

On the other hand, Target and Walmart adopted a more conservative stance, providing lower average discounts at 14.8% and 12%, respectively, with Target discounting 51% of its products and Walmart discounting 41%. This variation in discounting strategies highlights the diverse approaches retailers take to attract and retain Black Friday and Cyber Monday shoppers, balancing competitiveness with profit margins.

Average Discounts: Subcategories

In the Headphones subcategory, Amazon stands out with a substantial 31.40% average discount, targeting 84.69% of SKUs, showcasing an aggressive discounting strategy. Best Buy follows closely, demonstrating competitive pricing with a 21.80% average discount on 67.03% of products.

Meanwhile, in TVs, Best Buy offered a significant 17.9% average discount across 89% of its products, signaling a targeted effort to capture a broad market share in this subcategory.

In the Laptop subcategory, Target was highly conservative, with only a 4.1% average discount covering 14.3% of its products, while Walmart positioned itself with a moderate 9.5% average discount, targeting 39.8% of its inventory.

Among Smartphones, Amazon (14.7%) was third to Best Buy and Target, which offered average discounts of 20.5% and 18.1%, respectively. Walmart, with an average discount of only 9.9% in the subcategory opted for a relatively muted approach.

Average Discounts: Brands

The discount strategies across top electronics brands during Black Friday unveil distinct approaches. Samsung emerges as a focal point across Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and Target. The brand was most attractively priced on Best Buy, with an average discount of 25.3%, followed by Target (18.3%) and Amazon (17.9%).

Apple’s discounts were quite consistent across Amazon (17.6%), Best Buy (16.1%), and Target (17.8%), with the exception of Walmart (8.1%). JBL, interestingly, opted to discount very heavily on Best Buy, at an average of 38.8%, resulting in several attractive deals for shoppers on the website. Sony, too, offered impressive discounts at over 23% on Amazon and Best Buy, followed by 16% on Walmart. On Amazon, Amazon Renewed (13.9%) was among the most aggressively discounted products, highlighting an effort to further appeal to cost-conscious consumers.

Overall, our analysis throws light on the nuanced strategies employed by leading brands on Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and Target, reflecting a delicate interplay between brand positioning, pricing competitiveness, and customer appeal.

Share of Search For Consumer Electronics Brands Across Subcategories

The Share of Search data reflects intriguing shifts in brand strategies during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday events. During sale events, brands looking to entice shoppers don’t rely only on price but also on search visibility to help drive awareness and conversion. Share of Search is defined as the share of a brand’s products among the top 20 ranked products in a subcategory, thereby providing insight into a brand’s visibility on online marketplaces.

Some of the brands that improved their Share of Search the most include LG, Skullcandy, Asus, JBL, and Samsung. On the other hand, prominent brands like Sony and Apple actually lost ground on this metric by 0.4% and 2% respectively.

At DataWeave, our commitment to empowering retailers and brands with actionable competitive and digital shelf insights remains unwavering. Our AI-powered platform provides a comprehensive view of market dynamics for our customers, enabling informed decision-making. As a partner in your journey, we offer tailored solutions to enhance your competitive edge, drive sales, and elevate your brand presence. To find out more about our solution, reach out to us today!

To learn more about pricing and discounting trends during Black Friday and Cyber Monday across various other shopping categories, stay tuned to our blog!
November 28, 2023
Which Amazon Sale Offered Better Deals: Prime Day in July or Big Deal Days in October?
Amazon reported a record-breaking Prime Day this July, marking it as the biggest sales event in the company’s history. So when the eCommerce giant announced the Prime Big Deal Days this fall, we were curious to find out how big a deal it really is.

The Prime Big Deal Days, similar in magnitude to the Summer Prime Day, promised to present substantial savings across a diverse range of categories, including electronics, toys, home, fashion, beauty, and Amazon products.

However, for a shopper, an important question is: Does the Prime Big Deal Days in October offer lower prices than Amazon’s mega Prime Day event in July?

To answer this question, we turned our data aggregation and analysis platform to focus on these two sale events and analyzed which event offered better deals across key categories and brands.

TL;DR: Surprisingly, the Prime Big Deal Days in October offered, on average, 2.02% higher discounts than its counterpart event in July.

Read on for details on how we went about our analysis and how discounts vary across categories, sub-categories, and brands.

Our Methodology

We tracked the prices and discounts of a large sample of products during both Prime Day events. The following are some relevant details about our sample:
- Number of products analyzed: 1500+
- Categories: Apparel, Consumer Electronics, Home & Furniture, Health & Beauty
- Prime Day Sale Analysis: 11-12 July 2023
- Prime Big Deal Days Analysis: 10-11 Oct 2023
- Website: Amazon.com
Our analysis focused on the differences in the prices and discount levels of products between the two sale events.

Our Key Findings

The average discount during the Prime Big Deal Days in October was 29.44%, which was 2.02% higher than the average discount during the Prime Day sale in July (27.42%). Interestingly, the October event offered better deals across each product category analyzed, albeit at slightly varying levels.

By offering deeper discounts in October, Amazon may have aimed to encourage early holiday shopping, thereby capturing a larger share of the consumer wallet before competitors intensify their promotional activities closer to the festive season.

As other retailers and online marketplaces gear up for their own holiday promotional events, Amazon’s decision to provide heightened discounts in October could serve as a preemptive move to secure customer loyalty and drive sales momentum before the onset of the peak shopping period.

Additionally, Amazon’s strategic push to amplify the visibility of its diverse product offerings, including exclusive launches and partnerships during the October event might have contributed to the higher discounts.

Next, let’s take a closer look at each product category.

Apparel

During October’s Prime Big Deal Days, the Apparel category experienced a notable uptick, boasting a 2.29% increase in discounts compared to the earlier Prime Day event in July.

In the detailed assessment of Apparel sub-categories, Men’s and Women’s Swimwear, alongside Men’s Shoes, Innerwear, and Athleisure, emerged as the segments showcasing the most substantial average discounts during October. Fall also brought about more affordable prices for Women’s Innerwear and Men’s Shirts. However, Women’s Athleisure, Dresses, and Tops displayed diminished average discounts during this Prime Big Deal Days event.

Delving into brand-specific analyses revealed intriguing trends. Athleisure brands such as Ibkul, Esprlia, and Ryka notably escalated their discounts in October after minimal markdowns during the Summer Prime Day sale.

Steve Madden, witnessing heightened discounts in October, hinted at a growing demand for boots and footwear in the Autumn and Winter seasons. For instance, the Steve Madden Men’s Fenta Fashion Sneaker was priced at $46 during the Summer Prime Day, and only at $35 during the Prime Big Deal Days in October.

Conversely, brands like PGA Tour, Land’s End, Roxy, and Anrabess offered more substantial discounts during the Summer compared to the October event.

Consumer Electronics

The Consumer Electronics segment during October’s Prime Big Deal Days showcased an average price decrease of 1.98% compared to the Prime Day event in July.

Nearly all scrutinized subcategories experienced heightened discounts during the Fall Prime Big Deal Days in October. Tablets, Speakers, Drones, and Smartwatches notably presented higher discounts of 4.06%, 3.51%, 2.99%, and 2.69%, respectively, in October. However, more enticing deals were found on Earbuds and TVs during July’s event.

Examining consumer electronics brands, Google stood out by offering the most compelling deals in October, boasting an average discount of 23.35%, marking an 8.94% increase from the Summer Prime Days’ 14.41%. Psier, Sony, and OnePlus also featured significantly reduced prices during the Fall. For example, the OnePlus 10 Pro | 8GB+128GB was $500 during the sale in July and only $440 during the Prime Big Deal Days in October.

Conversely, prominent brands such as Bose, Sennheiser, Samsung, LG, and Asus opted to offer heavier discounts in July. Notably, the Samsung All-in-One Soundbar w/Dolby 5.1 was priced at $218 in October but only $168 in July.

Home & Furniture

During October’s Prime Big Deal Days, the Home & Furniture category experienced a notable 1.59% increase in average discounts compared to the Prime Day event held in July.

Notably, Entertainment Units, Rugs, and Coffee Tables emerged as standout sub-categories that were more attractively priced in October, exhibiting price differences of 7.73%, 5.33%, and 4.80%, respectively.

Interestingly, among the scrutinized sub-categories, only Luggage showed a lower price during the Prime Day sale in July compared to the October event. This shift likely reflects evolving consumer demand as the holiday season approaches, with items like rugs and entertainment units becoming increasingly sought-after categories for purchase.

If you’re keen to explore how these trends vary across brands within this category, reach out to us for more insights.

Health & Beauty

During October’s Prime Big Deal Days, the Health & Beauty category showcased products at an average of 1.99% lower prices compared to the Prime Day event held in July.

Our analysis of Health & Beauty reveals that a majority of the subcategories presented higher discounts during the October Big Deal Days event. Essential items such as Toothpaste, Sunscreen, and Electric Toothbrushes notably stood out as significantly more affordable during the Fall event, reflecting not only consistent demand but also a seasonal emphasis on these products. For instance, the Oral B iO Series 3 Limited Edition Electric Toothbrush, priced at $140 during the summer Prime Days, was further discounted to $120 in the fall event.

Interestingly, Beard Care emerged as an exception, displaying higher discounts during the Prime Day sale in Summer compared to Fall’s Prime Big Deal Days.

Examining brands within the category, Babyganics, Thinkbaby, and Vaseline showcased substantial increases in average additional discounts during October’s Prime Big Deal Days.

Conversely, prominent brands like Maybelline, Neutrogena, and Cetaphil offered lower discounts during the fall event.

Competitive Insights to Drive Optimized Sale Event Pricing

At DataWeave, we understand the pivotal role of competitive pricing insights in empowering retailers and brands to gain a competitive edge, especially during significant events like Prime Day. Our commitment lies in providing retailers with precise and extensive competitor price tracking on a large scale. This empowers them to devise impactful pricing strategies and consistently uphold a competitive stance in the market. To learn more about how this can be done, talk to us today!
November 20, 2023
Backpacks to Binders: Examining Back-to-School Price Hikes in 2023

This year’s back-to-school shopping season has presented a considerable challenge for inflation-weary parents in the US. Despite chatter about alleviating inflation rates, the reality of rising prices tells a different story.

As families hunt for school supplies, apparel, and other essential items for the academic year, the financial strain remains palpable. Experts note that elevated prices coupled with extensive shopping lists have compelled many parents to be more discerning about their purchases, expenditure thresholds, and preferred shopping venues. Essentially, shoppers are looking for more value for their money with every purchase. According to the National Retail Federation’s 2023 projection, this back-to-school season is poised to be the most financially demanding one to date. The forecast anticipates total spending exceeding $135 billion, marking an increase of over $24 billion compared to the previous year.

At DataWeave, we continually monitor and analyze pricing activity among retailers across popular shopping categories. Our recent study delved into the pricing trends in the back-to-school category, which includes backpacks, fundamental school supplies, binders, planners, writing instruments, and more. The aim was to understand how the costs of back-to-school essentials have shifted in 2023 in comparison to 2022.

Pricing of Back-to-School Products in 2023

Our analysis, spanning 1200 products across major retailers such as Amazon, Walmart, Kroger, and Target reveals an average price surge of 9.8% in 2023 compared to the previous year.

This upward pricing trend can be attributed to retailers’ strategic efforts to guarantee product availability and uphold quality during a period of heightened demand. As the back-to-school season sparks a surge in shopping activity, retailers like Kroger, Amazon, and Walmart are likely adjusting prices strategically to align with the expenses incurred in securing adequate supplies, managing logistics, and meeting operational demands.

Kroger led the way with a 12.1% price hike, the most significant among the scrutinized retailers. It was followed by Amazon with an average increase of 10.5% and Target with 7.8%. Walmart remains the outlier, with the smallest price increases for back-to-school products in 2023.

Pricing across Categories and Subcategories

Among the various categories examined, backpacks have experienced the most pronounced escalation, with prices soaring by a substantial 25%. Within the top 10 highest priced backpacks we looked at, the most substantial price hikes were observed for brands like The North Face (44%) and Fjallraven (33%).

The Office Organization category also witnessed a significant price surge of 16.8%, attributed to subcategories like File Folders and Desk Accessories, which saw respective price hikes of 31.3% and 25.2%.

Categories like Memo Boards & Supplies (14.3%), Binders (12.5%), and Themebooks & Portfolios (12.4%) have likewise encountered notable price hikes. On the other end of the spectrum, Planners and Journals saw a modest rise of 4.4%, while Mailing and Shipping Supplies and Office Machine Accessories experienced comparatively lower price increases at 7% each.

Interestingly, while items like Journals and Writing Instruments maintain popularity year-round, Backpacks and Memo Boards are particularly sought after during the back-to-school season, contributing to more substantial price hikes in these categories.

On the other hand, consumers are consistently on the lookout for cost savings and deals from retailers, especially as they deal with inflationary pressures. In response, Kroger, Target, and Walmart have introduced back-to-school savings initiatives. For instance, Kroger is offering more than 250 items for less than $3 and some items for just $1, encompassing essentials such as paper, pencils, and glue sticks. Lower price increases across categories like journals and writing essentials could be attributed to these initiatives.

Brands with the Highest Price Increases across Categories

Across various back-to-school categories, some brands stand out with significant price increases. For instance, in the Office Organization category, Ubrands leads the pack with a substantial 38.30% surge, followed by Pendaflex at 30.80%. Meanwhile the Backpacks category sees Champion and Adidas recording significant price jumps of 29.6% and 23.6%, respectively.

Ubrands and Pentel from Basic School and Office Supplies Category also record high price increases at 22.70%, followed by Carolinapd from the Themebooks & Portfolios Category at 21.08%. 3M in Mailing in Shipping Supplies shows the lowest price increase at 6.80%.

Interestingly, the ever popular Writing Instruments category showcases BIC at the forefront, exhibiting the most notable price escalation of 13.2%. Expo trails closely at 11.6%, while Uniball demonstrates an 11.4% increase. Even Sharpie, a beloved writing brand, displays a modest price uptick of 9.3%.

The average price increments seen across brands mirror the overarching trend of increased costs throughout back-to-school categories.

Navigating the Competitive Pricing Landscape During the Back-To -School Season

Given the challenging pricing landscape during the back-to-school season, retailers would be wise to provide lower-cost alternatives alongside popular brand names. This allows parents to easily make substitutions while adhering to a school supplies list.

With our competitive pricing intelligence solution, retailers can confidently analyze and monitor their prices relative to competition, ensuring they maintain a leadership position in pricing within their desired set of products, while posturing for margins with other products.

To learn more about how we can help, reach out to us today!

September 11, 2023
Amazon India’s Pricing and Discounts on Prime Day 2023: A Deep Dive Analysis Across Leading Categories and Brands
Amazon’s India Prime Day 2023 shattered previous records with a peak of 22,190 orders received in a minute. An important aspect of Amazon’s India Prime Day was the benefits it offers to Prime Members. Thousands of sellers, brands, and bank partners collaborated to help Prime members save a staggering sum of over Rs. 300 Crores. The 2 day (July 15-16) event even witnessed strong growth in Prime membership, with 14% more members shopping than last year’s Prime Day event. 45,000+ new products were launched by over 400+ top Indian and global brands.

However, our analysis reveals that Amazon was able to make a huge splash despite adopting a relatively modest discounting strategy for the event.

Pricing and Discounts on Prime Day 2023

While Prime Day is Amazon’s showstopper, bringing huge benefits to partner brands and sellers, it’s interesting to also see how Flipkart responded to such a massive sale by its biggest competitor. Therefore, we leveraged our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform to analyze the prices and discounts of Amazon and Flipkart across key product categories – Apparel, Home & Furniture, Consumer Electronics, and Health & Beauty – during Prime Day.

Since products on Amazon and other eCommerce websites are often sold at discounts even on normal days not linked to a sale event, we delved into the real value that Prime Day offers to shoppers by focusing on price reductions or additional discounts during the sale compared to the week before. As a result, our approach highlights the genuine benefits of the event for shoppers who count on lower prices during the sale.

Research Methodology

For our analysis, we tracked the prices of a large number of products across Amazon and Flipkart during Prime Day as well as the week prior to the event. The details of our sample are mentioned below:
- Number of SKUs: 85,000+
- Retailers: Amazon, Flipkart
- Categories: Apparel, Home & Furniture, Consumer Electronics, Health & Beauty
- Pre-event Analysis:10-14 July 2023
- Prime Day Analysis: 15-16 July 2023
Our Findings

Based on our analysis, Prime Day showcased relatively higher price reductions in the Health and Beauty category, offering an average additional discount of 5.3%. In comparison, the Apparel category had lower discounts at 4.90%, followed by the Home & Furniture category at 2.50% during the sale event.

The Consumer Electronics category, known for attractive prices during sale events, featured only 0.9% price reductions. This is due to the fact that the category was already being sold at a very high average discount of around 44.8% the week prior to Prime Day.

Below, we delve deeper into our analysis of each category to better understand how price reductions were distributed across key subcategories on Amazon. We also report on the degree to which Flipkart responded to Amazon’s pricing actions during the event.

Apparel

As Amazon grappled with heightened costs and reduced profit margins in apparel (like most other retailers), its average discount before Prime Day was already at 36.5%. Then, on Prime Day, Amazon’s apparel deals were tempered at around 4.9% average price reduction across 43.7% of its assortment.

Flipkart, on the other hand, offered only a modest additional discount of 1.8% across 17.7% of its Apparel assortment. It’s clear that while Flipkart took steps to compete against Amazon in this category, it was done to a lower extent on fewer products than Amazon.

Across all the apparel subcategories we analyzed, Men’s Shoes (11.6%), Women’s Shoes (9.5%), and Men’s Shirts (8.7%) were among the ones with the highest price reductions. On the other hand, Men’s and Women’s Swimwear (2.3%), Women’s Innerwear (2.9%), and Women’s Athleisure (3.3%) had conservative markdowns.

Pricing choices within different subcategories likely stemmed from a range of factors, such as inventory quantities, trends in demand, and the aim to harmonize competitive deals with the maintenance of viable profit margins. These decisions reflect Amazon’s attempt to cater to a consumer base that is particularly conscious of pricing.

Across all apparel subcategories, leading brands that offered the highest markdowns were Sweet Dreams (65.5%), Ketch (55.1%), Clarks (44.9%), and Kibo (38.4%). Meanwhile, Reebok and Adidas offered significant additional discounts at 26.3% and 24.9%, respectively, as well.

For brands, however, reducing prices is just one approach to entice shoppers. They must also guarantee their prominent presence and easy discoverability within Amazon’s search results. This significantly amplifies their potential to generate higher clicks and conversions. In our analysis, we monitored brands’ Share of Search across various frequently used search terms in addition to the discounts they provided. The Share of Search denotes the portion of a brand’s products within the top 20 search results for a specific search query.

Our data indicates that certain brands gained ground in their discoverability during Prime Day, while others fell behind. Van Heusen in Women’s Athleisure (30%), Campus in Men’s Shoes (50%), and Rovar’s (30%) in Women’s Swimwear among others, improved their Share of Search by significant levels during Prime Day.

On the other hand, brands like Sparkx in Men’s Shoes, Xyxx in Men’s Innerwear, WomanLikeU in Women’s Swimwear, and Adidas in Women’s Shoes lost around 40%-80% in their Share of Search during the event. This is likely to have impacted their sales volumes adversely.

Home & Furniture

The Home & Furniture industry faced challenges of reduced demand and overstocked inventory over the past year. Therefore, even before Prime Day, discounts offered in this category on Amazon averaged a staggering 45.3%. Consequently, on Amazon Prime Day, additional discounts averaged only 2.5% on Amazon, offered across 33.3% of its assortment. Flipkart opted, in effect, not to compete with Amazon in this category, offering a negligible additional discount of 0.8% across 14.70% of its assortment.

Of all the Home & Furniture subcategories we analyzed, Luggage (5.1%), Beds (3.9%), and Coffee Tables (3.1%) had high price reductions, while Rugs (0.6%), Bookcases (1.5%), and Washer/Dryers (1.2%) had lower markdowns. This highlights the difference in consumer preferences across geographies, with rugs being more discretionary in India but staple in the US.

The Home & Furniture category is not known for its brand loyalty among shoppers. Therefore, brands often rely on attractive pricing to gain shopper interest. This Prime Day, brands that offered the highest markdowns in this category include It Luggage (40%), Couch Culture (25.8%), Story@Home (23.3%), and Verage (21.2%).

In terms of Share of Search, Wudparadise in Entertainment Units gained the highest (50%). Solimo (an Amazon Brand) in Beds (40%), Sofas (30%), and Coffee Tables (10%) gained significant ground in its respective categories too. In contrast, About Space in Bookcases (-60%), Anika in Entertainment Units (-40%), and Sleepyhead in Mattresses (-40%) lost out on their discoverability in their respective categories during the event.

To gain a competitive edge during sale events like Prime Day, brands need to monitor their Share of Search closely, especially in categories like Home & Furniture with low brand loyalty.

Consumer Electronics

This Prime Day, five smartphones got sold every second with 70% of the demand coming from Tier 2 & 3 cities in India, largely comprising of foldable smartphones and newly launched smartphones (OnePlus Nord 3 5G, Samsung Galaxy M34 5G, Motorola Razr 40 Series, Realme Narzo 60 Series and iQOO Neo 7 Pro 5G). Multiple new products were launched this Prime Day, by brands such as OnePlus, iQOO, Realme Narzo, Samsung, Motorola, boAt, Sony, and more in India.

Despite the high demand and new product launches, Amazon’s price reductions in the Consumer Electronics category averaged only 0.9% across 27% of its assortment. Similar to what we observed in the Home & Furniture category, this can be attributed to the prevailing high average discount of 44.8% the week prior to Prime Day. Essentially, in Consumer Electronics, shoppers needn’t always wait till sale events like Prime Day to view the most attractive deals. Several are offered even during the days leading up to the sale.

Across subcategories, Earbuds (2.4%), Wireless Headphones (1.6%), and TVs (1.3%) received the highest price reductions due to their popularity and high sales volumes during sales events. On the other hand, Smartwatches (0.6%), Drones (0.4%), and Smartphones (0.3%) had lower markdowns.

In terms of price reductions across brands, Da Capo (52.6%), Muzen (33.3%), JLab (23.6%), and Earboss (21.5%) offered the most attractive deals in the Consumer Electronics category. Notably, Amazon Basics also offered modestly attractive deals (12.2%), highlighting Amazon’s strategy of promoting in-house brands.

The Consumer Electronics category has a loyal shopper base, but generic search keywords like earbuds, headphones, and tablets remain essential for attracting high-intent shoppers and increasing brand awareness. So when it comes to Share of Search, Noise in Smartwatches, Samsung in Smartphones and Tablets, and HP in Laptops, all made strong strides in building their discoverability on Amazon during Prime Day.

Xiaomi in Laptops, Ekko in Earbuds, OnePlus in Smartphones and Apple in Tablets, lost out to other brands during the sale.

Health & Beauty

Health & Beauty emerged as the top-performing category in terms of additional discounts during Prime Day in India. Our data shows that Amazon offered an average additional discount of 5.3% on almost half of its products (46.8%) in this category. Competing head to head with Amazon in this category, Flipkart offered 5.5% additional discounts across 35.8% of its assortment.

Within all the subcategories we analyzed, Sunscreen (7.5%), Make-Up (7.2%), Shampoo (6.6%), and Moisturiser (6.4%) saw the highest price reductions on Amazon. Conversely, staple items like Toothpaste (3.%) and Beardcare (3.6%) had lower markdowns.

During the sale event, brands like Sadhev (43.4%), Clear (41.1%), Teenilicious (40.4%), and Coal Clean Beauty (38.4%), offered the most attractive deals.

In terms of significant gains in Share of Search for brands, L’Oreal Paris in Shampoo and Conditioner led the pack along with Oracura in Electric toothbrushes and The Formularx in Moisturiser. Perfora in Toothpastes and Ustraa in Beardcare also gained more than 10% in their Share of Search during the sale event.

Other popular brands like Tresemme in Conditioners, and Swiss Beauty in Make-Up surprisingly had reduced visibility among the top search results for relevant subcategories.

Navigating the Competitive Landscape: How To Thrive During Sale Events

Amazon’s strategic pricing during Prime Day reflects a balance of profitability, inventory, and competition. Competitive pricing insights empower retailers to make informed decisions, optimize strategies, and thrive during high-stakes events. Prime Day serves as a crucial opportunity to drive sales, attract new customers, and boost loyalty. Therefore, monitoring competitor prices accurately, at scale, is essential for impactful pricing strategies.

For more insights on staying ahead during sale events, reach out to us today!

If you’d like to learn about Amazon’s pricing and discounts during Prime Day 2023 in the US, check out our analysis here.
August 10, 2023
Amazon US Prime Day 2023: Insights on Pricing and Discounts Across Popular Categories and Brands
Amazon’s Prime Day this year proved to be a record-breaking success, becoming the largest Prime Day event in the company’s history. Over the two-day extravaganza, shoppers in the US spent a staggering $12.7 billion, a 6.1% increase from the previous year. Amid inflationary pressures and supply chain disruptions, Amazon adopted a bold discounting strategy, offering steeper discounts compared to Prime Day 2022.

An interesting aspect of Amazon’s approach is their loyalty based offerings. In the weeks leading to Prime Day on July 11-12, members of the loyalty program were given access to “invite-only deals” where shoppers could request invites to specific products that they were looking to purchase on deals. Overall, Amazon’s pricing and discount strategies during Prime Day were carefully designed to create a buzz among shoppers, generate increased sales, and maintain a competitive advantage in the market.

While Prime Day is Amazon’s showstopper, it’s interesting to also see how other leading retailers respond to such a massive sale by their biggest competitor. Do they also lower their prices during the event, or are they happy to take a backseat? To answer these questions, we leveraged our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform to analyze the prices and discounts of Amazon and its leading competitors across key product categories – Apparel, Home & Furniture, Consumer Electronics, and Health & Beauty – during Prime Day.

Since products on Amazon and other eCommerce websites are often sold at discounts even on normal days not linked to a sale event, we delved into the real value that Prime Day offers to shoppers by focusing on price reductions or additional discounts during the sale compared to the week before. As a result, our approach highlights the genuine benefits of the event for shoppers who count on lower prices during the sale.

Research & Methodology

For our analysis, we tracked the prices of a large number of products across several leading retailers during Prime Day as well as the week prior to the event. The details of our sample are mentioned below:
- Number of SKUs: 110,000+
- Websites: Amazon, Walmart, Target, Overstock, The Home Depot, Wayfair, Ulta Beauty, Sephora
- Categories: Apparel, Home & Furniture, Electronics, Health & Beauty
- Pre-event Analysis: 4-10 July 2023
- Prime Day Analysis: 11-12 July 2023
Our Key Findings

Our data reveals that Amazon’s price reductions were most aggressive in the Consumer Electronics category, with an average price reduction of 10.4% on Prime Day, due to the category’s popularity and high demand.

The Health & Beauty (6.7%), Apparel (5.9%), and Home & Furniture (4.8%) categories offered relatively modest deals during the sale event.

Below, we delve deeper into our analysis of each category to better understand how price reductions were distributed across key subcategories on Amazon as well as the discounting strategies of Amazon’s leading competitors.

Apparel

As Amazon grappled with surplus inventory, heightened storage costs, and reduced profit margins in apparel (like most other retailers), its average discount before Prime Day was already as high as 13.3%. Then, on Prime Day, Amazon’s apparel deals were tempered at around 5.9% across an impressive 33.1% of its assortment, while Target and Walmart chose not to compete in a meaningful way.

Unlike Prime Day 2022, when Target competed with Amazon with high discounts, the retailer offered only 0.8% additional discount across 4.4% of its assortment in this category. Walmart, too, reduced its prices by only 1.4% on 8.5% of its assortment during Prime Day.

Check out our latest analysis on fashion pricing trends across 2022-23 to better understand the pricing dynamics in this category in greater detail.

Across all the apparel subcategories we analyzed, Women’s Athleisure (8.7%), Men’s Swimwear (8%), and Women’s Tops (7.6%) were among the ones with the highest price reductions. On the other hand, Men’s Athleisure (2.5%), Women’s Shoes (3.5%), and Men’s Innerwear (4.1%) had conservative markdowns.

Pricing decisions across the various subcategories are likely to have been influenced by several factors like inventory levels, demand patterns, and the need to balance competitive offers with maintaining reasonable profit margins, as Amazon tried to cater to a more price-sensitive consumer.

Across all apparel subcategories, leading brands that offered the highest markdowns were Tommy Hilfiger (11.5%), Amazon Essentials (9.4%), Adidas (8.6%), and Calvin Klein (8.6%).

For brands, however, lowering prices is only one lever to attract and convert shoppers. They also need to ensure they’re highly visible and discoverable on Amazon’s search listings. This exponentially improves their chances of driving more clicks and conversions. In our analysis, we tracked the Share of Search of brands across several popular search keywords. Share of Search for a brand is defined as the proportion of the brand’s products in the top 20 search results for a search query.

Our data indicates that several brands gained impressive ground in their discoverability during Prime Day, while others fell behind. Gildan in Men’s Innerwear, Adidas in Men’s and Women’s Shoes, Anrabess in Women’s Athleisure, and Lululemon in Men’s Athleisure, among others, improved their Share of Search by significant levels during Prime Day.

On the other hand, brands like Hanes in Men’s and Women’s Innerwear, Kanu Surf in Men’s Swimwear, Cupshe in Women’s Swimwear, and others lost around 10% in their Share of Search during the event. This is likely to have impacted their sales volumes adversely.

Home & Furniture

The Home & Furniture industry has been challenged with reduced demand due to inflationary pressures over the past year or so. Leading retailers in the category overestimated the demand, leading to overstocking of inventory. As a result, Home & Furniture is one of the few categories that saw Amazon’s competitors participate at a significant level on Prime Day in order to ensure they don’t fall behind on liquidating their stock.

Amazon’s additional discounts averaged 4.8% across 30.2% of its assortment. Wayfair and Overstock too reduced their prices by 4.8% and 4.3% on around 44% of their respective assortments. Wayfair’s move is likely a part of their strategy to attract new customers and expand their market share, in response to a decline in their consumer base. Last year, Wayfair experienced a loss of 5 million out of its 1.3 billion consumers due to weakening demand.

Target and Walmart did offer additional discounts, but they were not at a competitive level. The Home Depot effectively opted not to compete at all during the sale event. Overall, the pricing actions of these retailers are in stark contrast to the highly conservative pricing strategies observed on Prime Day last year.

Our recent pricing analysis of the Home & Furniture category revealed more interesting insights and pricing dynamics over the past year.

Across all the subcategories we analyzed, Bookcases (8.2%), Rugs (7.8%), Mattresses (6.5%), and Luggage (6.2%) were among the ones with high price reductions.

Meanwhile, Sofas (2.4%), Washer / Dryers (2.4%), and Entertainment Units (2.7%) had lower markdowns. These are large and substantial purchases, making retailers more cautious about deeply discounting them while still ensuring profitability.

The brands that stepped up and offered the highest markdowns in this category include Zinus (20.2%), Comfee (10.8%), Sauder (9.9%), and Best Choice Products (8.7%).

In terms of Share of Search, Rockland in Luggage gained the highest (21%), followed by Farberware in Dishwasher, Olee Sleep in Mattresses, and Homeguave in Mattresses gained significant ground in their respective categories as shown in the image below.

Brands like Best Choice Products in Coffee Tables, Molblly in Mattresses, and Black+Decker in Washer/Dryers and Dishwashers lost a good portion of their Share of Search during the event. Due to high competition for visibility during sale events, brands that fail to keep an eye on their Share of Search stand to take a hit in their sales, especially in categories like Home & Furniture that tend to have low brand loyalty.

Consumer Electronics

2023 was the year of consumer electronics on Amazon Prime Day. Amazon’s price reduction during the sale averaged 10.4% across 54.5% of its assortment in the category. Target and Walmart, on the other hand, offered significantly lower additional discounts of 1.9% and 2.7% on 10.4% and 19.1% of their assortment, respectively.

The consumer electronics category often witnesses aggressive price reductions during Prime Day and other sale events due to its popularity and high demand. In addition, since retailer margins are usually low in this category, shoppers often have to wait for sale events like Prime Day (when brands markdown their wholesale rates) to have several attractive deals to choose from.

Across all the subcategories we analyzed, Smartwatches (15.4%), Wireless Headphones (15.4%), Earbuds (14.9%), Headphones (12.5%), and Tablets (12.0%), were among the ones with the highest price reductions. All of these subcategories are quite popular that tend to sell in large volumes during sale events.

Meanwhile, Laptops (2.1%), TVs (3.1%), and Smartphones (7.6%) had lower markdowns. A lower markdown on smartphones may reflect steady demand throughout the year, reducing the urgency to offer significant discounts during the short Prime Day window.

Amazon (22%), Tozo (12.5%), Lenovo (10.8%), JBL (8.3%), and Apple (5%) offered the highest price reductions in Consumer Electronics as a whole. Clearly, Amazon didn’t hold back on offering attractive deals on its own private label products in this category.

Consumer Electronics as a category tends to have a brand loyal shopper base. However, Share of Search generic search keywords are still very important for keywords like earbuds, headphones, and tablets that result in relatively lower priced products. HP in Laptops, Samsung in Tablets and TVs, and Oneplus in Smartphones all made strong strides in building their discoverability on Amazon during Prime Day. Beyond just driving more sales, this also has the intended effect of boosting brand awareness among high-intent shoppers.

Sony in Headphones, Asus in Laptops, and Insignia in TVs lost out to other brands in terms of their discoverability during the sale. Sony and Asus, especially would be hurting as they are prominent brands in their respective categories.

Health & Beauty

The Health & Beauty category is a favorite among consumers during Prime Day, as it encompasses a wide range of products like skincare, cosmetics, and grooming items. As shoppers often tend to stock up during the sale, brands and retailers are willing to offer competitive discounts and gain an edge over their competitors.

Our data reveals that the average additional discount on Amazon was 6.7%, offered on a little over a third of its assortment. Walmart reduced its prices sizably as well, by an average of 3.1% on 13.4% of its assortment.

Interestingly, Sephora and Ulta Beauty, leading retailers in the Health & Beauty category did not compete on price at all this Prime Day. It is likely they are confident their loyal customer base will not be influenced by Amazon’s Prime Day deals and be driven away merely by lower prices. In addition, keeping their prices steady during Prime Day might have been a strategic choice to protect their brand reputation and premium positioning.

Relatively premium subcategories like Electric Toothbrushes (10%), Moisturizer (8.3%), Beardcare (7.3%), and Make Up (6.7%) saw the highest price reductions on Amazon.

In contrast, staple items like Toothpaste (3.7%), Shampoos (5.4%), and Conditioners (5.7%) had lower markdowns.

Among the leading brands in this category, Oral-B (10.3%), Philips Sonicare (8.7%), Neutrogena (8.4%), and Colgate (5.6%) offered the most attractive deals during the sale event.

In terms of significant gains in Share of Search for brands, Oral-B in Electric Toothbrushes led the pack again. Neutrogena in Sunscreens and Somall in Toothpastes also gained more than 10% in their Share of Search during the sale event, followed by Tresemme in Shampoos and Airspun in Make-Up products.

Other popular brands like Crest in Toothpastes, e.l.f in Make-Up, Philips Sonicare in Electric Toothbrushes, and Sheamoisture in Beradcare surprisingly had reduced visibility among the top search results for relevant subcategories.

Staying Ahead of the Curve During Sale Events

This Prime Day, Amazon leveraged its scale to offer aggressive discounts across key product categories, while several competing retailers chose to sit back and let the sale play out. Others chose a selective discounting strategy that focused their modest price reductions on a small set of items.

At DataWeave, we understand the pivotal role competitive pricing insights play in empowering retailers and brands to gain a competitive edge, especially during crucial events like Prime Day. For retailers, the ability to track competitor prices accurately, at scale, in a timely manner is essential to plotting and acting on impactful pricing strategies and staying ahead of the curve.

To learn more about how this can be done, reach out to us today!
July 24, 2023
Navigating the Turbulent Home and Furniture eCommerce Market in 2023 with the Power of Competitive Intelligence
The home and furniture retail industry is going through a turbulent time. As inflation reared its head mid-2022, leading retailers in the category have been grappling with the higher costs associated with producing and distributing their products, as well as reduced shopper demand. The rising costs of raw materials, transportation, and labor have had a direct impact on the pricing dynamics within the industry. For example, reports indicate container rates soared to nearly 10 times pre-pandemic levels towards the end of 2021.

Furthermore, shoppers’ spending power has been constrained, while higher interest rates have suppressed demand. Retailers have had to adapt their assortment and pricing strategies to cater to a wider range of shopper preferences driven by changing lifestyles and a growing emphasis on sustainability. Post-pandemic, demand has been primarily driven by affluent shoppers.

Towards the end of 2021, due to supply delays and disruptions, retailers heavily stocked up on available products. However, when demand subsequently decreased in 2022, they were left with a significant amount of unsold stock that was purchased at high rates. This put them in a difficult situation, as they had an excess of products but were unable to sell them even at reduced prices without impacting their profit margins. Additionally, staying competitive in a rapidly changing market environment was equally important.

Given this context, it is crucial for home and furniture retailers to adopt a data-driven approach that utilizes competitive and market insights to consistently maintain or increase their online sell-through rates. DataWeave’s Commerce Intelligence solution offers exactly that, empowering retailers across various industry segments to stay updated on evolving consumer trends and competitor actions.

To gain a better understanding of the pricing strategies employed by leading home and furniture retailers throughout the past year, we leveraged our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform to track and analyze the pricing of a wide range of products across multiple retailers and subcategories within the industry.

Our Research Methodology
- Number of SKUs: 400,000+
- Key retailers tracked: Amazon, Wayfair, Home Depot, Overstock, Target, Walmart
- Key categories reported: Home and Office, Bed and Bath, Bathroom, Bedroom, Decorative, Dining Room, Kitchen, Garden & Patio, Hardware
- Timeline of analysis: April 2022 to April 2023
Our Findings

Interestingly, our analysis indicates that average prices in the home and furniture category rose by around 5% between March 2022 and April 2023. However, there have been seasonal fluctuations in the prices over the course of the year.

Among the various subcategories, the most substantial price surge was observed in home office equipment, with an uptick of 9.3% in January 2023 when compared to March 2022. The surge in demand for home office furniture, fueled by the widespread adoption of work from home arrangements, played a pivotal role in depleting inventories and consequently driving up prices. Additionally, the shift towards collaborative workspaces and the gradual expansion of office environments have contributed to the sustained demand for office furniture.

Avg. price changes MoM across home and furniture subcategories from April 2022-23.

While prices for several subcategories rose significantly, others experienced subdued growth, such as bed and bath. The subcategory experienced the lowest price increment, registering a modest 2.8% increase annually. This can be attributed to the impact of a subdued housing market and a decrease in first-time buyers, which may partly be due to the global recession and inflationary pressures.

Moreover, retailers overestimated the demand for home furniture during the holiday season, leading to an overstocking of inventory. Consequently, prices experienced a dip from October to December 2022. In fact, this was a common trend across all home and furniture subcategories. As retailers emerged from the holiday season, prices rose to their highest level in January 2023, and have stayed relatively stable since.

Some of these trends vary among retailers as each faces different challenges and responds in distinct ways.

Wayfair, for example, shows a significant dip in pricing after October 2022, with prices stabilizing in 2023. This could be in response to the retailer’s shrinking consumer count, losing 5 million of its 1.3 billion consumers in 2022 due to declining demand.

Avg. price change MoM within the home and furniture sector across retailers from April 2022-23.

In fact, online furniture retailers like Wayfair and Overstock reported declines in annual revenue in 2022, as the furniture sector continued to normalize from the high spending seen during COVID-era lockdowns. Wayfair reported that its 2022 net revenue was $12.2 billion, down almost 11% from the year prior. The company also laid off 10% of its workforce in August 2022. Overstock’s reported annual net revenue in 2022 was $1.9 billion, a 30% decrease year-over-year.

Interestingly, both companies took contrasting approaches in response to this situation. Wayfair opted for aggressive cost-cutting measures, including layoffs and a reduced marketing budget. On the other hand, Overstock focused on attracting new customers through influencer marketing and improving their app, aiming to expand their customer base. With a strategy geared towards younger buyers, Overstock allocated a larger marketing budget than ever before. Our data supports the fact that Overstock did not rely on price reductions to entice shoppers.

Target has consistently maintained lower price increases compared to Walmart, defying the common perception of Walmart being more conservative in its pricing. Notably, Amazon also stood out minimal price increases throughout the year, being surpassed only by Wayfair since November 2022.

As price sensitive shoppers increasingly compare prices before making a purchase decision, retailers need to ensure they are priced competitively in the market on a consistent basis to liquidate stock and gain market share without compromising significantly on margins.

A Sophisticated and Versatile Product Matching Solution is Essential to Achieving Price Leadership

Product matching plays a vital role in monitoring competitive prices and analyzing price leadership. Within the home and furniture category, there is often a multitude of representations for the same product across various online platforms. Furthermore, eCommerce websites offer a wide array of options, including variations in size, color, material, and similar products. Without an accurate and comprehensive method of matching these products, it becomes impossible to track and compare prices effectively, especially on a large scale. Thus, a versatile product matching engine tailored to the unique requirements of the home and furniture sector becomes essential.

DataWeave offers an industry-leading product matching platform that harnesses advanced AI models specifically trained to identify and leverage multiple product attributes extracted from titles, descriptions, and images to accurately match products across websites. Additionally, our platform intelligently matches similar products based on a diverse range of extracted attributes. This empowers our retail partners to gain competitive pricing intelligence not only on exact product matches but also on similar and substitute products, as well as their respective variants.

With our competitive pricing intelligence solution, retailers in the home and furniture industry can confidently analyze and track prices, ensuring they stay at the forefront of price leadership in their market.

To learn more, reach out to us today!
June 29, 2023
Fashion eCommerce 2023: Leveraging Pricing Intelligence to Stay Competitive Despite Reduced Demand
The fashion industry is currently undergoing a period of stabilization after facing significant disruptions in recent years. Fashion retailers find themselves navigating not only changing consumer preferences but also the challenges brought about by inflation and supply chain issues that are remnants of the COVID-19 era.

The effects of inflation have raised concerns regarding overabundance, rise of sustainable and pre-used fashion and declining sales, creating a mismatch between supply and demand within the market. As consumers scale back on spending due to rising prices, fashion retailers are left grappling with surplus inventory, heightened storage costs, and reduced profit margins.

Consequently, these market dynamics have significantly impacted the pricing strategies employed by fashion retailers, resulting in dynamic shifts in pricing and competitiveness across different time periods, subcategories, and individual retailers.

Counteracting this impact requires fashion retailers to adopt a data-driven approach that leverages competitive and market insights. They must adopt agile and versatile pricing strategies that enable advanced pricing and assortment management. By understanding their market position and the competitive landscape, retailers can effectively react to reduced demand and inflationary pressures without compromising heavily on their top line and profitability.

At DataWeave, we harnessed the power of our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform to track and analyze the prices of prominent fashion retailers to uncover unique insights into their price competitiveness over the past year, as well as understand how pricing strategies varied across diverse subcategories.

Our Methodology

For this analysis, we tracked the average price changes among leading US fashion retailers over 12 months to understand how their pricing across several fashion subcategories altered in response to supply chain inefficiencies, inflationary pressures, seasonal effects, and changing consumer preferences.
- Sample: 88,000+ SKUs matched across 5 leading retailers
- Retailers tracked: Amazon, Walmart, Target, Macy’s, Zappos
- Key subcategories reported on: Boots, Bottoms, Coats, Denims, Flats, Heels, Jackets, Kids
- Timeline of analysis: April 2022 to April 2023
Our Analysis

While prices have generally been rising in several industry segments, such as groceries, due to inflation, the fashion sector has experienced relatively stable prices, with even a few periods of price drops. In fact, average prices in April 2023 are 1.2% lower than those in April 2022. The main reason for this trend is that consumers have become cautious about discretionary spending on fashion in order to prioritize other necessities, resulting in lower demand and overstocking by retailers.

In the first quarter of 2022, clothing accounted for only 3.9% of total expenditure by US consumers, down from 4.3% in 2019 before the pandemic. Additionally, in March 2023, 60% of fashion retailers in the US still had surplus goods, accounting for almost 20% of their entire stock. As demand decreased, fashion retailers started offering freebies with purchases, bundling products, giving away unwanted items, and notably, slashing prices.

Subcategory level analysis of Average Price Change Month-on-Month between April 2022 – April 2023

Our analysis at a subcategory level reveals that in winter 2022, seasonal demand led to the largest price increases of 6-11% in coats, boots, and jackets. However, these prices quickly declined afterward. In 2023, stabilization of raw material costs and a continuing decline in demand for non-essential apparel and fashion accessories are factors contributing to a significant drop in prices.

Some of these trends vary among retailers as each faces different challenges and responds in distinct ways. Our data indicates that some retailers have chosen to increase their prices from Q3 2022 due to mounting pressure on profit margins, while others have further lowered prices due to increasing inventory levels.

Average Price Change Month-on-Month Across Amazon, Macy’s, Walmart, Target, and Zappos between April 2022 – April 2023

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Capability Spotlight

Matching products across competitor websites is an essential part of tracking competitive prices and analyzing price leadership. In fashion, matching exact products is no mean feat. Websites often host a slew of variants in terms of size, color, material, etc. without any form of standardization in the way the products are represented. So fashion retailers often struggle with simply unusable pricing insights resulting from inaccurate and incomplete product matching.

DataWeave’s industry-leading product matching algorithm recognizes and leverages dozens of product attributes extracted from product titles, descriptions, and images to match products at very high levels of accuracy and coverage. What’s more, our platform can also match similar products based on a large variety of parameters, so our customers can benefit from a comprehensive competitive perspective.

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For example, in August, Target reported a 90% plunge in profits during the second quarter of 2022, as shoppers concerned about inflation reduced spending on nonessential items. The company stated that its price cuts did not have the desired impact, resulting in a 1.5% increase in inventory compared to three months prior. As a result, we can see that Target’s average fashion prices spiked in August 2022 and have remained steady since then. Walmart also faced similar challenges and increased its prices in October 2022.

However, during the same period in August 2022, Macy’s announced increased discounts to clear out excess inventory in preparation for the holiday shopping season. In the same announcement, Macy’s highlighted how the rising cost of groceries, which had experienced a double-digit increase, was impacting consumers’ budgets, changing their behaviors, and increasing the need for discounts. Our data reflects this, showing a significant drop in prices from October 2022 to January 2023.

However, in January 2023, Macy’s successfully managed its inventory levels, reducing them from $6.4 billion in October 2022 to $4.3 billion in January 2023. As a result, average prices at Macy’s have started to rise.

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For today’s fashion retailers, achieving a balance between expansion goals and profitability is crucial. It requires a meticulous examination of competitive and market insights on a regular basis to mitigate competitive pressures and navigate through these challenging times successfully.

DataWeave’s platform offers retailers the insights they need to gain a competitive advantage. With access to accurate, timely, and actionable pricing and assortment insights, retailers can make informed decisions and stay ahead of the competition. To learn more, reach out to us today!
June 22, 2023
Impact of Inflation on Grocery: Pricing Insights on Leading US Retailers

Inflation, like an invisible force, silently shapes the dynamics of economies, gradually eroding the purchasing power of consumers and leaving its imprint on various industries. High costs, hiring lags, and stagnating earnings pose severe challenges to businesses. One industry segment that intimately feels the impact of inflation is grocery, where price increases can be extremely concerning for the average consumer.

Over the last 12-plus months, the US has experienced a notable rise in inflation, stirring up concerns and influencing the way we shop for everyday essentials. Rising costs of raw materials, transportation, and labor have all played a role in driving up prices. Additionally, disruptions in global supply chains and fluctuations in currency exchange rates have further exacerbated the situation, creating a complex web of interdependencies.

To understand the magnitude of this phenomenon across leading e-retailers, we delved into an in-depth analysis of four major retail giants: Walmart, Amazon, Target, and Kroger.

Each of these retailers possesses a unique business model and competitive strategy, as well as faces unique challenges. This leads to distinct approaches to managing inflationary pressures. Walmart for instance, expects operating income growth to outpace sales growth in 2023. Given the persistence of high prices and the potential for further macro pressures, the retailer is taking a cautious outlook. In 2022, Amazon’s eCommerce business swung to a net loss of $2.7 billion, compared to a profit of $33.4 billion the previous year.

Amid these challenging circumstances, understanding the grocery pricing trends and strategies becomes imperative for retailers, both online and in stores to adapt and thrive in the current economic landscape. By examining their pricing trends, we can gain valuable insights into how these companies navigate the turbulent waters of the grocery industry against the backdrop of inflation.

Our Research Methodology

The data collected for our analysis encompassed a diverse range of products, from pantry staples like flour and rice to perishable goods like dairy and produce – a basket of around 600 SKUs matched across Amazon, Kroger, Target and Walmart, between January 2022 to February 2023.

Further, we separately focused on the prices of a smaller subset of 30+ high-volume daily staples that are likely to yield higher sales and margins for these retailers.

Average Selling Price of a Broad Set of Grocery Items

Our analysis reveals that Walmart consistently offers the lowest prices, with an average of 8% below its closest competitor, Target, despite an annual price increase of about 5%. Walmart seems to prioritize a “stability and predictability” strategy over margin optimization. The retailer’s 8% growth last quarter indicates that this strategy is bearing fruit. However, it’s important to note that this approach may have its drawbacks as Walmart’s margins come under pressure.

Average selling price trend across a basket of 500+ SKUs across Target, Walmart, Kroger, Amazon in the grocery category from Jan ’22 to Feb ’23.

In order to weather inflationary pressures, Walmart may adopt a cautious approach to growth while also focusing on securing margins. Reports suggest that the retailer has been pushing back against consumer packaged goods (CPG) manufacturers following a series of price hikes to counter inflationary cost pressures in early 2023. One of the reasons behind Walmart’s growth and increased sales can be attributed to ‘non-traditional’ higher-income households now seeking deals and discounts at Walmart as their spending power declines.

Interestingly, Amazon emerges as the highest-priced retailer, followed by Kroger, which increased its prices by 10% throughout the year. Consumer perception commonly associates Amazon with the lowest prices, but the data tells a different story. In fact, Amazon has been charging 12% to 18% higher prices than Walmart for groceries and is still maintaining its success.

While the company’s online sales declined by 4%, it saw a significant 9% increase in revenue from third-party seller services, such as warehousing, packaging, and delivery, in 2022. Amazon’s strong logistics and same-day delivery services give it a competitive advantage over other retailers, contributing to its revenue growth and margins. Interestingly, this presents an opportunity for Walmart and other retailers to increase prices while maintaining their strong competitive price positions.

Kroger, on the other hand, seems to be aiming for a premium price perception, consistently raising prices almost every month. Kroger’s pricing strategy appears to be closer to Amazon’s.

Average Selling Price for High-Volume Daily Staples

Pricing strategies often change for different categories of products. To better understand this, we focused our analysis further on a small subset of 30+ high-volume staples across retailers. These include baked goods, popular beverages, canned food, frozen meals, dairy, cereals, detergents, and other similar items.

Average selling price trend of 30+ high-volume daily staples across Target, Walmart, Kroger, Amazon in the grocery category from Jan ’22 to Feb ’23.

Walmart, possibly overestimating the impact of inflation, has continued to keep its prices the lowest, potentially aiming to increase margins through volume.

The level of price disparity across retailers is expectedly lower here, with Amazon and Kroger closely tracking Walmart’s average prices.

Target’s pricing strategy stands out as it consistently emerges as the highest-priced retailer for daily staples, despite being one of the lower-priced retailers for a broader basket of grocery items. This suggests that Target’s underlying technology may not be as optimized to address market dynamics compared to other leading retailers. In our opinion, Target may want to strengthen its efforts to track pricing more intensely for this sub-category.

A Data-fuelled Approach is the Need of the Hour

In the challenging economic landscape, retailers and grocery stores are under pressure to maintain their revenues and margins. Adopting a comprehensive and dynamic pricing strategy is crucial. Understanding which product categories are experiencing price increases among competitors can help retailers make informed decisions on pricing at both the category and product level.

Retailers should consider their balancing margin performance with consumers’ willingness to pay, rather than implementing broad price increases that may harm customer trust. Price increases can be challenging for both customers and merchants. Retailers who employ a data-driven and insight-based approach are more likely to succeed.

Keep an eye on the DataWeave blog for analysis on pricing, discounting, stock availability, discoverability, and more, across retailers and brands from other industry segments as well.

For immediate insights, subscribe to our interactive grocery price tracking dashboard. Better still, reach out to us to speak to a DataWeave expert today!

June 16, 2023
5 Ways to Manage and Improve Stock Availability
Stock availability is the degree to which a brand or retailer has inventory of all their listed items to meet customer demand. Product availability becomes even more critical when they have to respond to unforeseen changes in demand and supply. To maintain the ideal stock availability levels for all items, they need robust inventory management tools to ensure real-time updates on current stock and accurate insights into upcoming demand.

However, managing stock availability is not a clear-cut science. Retailers must balance the change in demand and keep stock availability in check.

Why Stock Availability Matters

One of the challenges of running a retail business is to optimize inventory and associated costs. Maintaining stock availability in stores is critical for offline retail businesses. And when selling online, making sure products are available across different retailers and marketplaces can have a huge impact on sales and conversions.
1. Understocking: It’s when a brand’s product fails to meet consumer demand. If this happens often enough, customers may not return to the brand’s website or app because of the initial experience. Understocking is not a brand’s fault entirely since they might not always be able to anticipate a change in demand. However, it’s about a their ability to adapt to a quick change in the market trends through historical analysis and accurate forecasting.
2. Overstocking: It’s when a company orders too much inventory. Holding too much stock will lead to higher storage costs, shrinkage, and obsolescence losses. Another loss occurs if the brand can’t quickly sell the items — diminishing the value of the products.
We gathered data to see the impact of a short-term stockout on Amazon for one of our customers. Read more about what we uncovered & how deep the damage was, here.

7 Ways to improve stock availability

1. Collect Accurate Data

Availability across Brands and Categories

When multiple items are moving through a supply chain, companies can easily run into inventory inaccuracies. Discrepancies between the values of your system and the actual inventory of products can lead to understocking or overstocking. The best way to avoid discrepancies in inventory is to invest in an inventory management tool that gives you real-time updates on your stock. This is applicable for offline retail businesses.

2. Managing eCommerce inventory

Availability at Individual Product Level

Availability at Individual Product level by regions

Effective eCommerce inventory management is as important as making sure products are available in stores. Keeping track of your inventory levels and ensuring that you’re always well-stocked can avoid lost sales and keep your company running smoothly. Brands must ensure their stock is available across all the online platforms they sell. Access to real-time inventory data can help to keep a close eye on stock status across all marketplaces & retailers the product is available. Retailers also need to keep track of market trends to ensure they have the right inventory assortment to match customers’ demands.

3. Understand Consumer Demand

The only way to accurately predict future demand is to rely on historical data about your customer purchase trends. What do your customers purchase during holiday seasons? What are the upcoming trends in your category? Having data-backed answers to such questions will help brands and retailers properly stock up their inventory.

4. Adequate forecasting

Anticipating demand will help determine which products should be stocked during which seasons. Tracking past sales and metrics such as economic conditions, seasonality, peak buying months, and promotions will help brands predict demand. Analyzing such statistics will also help you get insights into the target market.

Availability across regions

5. Improve supplier relationships

It’s important to rely on a supply chain that delivers your shipment promptly. In fact, you should foster close relationships with your suppliers to trim costs and improve stock availability. You should be able to share key details such as future demands, so suppliers can ensure timely delivery.

Availability Analysis across Retailers and Categories

Consequences of Inefficient Inventory Management

What are the effects of overstocking?

Tied-up cash: Money spent on overstocking is tied-up money that your company could have put to better use. You can use it to pay off debts, wages, and rent. Inventory often has a limited shelf life due to material degradation, changing consumer trends, spoilage, and obsolescence.

Product expiration: If your brand offers time-sensitive goods or perishable items, overstocking can lead to product obsolescence and expiry. eCommerce platforms that also sell time-sensitive goods or grocery delivery apps are forced to sell products at below-margin prices to free up resources, leading to losses.

What are the effects of understocking?

Poor customer experience: Poor product availability will lead to low customer satisfaction & dropping customer loyalty.

Missed sales: Customers could gravitate towards the competition to make their current purchase if a product is unavailable at your online store. The more freequent the stockouts, the more lost sales.

Conclusion

To avoid the knock-on effects of overstocking and understocking, companies need a real-time view of their inventory, both online & offline. At DataWeave, we help companies decrease their latency period between stock replenishment and efficiently plan their supply chain. If you need help tracking your eCommerce product availability, reach out to the experts at DataWeave to know how we can help!
August 24, 2022
5 Ways DataWeave Helps Brands Drive Growth With Amazon Ads

Consumers are discovering and trialing new eCommerce marketplaces, brands and products at a faster rate than ever before, given the vast amount of choices encountered browsing for products online. A recent analysis shows how events like Amazon Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday are especially fruitful for new-to-brand customer advertising, encouraging B2C marketers to increase their digital advertising spend to fuel product discovery, sales and market share for their brands.

DataWeave joins Amazon Advertising partner network

The majority of eCommerce consumers are discovering products via relevant keywords attributable to their needs, with most clicks happening on page one results for the first few products listed. Simplifying the digital shopping experience is critical for brands to be in the consideration set for the majority of consumers who won’t venture past page one results.

An internal analysis conducted shows getting a product to page one on retailer websites can improve sales by as much as 50 percent, but figuring out the right levers to pull to get there organically—without paid advertising—is a real challenge, especially given fast-changing algorithms. While more than half of all retail related online browsing sessions are “organic”, sometimes brands need to boost their product visibility by investing in sponsored (paid) opportunities to improve a product’s rank.

Data analytics can equip brands with intelligence to help them decide when, where, and how to make digital advertising investments profitably, while simultaneously acting on insights that help drive organic growth. Considering a majority of U.S. consumers begin their product discovery on marketplaces like Amazon, it makes sense for brands to prioritize digital advertising opportunities with Amazon.

Maximize Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) with Amazon Ads

Brands use Amazon Ads to drive brand awareness, acquire new customers, drive sales and gain market share, with the goal of furthering their marketing return on investment. Top performing advertisers average 40 percent greater year-on-year (YoY) sales growth, 50 percent greater YoY growth in customer product page viewership on Amazon, and 30 percent higher returns on ad spend (ROAS) with Amazon Ads, according to a recent analysis. Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, Amazon DSP and Sponsored Display are among the types of Amazon Ads options cited that produce maximum return.

Ensuring your product listings appear at the top of page one results on Amazon for the most relevant discovery keywords is therefore the most important determinant for maximizing ROAS. DataWeave has become a vetted partner and measurement provider in the Amazon Advertising Partner Network, with the goal of supporting brands to optimize digital advertising campaigns by providing visibility to Digital Shelf Analytics (DSA) key performance indicators (KPIs), like Share of Search, Pricing and Product Availability, Content Audits, Ratings and Reviews, and Sales Performance and Market Share.

Below is a summary of how our Digital Shelf solutions, in partnership with Amazon Ads, can improve the performance of your Amazon Ads campaigns

1. Keyword Recommendations Improve Share of Search

With the DataWeave Share of Search solution, brands can monitor their placement of both organic and paid discovery keywords relative to their competition. Once your keywords are determined, you are also provided a weighted Share of Search score that helps measure how well each keyword performs relative to product discoverability. Below is an example of insights you’d gain.

Share of Keyword Search

Brands can provide their own list of keywords to monitor, or through our Amazon Ads collaborative solution, learn which keywords are the “best” for them to measure in the realm of Amazon. Performance results are based on data that shows which keywords consumers are actually using when browsing online alongside other keywords brands request to measure. Users are able to see exactly which keywords are most popular, competitive (and even unexpected), and relevant at an Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN) level of granularity.

We can also estimate the degree of relevance and estimated traffic for the recommended keywords. Brands can then use these insights to adjust campaign strategies based on these parameters, which can boost product discoverability and rank visibility. A brand could assume people find its products by brand name, yet traffic insights may reveal a majority of people look for a generic product type before they end up buying that particular brand.

2. Content Audits Increase Discovery Relevancy Scores

Strong product content is critical to succeeding on Amazon. Thorough, accurate, and descriptive content leads to better click through rates (CTR), conversion rates, more positive reviews, and fewer returns, which results in increased discoverability. DataWeave’s Content Audit solution reviews existing copy and images on a per-attribute basis to highlight any gaps essential to improving visibility, as seen in the example below.

Content Analysis

To further growth, it is equally as important that your product content aligns with your advertising strategy. With Amazon Ads partner add-on, our solution can also audit your content to measure how effectively you are incorporating Amazon Ads keywords into your product content to enhance discovery relevancy.

3. Discover More Opportunities with Pricing and Product Availability Insights

Quality content and keyword updates will only get you so far if your products are not consistently available and priced competitively. With DataWeave’s Pricing and Promotions and Product Availability modules, advertisers can monitor their selling prices and availability trends alongside their competitors to uncover more opportunities to incorporate into advertising campaigns, as seen in the Pricing and Promotions dashboard example below.

Promotion Analysis

Additionally, product targeting recommendations can be utilized to target a competitor’s ASIN that may be overpriced or that is having issues staying in stock. Alternatively, broaden your strategy to target specific brands, complementary products, or category listing pages.

You can also create alerts on your own products to monitor when items are low on inventory or out of stock to ensure key products are consistently available when customers are shopping.

4. Leverage Ratings and Reviews to Increase Conversion

Product ratings and reviews are also a critical component to running a successful Amazon Ads campaign. A large number of reviews and a positive star rating will provide customers with the confidence to purchase, resulting in higher conversion rates. Conversely, negative feedback can have a detrimental impact, resulting in lost sales and wasted ad spend. DataWeave’s Ratings and Reviews module can help you monitor your reviews and extract attribute-level insights on your products. This information can then be utilized to further optimize your advertising strategy.

If you see consistent feedback in your reviews on aspects of a product not meeting customer expectations, address them in your product content to prevent potential misplaced expectations. Alternatively, if customer reviews are raving about certain product features, ensure these are promoted and relevant keywords are populated throughout your descriptions and feature bullets. Below is an example of insights seen within the DSA Ratings & Reviews dashboard.

Ratings and Reviews

5. Correlate Digital Shelf KPIs to Sales Performance and Market Share

The newest DSA module, Sales Performance and Market Share, provides SKU, sub-category, and brand-level sales and market share estimates on Amazon for brands and their competitors, via customer defined taxonomies, to easily benchmark performance results.

This data can also be correlated with other Digital Shelf KPIs, like Content Audit and Product Availability, giving brands an easy way to check the effect of attribute changes and how they impact sales and market share. Similarly, brands can see how search rank, both organic and sponsored, affects sales and market share estimates.

Understanding the correlation between your advertising campaigns and your Digital Shelf brand visibility will help you identify which areas to prioritize to drive sales and win more market share.

Digital Shelf Insights Help Brands Win with Amazon Ads

The need for access to flexible, actionable eCommerce insights is growing exponentially as a way to help brands drive growth, increase their Share of Voice, and to gain a competitive edge. As a result, more global brands are seeking Digital Shelf Analytics for access to near real-time marketplace changes and to develop data-driven growth strategies that leverage pricing, merchandising, and competitive insights at scale.

By monitoring, measuring and analyzing key performance indicators (KPIs) like Sales Performance and Market Share, Share of Search, Content Audits, Product Availability, Pricing and Promotions and Ratings and Reviews alongside competitors, brands will know what actions to take to boost brand visibility, customer satisfaction, and online sales.

DataWeave’s acceptance into the Amazon Advertising Partner Network enables Amazon advertisers to effectively build their Amazon growth strategies and determine systems that enable faster and smarter advertising and marketing decision-making to optimize product discoverability and overall results.

Connect with us now to learn how we can scale with your brand’s analytical needs, or for access to more details regarding our Amazon Ads Partnership or Digital Shelf solutions.

UPDATED: Read the full press release here

August 23, 2022
Prime Day India 2022 – highlights from the 2 day annual shopping festival!
Amazon India’s much-awaited annual two-day shopping event, Prime Day, kicked off with a bang on July 23^rd & 24^th this year & was one of the most successful Prime Day events yet! Amazon reported that more than 32,000 sellers saw their highest ever sales day during the event. Interestingly 70% of these sellers who received orders during Prime Day were based in Tier 2 cities in India, further validating how the post-pandemic eCommerce boom has spread across the country. Also, Indian exporters saw 50% business growth on Amazon on Prime Day as customers across markets like North America, Europe, Australia, and Japan continued to purchase Made In India products.
It was a great 2 days for Indian sellers, but what about customers who were waiting in anticipation for the great deals typically offered on Prime Day? We dug into our data to take a look at the deals, discounts, and brands that shone bright on Prime Day in India.

Methodology
- In addition to Amazon IN, we also tracked Flipkart on 23 & 24th July 2022, on Prime Day.
- Categories tracked – Electronics, Grocery, Fashion & Beauty.
- We looked at Additional Discounts offered on Prime Day: Additional Discount is the extra discount on an item during Prime Day when compared to the Pre-Prime Day price.
- We also looked at Post Prime Day Discounts, which were the discounts offered after the 2-day event ended.
Amazon v/s Flipkart – who offered better discounts?

Prime Day discounts are legendary. And across the globe, during Prime Day retailers try and compete to see if they can offer better deals than Amazon. Forbes even published an article on the 36 Prime Day competitor sales that were way more enticing than what Amazon had to offer. In India, we wanted to see if Amazon’s homegrown rival Flipkart might give it a tough fight, so we tracked the volume of discounts across categories on both retailers.

Discounts on Amazon & Flipkart across categories
- Out of the 4 categories we tracked, in spite of Prime Day, Amazon offered discounts higher than Flipkart in only 2 categories – Electronics & Beauty.
- … while Flipkart offered higher discounts than Amazon in the Grocery & Fashion category. For groceries, Flipkart offered a 3.2% additional discount v/s 2.2% on Amazon. However, in the Fashion category, the difference was marginal – 8.1% on Amazon v/s 8.6% on Flipkart
- Post-event, both Amazon & Flipkart went back to the original pre-event prices. This made it clear that Flipkart was tracking and making price changes based on their closest competitor. It’s what smart eCommerce businesses do to stay ahead in the race.
- Interestingly, post-event, in the fashion category, not only did Amazon revert to the original pre-event price, they even increased prices by close to 2%.
Let’s take a look at discounts across 4 categories & the Brands that WON in each category.

From Electronics to Fashion, Beauty & Groceries, let’s deep dive into the data to see which products were highly discounted within each category and brands that sprinted ahead to win the race on Amazon on Prime Day 2022.

ELECTRONICS

Tech publication Gadgets360 reported on the biggest Smartphone deals right from Brands like Samsung, Redmi, Oppo, and more. There were some fab deals on earphones too with Boat taking the lead. We wanted to take a look at electronics on Amazon and see which products had the heaviest discounts & if discounts were more lucrative than Prime Day 2021

Discounts on Electronics on Prime Day
- Amazon India released highlights from Prime Day and reported that Smartphones & Electronics were among the categories that saw the most success in terms of units sold.
- From the 6 product categories we tracked within electronics, we saw the highest additional discounts on Smartwatches (13.4%), followed by Bluetooth headphones (10.5%)
- TV, Smartphones, cameras, and laptops had an additional discount of between 3 – 5.5%
ELECTRONICS Brands that had the highest Share of Search on Amazon during Prime Day

Research shows that on Amazon, the first 3 products garner 64% of business generated. This is why it is critical for brands to appear in the top few listings when consumers are searching for products. Being on top helps shoppers find your brand with ease & increases the chances of a sale.

On Prime Day 2022, Amazon India reported that the top-selling consumer electronics brands were HP, Lenovo, Asus, and Boat to name a few. Our assumption is, these brands must’ve had a high Share of Search (SoS), which played a massive role in increasing sales, so we looked into our data to see which brands had the highest SoS against specific keywords related to electronics.

Brand Visibility against the Keywords
- Our data aligned with what Amazon reported. HP had high sales, perhaps because they occupied the premium #1 spot in the laptop category with a 44% SoS! Simply put, this means of the 100 laptops that appeared on a page, against a search for the keyword laptop, 44 products were listed by HP! Consumers always gravitate towards buying products they can find with ease.
- Lenovo had a 32% SoS for Laptops. Asus at 14%
- The top selling smartphone brands reported by Amazon included OnePlus, Redmi, Samsung, Realme & iQOO – our data showed that 3 out of these 5 brands were in the top 5 listings on Prime Day! Redmi had a whopping 30% SoS against the keyword smartphone, Samsung at 15%, and iQOO at 5% – clear validation that a high SoS can positively impact sales.
BEAUTY & GROOMING

Now let’s look at discounts in the beauty & grooming category.

Discounts on Beauty Products on Prime Day
- The highest additional discounts were given on shampoos (9.3%), followed by Lipsticks (6.6%)
- Shaving kits for men were at an additional discount of 3.4%. Hair gel at 4.9% & Face Masks at 4.3%
BEAUTY Brands that had the highest Share of Search on Amazon during Prime Day

Brand Visibility against the Keywords

In the beauty category, Amazon India reported that top-selling brands included Head & Shoulders, Dove, Biotique, L’Oreal, Sugar Cosmetics, and Mamaearth to name a few. Once again, we looked into our data to see the sort of brand visibility & SoS each of these brands had.
- All the top-selling brand’s Amazon reported on we noticed appeared in the top 5 search results.
- Head & Shoulders & Dove were the top 2 listings against the keyword Shampoo at 26% & 16% SoS respectively. Biotique came in at #5 with a 7% SoS
- Bombay Shaving Company, Gillette, and Axe were the top grooming brands for men in the Shaving Kit category.
- Lakme made a clean sweep with a 19% SoS against the keyword lipstick, which speaks volumes, considering the aggressive competition from D2C beauty brands in India today.
GROCERY

According to the New eCommerce in India report by consulting firm Redseer, grocery has been a major contributor to the growth of ecommerce in India & Amazon Fresh used Prime Day to grab a larger piece of that pie! As part of the Prime Day sale, Amazon Fresh also pushed discounts on groceries, as well as fruits and vegetables. We tracked products that fell into the “snack” category, and here’s what we saw.

Discounts on Snacks on Prime Day
- Given changing lifestyles & healthy food fads, it was no surprise that we saw the highest additional discounts were given on Healthy Snacks (3.2%) & Diet Food (2.7%)
- Chocolates and chips saw much lower additional discounts at 1.2% each.
- Drinks were additionally discounted by 2.5% during Prime Day.
SNACK Brands that had the highest Share of Search on Amazon during Prime Day

Brand Visibility against the Keywords
- Cadbury had a 69% share of search against the keyword Chocolate, leaving some of its key competitors way behind. Amul had a 20% SoS, while Hershey’s was at just 4%.
- According to an article in the Economic times, YogaBar tripled sales in FY22, which is why we were not surprised to see the brand at #1 when users were searching for “Healthy Snacks” during Prime Day. YogaBar products typically enjoy high visibility year-round, which clearly helped with brand awareness on Amazon & sales.
FASHION

Amazon reported that Men’s t-shirts and polos, denims, Kurtis, tops, and dresses for women, designer wear, and clothing for kids were some of the most-loved fashion categories on Prime Day. We looked into our data to see the trends that emerged.

Discounts on Fashion on Prime Day
- From the categories we tracked, women’s handbags had the highest additional discount (11.8%), followed by watches (9.1%)
- Sneakers & jeans had additional discounts in the ballpark of 7% and sunglasses at 4.4%
FASHION Brands that had the highest Share of Search on Amazon during Prime Day

Brand Visibility against the Keywords
- Some of the usual suspects made it to the top 5, but what really stood out for us were brands that popped up against the keyword Jeans. While Levi’s came in at #2 with an 11% SoS, 2 Private Label Amazon brands featured in the top 5! Symbol at 27% SoS and Inkast Denim at 9%
- Against the keyword Handbag, Lavie had a massive lead at 38% v/s the #2 brand – Caprese, at 13%
- Boat found a #2 spot against the keyword watches, racing way ahead of the age-old popular brand Fastrack at #5 with a 4% SoS.
Conclusion

Amazon Prime Day 2022 in India came to a successful close as shoppers across India discovered the joy of the 2 day celebration with the best deals, savings, new launches, and more. Prime members from 95% of pin codes in India made purchases, there were 1000’s of deals and 500+ new product launches from brand partners & sellers. Nearly 18% more sellers grossed sales over INR 1 crore, and close to 38% more sellers grossed sales of over 1 lakh vs Prime Day 2021. Local neighborhood shops that sell on Amazon witnessed 4x sales growth. And start-ups and brands under the Amazon Launchpad program witnessed a growth of 3x. All in all, a successful event for everyone involved!
August 15, 2022
Prime Day Germany 2022 – highlights from the 2 day annual shopping festival!
In 2022, Amazon sold 300 million products during Prime Day – selling roughly 100,000 items per minute. Since Amazon started Prime Day in 2015 to celebrate its 20th birthday, the shopping festival has grown into a holiday and rivals Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the U.S. and Singles’ Day in China.

According to RetailDetail, the leading B2B retail community in Benelux, Amazon is planning a 2nd Prime Day shopping festival in the autumn, just a few months after its annual Prime Day event. The retailer has asked its sales partners to prepare for a promotional event in the autumn where they have until the beginning of September to propose attractive discounts, with at least 20% discounts. This year’s second Prime Day may occur in October, with or without the same name.

But before that, let’s examine what happened in Germany this year on Prime Day 2022.

Methodology
- We tracked Amazon.de both before & on 12 & 13th July 2022, on Prime Day.
- Categories Tracked – Electronics, Wine & Spirits, Grocery, Furniture, Fashion, and Beauty.
- We looked at Additional Discounts offered on Prime Day: Additional Discount is the extra discount on an item during Prime Day when compared to the Pre-Prime day price.
- We also looked at Post Prime Day Discounts, which were the discounts offered after the 2-day event ended.
What kind of Discounts did Amazon.de offer?

Amazon Prime Day will be significant, especially for customers hoping to get discounts amid soaring inflation. Both Amazon as well as other sources reported that electrical and electronic items were the most popular purchases, followed by general retail products. Electrical and electronics saw the value of transactions soar 90% on the first day. Mobile phones and accessories were the most popular, with transaction values almost doubling to 96% on day one.

Discounts across Categories on Amazon.de
- Based on trends from past events, Amazon likely knew electronic items were going to be best sellers. Keeping this in mind, they made sure to offer high discounts in the electronics category. They offered a 6.5% additional discount on electronics on Prime Day. And once the sale ended, they continued to discount electronics by 1.3%.
- The Fashion category also had a fair bit of discounts and came in at a close second at 5.9%
- Looks like Amazon discounted everyday use items minimally. Groceries had an additional discount of just 1.8% on Prime Day, and wine and spirits had 2% extra discount.
Discounts on Electronics Category on Amazon.de
- Within Electronics, in the four categories we tracked, we saw the highest additional discounts were offered on Bluetooth earphones (10.6%) and Smartwatches (9%)
Discounts on Fashion Category on Amazon.de
- Jeans and Sunglasses had the highest discounts at 8.6% & 7.6% respectively.
- Sneakers & Watches too had additional discounts of 6.6% on Prime Day.
- Post the Prime Day event, Amazon retained an average of 1.5% discount across all products in the fashion category instead of pricing them at the original price.
- However, in the case of women’s T-Shirts, they increased the price by 1.7% from the pre-event price.
Discounts across Price Tiers

Retailers must consider several factors when making strategic discounting decisions, including customer buying behavior, the type of discount offered & the volume of discount offered. The best discounting approach will vary depending on the product and other factors like the original selling price of the product.

Now let’s compare the discounting strategy Amazon used in the Electronics v/s Fashion category on Prime Day.

Discounts across Price Ranges
- Interestingly, in both the Electronics and Fashion categories, Amazon increased prices for the lowest-end products between the €0-10 range by 3.6% and 13.2%, respectively, during the sale instead of discounting them! Maybe this was a strategy to drive consumers to higher-value products with greater discounts?
- Another similarity in strategy was that most of the mid-priced items had maximum discounts. In electronics & fashion both, the maximum discounts were given to products between the € 30-100 range.
- Here’s a difference that stood out – for Electronics in the higher price range between €100 – 500, the volume of discounts dropped a bit which meant Amazon gave moderate discounts on high-end electronics. But the trend flipped for Fashion as luxury fashion items were made to look more attractive with higher discounts.
Monitoring stock availability during key sales days is critical

Brands need to have the right stock availability, especially during sale events, because more customers shop online during sales. What’s worse, non-availability of products may drive customers to competitors that are stocking the same product. Out-of-stock situations lead to missed opportunities & lost sales! Let’s take a look at our data and see how Amazon planned product availability across categories on Prime Day.

Availability Analysis across Categories on Prime Day
- Amazon was betting big on 2 categories – Electronics & Home. This meant they needed to keep a keen eye on availability in these categories, especially since they forecasted the highest sales to be generated here.
  … it was no surprise that the Furniture category had almost 100% availability during Prime Day! Electronics too had a high availability at 94% during the event.
- Generally, our data showed that availability across multiple categories we tracked seemed robust and above 80% in more cases. Only Beauty & Grocery had 79% availability.
Conclusion

Prime Day sales reached an estimated 12 billion U.S. dollars worldwide, 9.8% higher than last year, making it the most successful shopping event in Amazon’s history. If you’re a brand selling on Amazon or a retailer trying to compete with Amazon, reach out to us at DataWeave to know how we can help!
August 8, 2022
Prime Day UK 2022 – highlights from the 2 day annual shopping festival!
Prime Day launched in 2015 as a celebration of the 20th anniversary of Amazon’s founding & has quickly become the biggest shopping event of the year for Amazon. Prime Day is a great opportunity for customers to snag fantastic deals on products they might not otherwise consider buying. Last year, Amazon Prime Day was a tremendous success, with Prime members spending billions of dollars on discounted items. In 2022 alone, global sales during the event reached a new record high of $12 Bn.

18 countries participated in Prime Day this year, including the US. We did a deep dive into what happened in the UK – the discounts Amazon offered and categories with the highest discounts as well as checked to see if other retailers tweaked their pricing strategy to compete with Amazon on Prime Day.

Methodology
- In addition to Amazon UK, we tracked some key retailers on 12 & 13th July 2022, on Prime Day.
  Retailers tracked – eBay UK, OnBuy, Selfridges, ASOS.com, Net-A-Porter
- Categories tracked – Electronics, Wine & Spirits, Grocery, Furniture, Fashion, Beauty.
- We looked at Additional Discounts offered on Prime Day: Additional Discount is the extra discount on an item during Prime Day when compared to the Pre-Prime day price.
- We also looked at Post Prime Day Discounts, which were the discounts offered after the 2-day event ended.
Did other retailers compete with Amazon on Prime Day?

Traditionally, as Amazon’s Prime Day sale approaches, other retailers adjust their prices by offering summer deals or getting creative with offers. However, we did not see aggressive strategies from other retailers this year. In the US, Walmart always has a sale during Amazon’s Prime Day. The Wall Street Journal reported that Walmart announced there wouldn’t be an annual promotional event on Prime Day 2022 this year.

Another report published by Forrester stated that major retailers scaled back their promotions, and overall offers from other retailers were less than impressive. We took a look at the data we gathered in the UK to see if this trend aligned.

Discounts offered on Prime Day on Amazon v/s other retailers
- Our data showed that most retailers we tracked offered negligible discounts (in the range of 0.1 – 1.5%) and did not really try and compete or match the discounts Amazon was offering.
- However, ASOS was the one retailer that competed heavily with Amazon in the Fashion & Beauty category. While Amazon offered an average additional discount of 7.7% in the Fashion category, ASOS offered 13.2%. And in the beauty category, Amazon offered 6.7%, while ASOS offered 15.2%.
- When we looked at post-prime day discounts, we saw that as soon as Prime Day ended, ASOS went back to the original price and stopped offering a discount which clearly shows they were keeping an active eye on out their competitors pricing. In fact, ASOS was offering up to 80% off almost everything on the site until Prime Day.
Which were the popular categories that offered the most discounts?

During Prime Day, shoppers saw tons of deals on essential gadgets. Tech deals were a massive hit and saw big discounts on everything from TVs, laptops, smartwatches, phones, and tablets. We look at the data we collected to see if we saw a similar trend.

Discounts on Amazon UK across categories
- Amazon offered discounts across categories and reported that some of the best-selling categories were Consumer Electronics & Home.
- Our data too showed that the highest additional discounts were offered in electronics – Bluetooth Earphones at 18.4%, followed by Smartwatches at 14.9% and Laptops as well as Cameras, both at 12%.
- Low discounts were offered on Alcohol, with Beer at 0.9% and Wine at 1.3%, respectively.
- Relatively attractive discounts were seen in the Fashion & Beauty category – Sunglasses (9.1%), Shampoo (9.7%), & Watches (9.4%)
Discounts on Amazon UK in the Electronics category

Electronics being the hot favorite – we wanted to deep dive into the data and get more insights on Amazon’s pricing & discounting strategy here. Discounts can entice customers to buy more, encourage customer loyalty, or clear out old inventory. However, businesses must be careful since too much discounting can eat into profits. They also have to be mindful of which products should be discounted and by how much.
- Our data showed that the highest discounts (between 13 – 18%) were given on electronics priced between the £ 20-100 price range.
- Electronics priced higher, between the £ 100 – 500 pound price range, were discounted less than 10%
- However, high-value premium electronics over £ 500 were discounted slightly above 10%
How did Amazon manage stock availability during Prime Day?

Keeping track of inventory is especially important during big sales like Prime Day when thousands of customers are actively looking for deals. There’s nothing worse than them finding the item they wanted is out of stock (OOS). OOS leads to lost sales, a situation that must be avoided at all costs. Read about how a small short term stock out on Amazon led to long term negative impacts for one of our customers. And let’s also look at the data and see what product availability looked like on Prime Day.
- Overall, Amazon maintained robust availability across categories, and re-stocking was constant both before, during & after the event.
- Furniture, Fashion & Electronics had the highest availability. No surprise there since Amazon estimated that Home/ Furniture would be one of the best-selling categories.
- Grocery saw average availability – perhaps cause some of these products are perishables, so it’s best to be mindful about overstocking.
Which Brands Won on Prime Day?

If there is one thing to remember about improving your product visibility on Amazon, it’s that it all boils down to the usage of the right keywords. Using relevant keywords makes your product appear higher up in search when customers are running searches on Amazon for those products. And the higher up a product appears in search, the higher the chances of a sale!

Let’s take a look at some popular categories and which brands had the highest Share of Search (SoS) during Prime Day.
- Corona, San Miguel, and Becks were the top 3 brands optimized for the keyword Beer. However, what’s really important to note is both Corona & Becks had 20% SoS that was completely organic. San Miguel had a 20% SoS too, but it was sponsored ads that gave them this artificial boost.
- While a whole bunch of other brands had a 10% SoS most of them achieved this via Sponsored Ads. Youngever was the only brand that achieved this completely organically. They must have made sure they optimized key KPIs like content, ratings & reviews & product availability to achieve this result.
- There were deep discounts on a wide range of Lenovo laptops. For example, the Lenovo IdeaPad duet Chromebook and Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 3 Chromebook were available at £100 off. Our data, too saw Lenovo & Asus fight for the top spot.
- Asus sponsored 28% of products before Prime Day, hoping to capitalize on the pre-sale frenzy. During the event, they sponsored only 13% of products, bringing down their total SoS from 31% before the event to 13% during the event.
- Lenovo followed the opposite strategy; they sponsored just 6% of products before the event and during the event sponsored a whopping 25% which made them “almost” dominate the Laptop category during Prime Day.
- Then there was Microsoft, with the highest SoS at 38%, of which all of it was organic!
- The Smartphone SoS battle was clearly between Samsung & Xiaomi. Samsung was a consistent #1 at all 3 time periods (Before, During & After Prime Day) with the highest total SoS. Xiaomi came in at a close second.
- Samsung had an exciting strategy – they went heavy on sponsorships before and after the event. Their sponsored SoS was 31% & 39% respectively. And SoS of 13% during the event.
- Xiaomi’s strategy was just the opposite. Their sponsored SoS was 16% before the event. And 17% after the event, which was moderate compared to their Sponsored SoS during the event at 25%, which was much higher than Samsung’s 13%
- Critical to note, Xiaomi’s organic search visibility before, during, and after the event was 0%. It definitely should be a concern area for any brand.
Share of search
- Both before & after the event, Cadbury had the highest visibility for the keyword Chocolate. During the event, they were not in the top 5 brands.
- During Prime Day, Nestle won the top spot and had a 29% SoS. However, before the event, they were at #3 and after at #2. Artificially boosting visibility might’ve had something to do with this.
Conclusion

Prime Day sales reached an estimated 12 billion U.S. dollars worldwide, 9.8% higher than last year, making it the most successful shopping event in Amazon’s history. If you’re a brand selling on Amazon or a retailer trying to compete with Amazon, reach out to us at DataWeave to know how we can help!
August 4, 2022
U.S. Prime Day Deals 2022: Promotion Intelligence First Look

As inflation hits another 40-year high at 9.1 percent, U.S. consumers geared up for their first sign of hope and relief in the form of anticipated discount buys – 2022 Amazon Prime Days, or so we thought. While Prime Days have grown to become a promotional period almost as important as Black Friday to digital shoppers, the combination of economic uncertainty, inflationary pressures, and supply chain challenges seemed to alter the discount strategy expected given activity seen during 2021 Prime Days.

Our analyst team has been hard at work aiming to provide a ‘first look’ at 2022 Prime Day Promotional Insights, tracking discounts offered across 46,000+ SKUs within key categories like Electronics, Clothing, Health & Beauty and Home, on seven major retailer websites – Amazon, Target, Best Buy, Sephora, Ulta, Lowe’s and Home Depot. Our analysis compares prices seen during Amazon Prime Day 2022 on July 12^th, to pre-Prime Day maximum value prices seen in the ten days leading up to Prime Days, to determine the average change in discounts offered during the promotional period. Below is a summary of our findings.

Competitive Promotions Give Amazon a Run for their Money

Amazon offered the greatest average discount enhancements for Electronics at 5.6 percent followed by Health & Beauty items at 5.1 percent, and Home products at 4.2 percent versus pre-Prime Day discounts seen across the categories considered within our analysis. The only category reviewed where average discounts were greater on a competitor’s website was on Target.com within the Clothing category. As seen below, Clothing on Target.com average discounts were 6.8 percent greater than pre-Prime Day offers, which was 2.6 percent higher than the average discounts offered for Clothing on Amazon.

Target Capitalizes on Growth Opportunity in Clothing Category

Diving deeper into the details of where Target won within the Clothing category, you can see a majority of their promotional activity took place within Women’s Accessories where discounts offered were 18.5 percent greater than those seen pre-Prime Day 2022, which was almost 15 percent greater than the discount enhancements seen on Amazon for Women’s Accessories. In fact, Women’s Shoes and Sneakers were the only two categories where the average discounts offered were greater on Amazon than on Target.com.

Overall, the discounts offered on Target.com within the Clothing category were primarily concentrated within items priced $40 and lower, but what was most interesting is that within the $10 and under price bucket, Target offered average discounts of over 11 percent whereas Amazon increased prices for these items on average by over 9 percent.

While most of the Clothing available on both Amazon and Target.com during Prime Days 2022 were offered without a price change, the greatest discount percentages tracked were within the range of 10-25 percent off on Amazon whereas Target chose to offer the bulk of their promotions at 25 percent off an up.

Strategic Promotional Strategies Defined at the Electronics Subcategory Level

When it comes to the Electronics category on Prime Day, the big question is always who will win the battle of the brands. Below shows the difference in average pricing and promotions discounts offered between products manufactured by Samsung versus Apple across each retailer platform, noting discounts were almost 3 percent greater on average for Apple versus Samsung products on Amazon, and Apple discounts were almost 5 percent greater on Amazon versus than those seen on Target.com.

Amazon wasn’t going all in on Apple however, as we saw ‘Alexa’ devices (Amazon products) available on Best Buy and Target websites also, but the discounts were almost 4 percent greater on Amazon versus Target and over 7 percent greater than the discounts seen on BestBuy.com.

While the average discounts offered within the Electronics category were greatest on Amazon (5.6 percent) versus Best Buy (3.9 percent) and Target (3.4 percent) as noted within the first chart of this blog and across brands and technologies considered above, the discounts offered on Amazon were strategically focused between 10-25 percent as seen below.

Amazon’s Electronics promotions were also targeted at smaller price points, items priced between $20-500, whereas Best Buy and Target offered greater promotions for electronics priced $500 and up than Amazon.

Below is a snapshot of price buckets tracked for Electronics available on BestBuy.com, highlighting where most of the promotional activity was targeted at products priced $50 and up during Prime Days 2022, with discounts ranging from 10 percent up to greater than 25 percent greater than pre-Prime day prices.

The standout categories were TVs on Target.com with discounts averaging nearly 12 percent greater than those seen pre-Prime day, and smartphones on BestBuy.com with discounts averaging just over 11 percent greater than those seen pre-Prime Day. The category with the greatest average discount enhancements seen on Amazon during Prime Days 2022 was for Wireless Headphones with an average discount of 8.7 percent.

Home is Where Amazon’s Heart Was on Prime Day

Amazon dominated offers within the Home categories, especially for products within mid ($40-100) and higher price ranges (items priced $200-500), with the bulk of the discounts offered between 10-25 percent. There was little to no promotional activity seen across all price points on Lowe’s or Home Depot’s websites within the categories we tracked, and most other competitive offers on Home products were seen on BestBuy.com for products priced from $50-500. Even a subcategory like Tools offered deeper average discounts on Amazon (4.7 percent) than discounts seen on HomeDepot.com (1.1 percent) or Lowes.com (0 percent).

For Large Appliances, Amazon was the only retailer to off any significant discount across each major subcategory with the greatest average discount being on Ovens at 6 percent, followed by Refrigerators at 4 percent. One caveat with this category, when we reviewed Large Appliance prices two weeks prior to Prime Days, we saw average price increases around 16.7 percent occurring on Amazon.

During Prime Days 2022 however, Amazon also offered top average discounts for small appliances, except for on Instant Pots which appeared to have greater average discounts on Target.com (5.9 percent versus 4.2 percent on Amazon), and Vacuum Cleaners which appeared to have the best promotion of appliances small and large at 13.8 percent average discount on BestBuy.com. Another subcategory deeply discounted on BestBuy.com was weighted blankets, which averaged discounts around 18.5 percent versus Amazon’s average discount at only 6.2 percent.

Health & Beauty Retailer Pricing Strategies Revealed

Given the importance Health & Beauty Brands placed on Prime Day sales last year, we had anticipated to see more offers, especially within pure-play beauty retail channels, than we did for this booming category.

Amazon drove most of the Health & Beauty offers seen averaging 5.1% discounts versus other retailers only offering less than 1% on average, but discounts were aimed at a targeted group of SKUs on Amazon, bringing the average discount lower overall. Most of the promotions offered on Amazon fell within mid-range price points ($20-50) and were discounted between 10-25 percent versus pre-Prime Day prices.

Target.com offered the most comparable discounts to Amazon for Health & Beauty products on average, but their strategy primarily focused on items within the $20 and lower price range with discounts ranging primarily between 10-25 percent.

More 2022 Prime Day Insights Coming Soon

We know the significance visibility to critical pricing and promotional insights play in enabling retailers and brands to offer the right discounts to stay competitive, especially during promotional periods like Prime Days. While this blog is intended to provide a ‘sneak peek’ into 2022 Prime Day insights for the U.S. market, we will be providing more extensive, global coverage and will proactively share new insights with the marketplace as they become available throughout the month of July.

Be sure to also check out our Press page for access to the latest media coverage on Prime Day insights and more. Don’t hesitate to reach out to our team if there is any particular category you are interested in seeing in more detail, or for access to more information on our Commerce Intelligence and Digital Shelf solutions.

July 14, 2022
How short term Stockouts on Amazon can have a long-term impact on your eCommerce business
It’s common knowledge that upward of 70% of Amazon customers never scroll past the first page of search results. And that the first 3 products garner 64% of business generated. This is why it is critical for brands and businesses to make sure they rank well on Amazon. A good search ranking helps customers find your product with ease. And findability is fundamental! Having a better ranking is also a driver of the “flywheel effect” at online retailers. According to this effect, products that sell more tend to rank better in search results, and products that rank well in search results tend to sell more.

Negative impact on Sales Ranking due to Stockouts

If you want to stay on top of search rankings on Amazon, one of the things you need to keep an eye out for is your product stock availability. It’s not the ideal customer experience to have to click on a product listing only to find out it’s currently out of stock. This is why Amazon will not rank products at the top if they’re not available & customers cannot buy them immediately. Not only does this lead to a lost sale for a brand, to make things worse, but customers also end up buying a competitor’s product instead.

We were tracking product availability on Amazon for one of our customers in the CPG space. We tracked availability for products across varying ranks & looked at how going out of stock impacted their search rankings.

Product Availability

Impact on products with a Search Rank between 1 to 10:
- Our data showed that when products that ranked between 1-10 went out of stock for just 1 day, their rank fell by over 28%. After 3+ days of being out of stock, their rank fell by 83% and after being out of stock for over 10 days their rank fell by close to 150%!
- This clearly illustrates that when the longer top-ranking products are out of stock, the greater the impact on search rank and product discoverability.
Impact on products with a Search Rank between 10 to 20:
- The impact of being out of stock on products that ranked lower, i.e. between 10 to 20 was much lower. After being stocked out for 1 day, the ranking fell 17% compared to the 28% dip for products in the top 10 ranks.
- Incremental change was minimal, too. After 3+ days of being OOS, search rank dropped by 22% and by 53% after 10+ days v/s close to 150% for higher-ranked products.
Impact on products with a Search Rank between 20 to 30:
- These products had the least impact but there was an impact nonetheless.
- After being OOS for 5+ days, search ranking fell by close to 8% and to close to 30% after 10 days of product unavailability.
Avoiding Stockouts with better Inventory Management

Customers can buy your product only when it is available. Failing to provide products at the right time will lead to losing sales to your competitors. If your products become unavailable, you’ll notice a drop in customers’ overall satisfaction and shopping experience too in addition to a lost sales rank on Amazon. In fact, your reputation and sales will take a beating long term in case of consistent product unavailability. Moreover, once the product is back in stock, the climb back to the top ranking is a slow and not-so-easy process. This is why brands need to maximize conversions by tracking product availability on a constant basis.

Conclusion

Stockout is a critical issue that has a significant impact on sales, brand image, and customer loyalty. Items ranking higher on eCommerce platforms take the biggest hit when they get out of stock. Brands can recapture their search share after restocking their inventory.

Want to maximize sales by reducing latency periods between stock replenishment? Reach out to our Digital Shelf Experts to know how!
June 30, 2022
The Future of eCommerce is Social: Demystifying the Social Commerce Revolution
Social commerce is the selling of goods and services within a social media platform. Brands use social platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter to promote and sell products. These platforms have become an integral part of consumers’ everyday life because they continue to engage users with relatable content, making them scroll their feeds for hours.

The Social Commerce model capitalizes on this high user engagement & moves social media beyond its traditional role in the top-of-the-funnel marketing process by encouraging users to shop without leaving their preferred apps. According to the Social Media Investment Report, 91% of executives agree that social commerce is driving an increasing portion of their marketing revenue, and 85% report that social data will be a primary source of business intelligence.

Let’s talk a little bit about why brands should consider selling via social media platforms:

Social Commerce vs. eCommerce vs. QCommerce

While they may fall under the same umbrella of online selling, social commerce, quick commerce, and eCommerce are three very different concepts
- eCommerce refers to online shopping via a (retailer or brand) website or app. Customers can access these platforms via desktop or mobile devices. However, the sales funnel generally looks the same. These brands and retailers use top-of-the-funnel tactics like social media content, digital ads, and other marketing strategies to encourage customers to visit the online store. There are three main types of eCommerce businesses: Business-to-Business (Alibaba, Amazon Business, eWorldTrade), Business-to-Consumer (websites such as Amazon, Rakuten, and Zalando), and Consumer-to-Consumer (platforms such as eBay & Etsy).
- Quick Commerce (or QCommerce) refers to eCommerce businesses that deliver goods within a couple of hours or even minutes. Although it’s sometimes used interchangeably with on-demand delivery or instant commerce, the idea of quick commerce has been around in the food industry for ages now. It has been recently ushered into the mainstream by evolving consumer preferences for quicker delivery of groceries and FMCG goods.
- Social commerce brings the store to the customer rather than redirecting customers to an online store. It removes unnecessary steps and simplifies the buying process by letting the customer checkout directly through social media platforms, creating a frictionless buying journey for the customer. Additionally, social media platforms are mobile-friendly, a huge benefit for brands because increasingly more and more customers are accessing the internet through mobile devices.
Social Commerce

Rise of Social Commerce

First used in 2005 by Yahoo!, ‘social commerce’ refers to collaborative shopping tools such as user ratings, shared pick lists, and user-generated content. Social media networks snowballed throughout the 2000s and 2010s, alongside a general increase in eCommerce, leading customers and merchants to quickly recognize the benefits of buying and selling through social media networks. Social media platforms have since evolved from merely a showcase tool for brands. They now serve as virtual storefronts and extensions of a company’s website or brick and mortar stores, capable of handling the buying experience.

Top Social Commerce Platforms

Social media platforms aim to keep visitors engaged on their platforms for as long as possible. Increased time in-app or on-site maximizes their opportunity to serve ads, a primary source of revenue generation. Social media platforms have millions of active users and they have a great power to help companies and individuals build their brands, interact with consumers, and support after-sales. Here are the top social commerce platforms:
- Facebook
Facebook introduced Facebook Shops to capitalize on the commercial opportunity by allowing vendors to advertise and sell directly through the platform. Facebook integrates social commerce with shopping, allowing users to purchase products smoothly. Facebook shops offer a smooth user experience where users can review products and get recommendations from trusted acquaintances. Customers can directly interact with the merchant’s customer service department post-purchase.
- Instagram
60% of people discover new products on Instagram. Owned by Facebook, Instagram facilitates in-app shopping and handles the entire transactions within the app itself. Users scrolling on Instagram often wants to follow trends and replicate the looks of their role models or favorite influencers. By offering purchasing options in the app, Instagram benefits from the platform’s rich visual imagery and videos, allowing businesses to sell an idea rather than the traditional process of selling a product.
- TikTok
Shopify partnered with TikTok to introduce shopping and drive sales through the younger and seemingly ever-expanding TikTok audience. With TikTok for Business Ads Manager, brands and merchants can create in-feed video-based content depending on their product offering. This partnership allows Shopify merchants to expand to the TikTok audience.
- Snapchat
Snapchat has recently launched Brand profiles, a feature that allows users to scroll through a merchant’s products and buy them in-app. This new experience is powered by Shopify too. Merchants can create Brand Profiles or Native Stores that allow users to purchase products from the app.

Pinterest users are there for Shopping Inspiration
- Pinterest
Pinterest is also an image-based platform where users create boards of their favorite wedding accessories, home decor, fashion trends, etc. Pinterest doesn’t specifically offer social commerce for the global audience. Rather, it allows business accounts to create ‘Product Pins’ that are displayed in the brand’s Pinterest shop. Only U.S. customers can purchase within the app. Users from other countries are redirected to the eCommerce site to complete the sale. We have added Pinterest to this list because 89% of Pinterest users are there for shopping inspiration.

Pinterest is an image-based platform where users create boards

Why Should Brands Care About Social Commerce
- To enhance social media presence and brand awareness
If your target demographic is in the 18-to-34 age range, they’re already on social media and waiting to shop while they scroll. According to Sprout Social, over 68% of consumers have already purchased directly from social media and nearly all (98%) consumers plan to make at least one purchase through social or influencer commerce this year. You can enhance brand awareness by selling on social media platforms. Influencer marketing is an amazing way to build brand awareness since customers are now seeking authenticity from micro-influencers rather than big-name celebrities.
- To generate social proof
90% of online shoppers say that they read online reviews before making an online purchase. Whether it’s an automated follow-up email or a message through the social media platform, ask for a review after your product has been delivered to the customer. You can also offer incentives like a contest to encourage previous customers to weigh in and share their experiences. These steps will allow you to collect social proof since it’s vital to build a positive reputation online. You can also ask customers to create small product review videos that you can share on your social feeds in creative ways. You can also post user-generated content, create a carousel of positive comments, or host a live video with happy customers.

Social Proof
- To simplify the buying process for consumers
Traditional eCommerce involves several steps. It starts with displaying ads on social media platforms and customers being redirected to the business website for completing the transaction. To complete the transaction, customers also have to create an account or manually fill in the credit card details and delivery address. On the other hand, social is only a three-step process — find, click and buy.

Counterfeit Products

Conclusion

While social commerce is proliferating, it also has a few setbacks like the rise of counterfeit products. Counterfeiting has expanded into social media and has become an under-reported but vital hub for counterfeiters. A counterfeit detection solution can help brands and merchants identify & remove fake and unauthorized products. Technologies like image recognition can help in counterfeit detection by capturing fake logos and discrepancies. Removing counterfeit products will help brands safeguard customer loyalty and prevent fake products from harming your bottom line.

Here’s how DataWeave helped Classic Accessories, a leading manufacturer of high-quality furnishings & accessories identify counterfeit products across multiple retail marketplace websites eliminating 22 hours of time spent per week conducting manual audits – read the case study here.

Are you a brand or a retailer worried about counterfeits? Sign up for a demo with our team to know how we can help you track, identify and eliminate fakes!
May 16, 2022
Top 7 strategies to sell effectively on Amazon

According to MarketingCharts, 63% of online shoppers start their buying journey on Amazon. This shows that customers believe they will find the products they are looking for with competitive prices and excellent customer service on Amazon. Amazon is one of the most dominant eCommerce marketplaces with 197 million users and 112 million Amazon Prime members. Brands can sell on Amazon to capitalize on this vast customer base by showcasing and promoting their products properly.

In this article, we’re going to take a look at the top 7 strategies to sell effectively on Amazon:

1. Boost Product Discoverability using Ads

Amazon Advertising helps sellers, brands, and agencies to drive profitability by making sure product discoverability is high & shoppers are able to find their brand with ease. The ads on Amazon fuel product discovery and improve conversion rate. The advertising options on Amazon are designed to help brands increase exposure, generate incremental sales, boost organic rankings, and drive growth.

Amazon has three PPC programs: sponsored product ads, sponsored brands ads, and sponsored display ads. Brands can increase visibility on Amazon with these three paid campaigns. You can sponsor products or your brand for related searches on Amazon. Businesses only pay for clicks received.

Sponsored products are for individual product listings that appear on shopping results pages and product detail pages. Sponsored brands are for showcasing brand portfolios such as logo, custom headline, and a selection of products on the shopping results page. The last is sponsored display, a self-service advertising solution for displaying ads on and off Amazon.

Promotions for Brand and SKU’s

2. Improve your Amazon SEO using effective Product Descriptions

To effectively sell on Amazon, businesses first have to understand the A9 algorithm. Amazon uses A9 Algorithm to decide which products are ranked in search results, emphasizing sales conversions. This algorithm helps Amazon promote listings that are more likely to result in sales.

Keywords in product descriptions are one of the main driving factors that the Amazon A9 algorithm looks for in determining relevance to search queries and setting rankings on its results pages. Therefore, brands must integrate high volume and significantly relevant keywords as part of their listings. Crafting product descriptions with the right keywords will provide compelling reasons for buyers to purchase the product and for the A9 algorithm to better rank the brands. Brands can analyze and optimize their content to improve discoverability across Amazon. Accurate product descriptions help users make informed decisions and allow brands to deliver a consistent customer experience.

Detailed Descriptions and Highlights

3. Improve your Product Visuals

Avoid using standard visuals when displaying your products in Amazon’s image gallery. Product images are the hook that encourages visitors to click on your products. However, Amazon has specific image requirements that you’ll need to adhere to while presenting products. When shopping on Amazon, potential buyers are looking for high-definition and clearly visible photos. Thus, you will need diversity in images if you want your product and photos to stand out.

In addition to images, brands can make their product descriptions better through video content. Videos help your brand to stand out, build a more personal relationship with customers, and lead to increased sales. One study on eCommerce sellers found that using product videos increases sales for online stores by 144%.

Product Images

4. Switch to Intelligent Pricing & Win the Buy Box

Intelligent and competitive pricing is the most essential lever for revenue growth. With advanced technology like AI and analytics, brands can get insights into competitive pricing and develop an intelligent pricing strategy to calculate real-time changes in pricing optimally.

Amazon wants to give the consumer the best value for their money and thus has a Buy Box option. The white box on the right side of the Amazon product detail page is called the Buy Box, and customers can directly add items for purchase to their cart. However, not all sellers are eligible to win the Buy Box.

Thanks to Amazon’s customer-obsessed approach and high competition, only businesses with excellent seller metrics have a chance to win a share of Buy Box. Amazon weighs low prices with high seller metrics. If your brand has near-perfect performance metrics, having higher prices can still get you a share of the Buy Box. In contrast, brands with mid-range metrics will probably need to focus on offering the most competitive price.

But, why is the Buy Box important? According to BigCommerce, 82% of sales on Amazon go through the Buy Box, and the rate is even higher for mobile purchases. Getting insights into your competitor’s pricing with our Digital Shelf Solution will help you improve seller metrics and find the right pricing strategy for your products.

5. Provide Plenty of Social Proof

Testimonials can increase sales page conversions by 34%. Social proof has emerged to be of great importance in the eCommerce world, and it isn’t limited to recommendations from people customers know in the “real world.” A survey conducted by BrightLocal revealed that 31% of consumers reported that they read more online reviews in 2020 than ever due to Covid-19.

Product ratings and reviews on Amazon are at the center of the recommended products section, product listing page, and search results. Interestingly, customer feedback also has a huge impact on a brand’s ODR or Order Defect Rate. It is one of the most critical measurements tracked by Amazon. ODR is a measure of customers who have had a negative experience with you as a seller. Amazon uses it to assess a brand’s health as a seller. The ODR indicator is driven by customer feedback, so review management is the primary step for brands to avoid an Amazon ODR warning and improve their order defect.

6. Go Global

The Amazon marketplace is available in countries and markets worldwide, allowing brands to explore new territories and sell their products globally. Each foreign territory has a unique Amazon site that resonates with its culture and audience, making it easy for global sellers to compete with other brands. If your eCommerce brand has the operation capacity to expand globally, Amazon offers state-of-the-art international logistic capabilities.

Brands can expand in European countries like France, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, etc., and Asia Pacific locations like India, Japan, and Australia. Amazon is also available in emerging eCommerce locations like the Middle East, Brazil, Turkey, and Singapore.

7. Build a Branded Store

One of the best strategies to stand out on Amazon is to feature your products on a branded Store. Amazon has free tools that allow grants to build an online store where brands and sellers can showcase products and connect with customers. These stores look different from the typical Amazon listing layout and also have the option to create detailed pages with A+ content.

Build your Brand Page

For instance, Netgear, a company that offers technology-related products has an excellent branded store on Amazon. The brand has embedded images and videos that address buyers’ needs and how users’ lives are affected by using their products. The most attractive feature about this store is that they have integrated the value offered by their products into new use cases because of the current pandemic. For example, they’ve used phrases like “Make Online Learning fast and fun” and “Work from office at office speed.” Additionally, the categories and search tab help buyers search for specific products easily.

Creating branded stores allows you to build a beautiful brand experience for customers and offers a multi-page, immersive shopping experience. Brands can pick unique designs, integrate promotions, and use rich media to create a custom curation of handpicked products.

Conclusion

Amazon has 9.7 million sellers worldwide, of which 1.9 million are actively selling on the marketplace. The competition on Amazon is fierce, and it’s continuously increasing. Despite a large number of active sellers on Amazon, only a tiny fraction generates a significant portion of its total sales. Fewer than one in ten active Amazon sellers generated over $100,000 in annual sales, and only one percent of them hit the $1 million sales mark. Use these strategies to develop a comprehensive understanding of the Amazon platform and how to sell effectively on the platform while maximizing your presence amid rising competition.

April 26, 2022
eCommerce Performance Analytics for CPG Private Label
The combination of economic uncertainty, inflation, and perceived affordability has increased consumer’s willingness to buy and try more private label products, challenging National brands to differentiate their eCommerce strategies, especially those related to price positioning, in other ways.

Our previously released report, Inflation Accelerates Private Label Share and Penetration, confirmed 8 out of 10 brands with the highest SKU count carried across all grocery retailer websites to be private label, signaling the strength of their digital Share of Voice. Given the growing shift in consumer preference toward private label brands, we are providing access to the latest trends seen from September 2021 through March 2022. Below you will find a summary of what the data revealed about the growing presence of private label brands on the Digital Shelf.

Private Label Account and Category Penetration

We analyzed private label penetration at an account level to understand which private label brands have the greatest presence on retailer digital shelves, and to see which retailers may be leaving product assortment opportunities on the table.

Private Label Penetration Across Retail Grocer Websites

As a retailer, it is important to understand how your private label penetration stacks up against the industry average at a category level, especially given the performance tracked for retailers included within our analysis and the vast number of SKUs they offer online (over 20,000).

Private Label Penetration by Category Across Retail Grocer Websites

The Private Label and National Brand Price Gap Widens

Private label brands tried out of necessity mid-pandemic increased in popularity as grocery prices continued to rise, providing an opportunity for retailers to increase brand affinity and loyalty for their online shoppers. Retailers alike were able to keep affordability at the forefront of their strategies and maintain a price gap of 23% or more, despite inflationary pressures to increase prices.

Private Label / National Brand Price Gap by Retailer

Looking at the results at a category level, we can see that Meat is the only category found within our analysis where private label brands are priced higher than National brands at an average of 8% greater. The Alcohol & Beverages category tends to always see the greatest price gap between private label and National brands given the price variances by unit (ranging from under $10 to over $100), in this case averaging a 148% price gap.

Private Label & National Brand Price Gap by Category

Private Label Total Basket Value Comparison Across Retailers

While SKU-level pricing is extremely important to product strategy, for a retailer, it is equally as important to be as mindful of the total basket value even more so now as consumers further their private label loyalty across various categories. A few SKU-level missteps in pricing decisions can exacerbate cart abandonment and negatively impact shopper loyalty in a world where prices can be compared instantly in the palm of your hand.

Based on our analysis, Walmart and H-E-B private label products offered the lowest priced total basket of goods at $42.90 and $45.06 respectively, whereas AmazonFresh and Safeway offered the highest total at $73.19 and $69.52 respectively.

Private Label Item Level Price Comparison by Retailer

Inflation-driven Price Changes are on the Rise with Room to Grow

Based on the 20,000+ SKUs analyzed, we saw a continual price increase every month since September 2021 when comparing future monthly prices to those we tracked in September. The greatest price increase happened in March 2022 at 12.5% on average, however, there are still 48% of SKUs that have yet to see a price increase even as inflationary pressures rise.

When viewing the split between National and private label brand price increases in March 2022 versus September 2021, we saw National brands increased prices on average by 13% where private label brand prices only increased an average of 7%.

Private Label & National Brand Price Change (%)

Price decreases are still occurring across all categories, despite inflation, but to varying degrees ranging from 5% for Deli items to 17% for Dairy & Eggs. Within the Dairy & Eggs and Pantry categories, private label brands reduced prices for an additional 10% of total SKUs compared to National brands.

The greatest category of opportunity for price increases within private label were found within Beauty & Personal Care with 67% of private label products yet to see a price change since September 2021.

Price Change (%) by Category and Brand Type

Private Label Price Change Correlation to Product Availability

The category with the greatest magnitude of price increase seen within private label brands occurred within Baby at 16.3% followed by Home at 14.3% on average. Private label products within Home and Baby categories were also showing the lowest availability rates, 75.9% and 79.5% respectively, indicating a high demand for these items even as prices increased.

The private label categories with the smallest price increase on average were Dairy & Eggs at 2.4% and Other Foods and Pantry at 3.4% and 3.6%, respectively.

Private Label Price Change Magnitude & Availability

While in many accounts both private label and National brands struggled with stock availability in March 2022, National brand availability is much lower (around 10% on average) than private label availability.

H-E-B had the lowest overall product availability at 76% across both private label and National brands on average. Only Walmart had lower availability for Private Label at 75% compared to 93% for National brands, but they also had the greatest price gap between private label and National brands.

Private Label & National Brand Product Stock Availability

The Future of eCommerce Growth for Private Label

Our greatest learning from this analysis is that it’s time for retailers to start thinking and planning more like the National brands they carry when it comes to positioning their private label brands for success. Successful retailers are taking this time to reset their private-label strategies and transfer short-term switching behavior into long-term customer loyalty.

Retailers playing catch up have the opportunity to address some of the gaps highlighted throughout this analysis, for example, relative to pricing and assortment changes. Below are some of the highlighted opportunities:
- Though inflation is driving price hikes, more than 50% of products analyzed have yet to see a price increase indicating an opportunity to protect margin
- Narrowing the price gap between a store’s brand and National brands should not be the only focus as competitive private label brands are becoming a greater threat at a category and basket level
- Modifying and expanding assortments as demand increases for private label can improve customer retention and loyalty, especially for cross-shopping consumers
According to The Food Industry Association (FMI), only 20% of food retailers currently promote private brands on their homepages, and only 48% include detailed product descriptions indicating even more opportunities left on the table for retailers to optimize private label digital performance.

Many leading retailers are leveraging real-time digital marketplace insights and eCommerce analytics solutions like ours to further their online brand presence and optimize sales performance. This report highlights only a small sample of the types of near real-time insights we provide our clients to effectively build competing strategies, make smarter pricing and merchandising decisions, and accomplish eCommerce growth goals. Be sure to reach out to our Retail Analytics experts for access to more details regarding the above analysis.

For access to a previously recorded webinar presented in partnership with the Private Label Manufacturers Association and conducted by DataWeave’s President and COO, Krish Thyagarajan, click here.
April 12, 2022
Quick Commerce in 2022: An Era of Hyperlocal Delivery

Busy lifestyles, urbanization, aging populations, and smaller households led to the preference for convenience and efficiency in eCommerce deliveries. However, the Covid-19 pandemic caused a massive shift in customer demand and buying decisions. The modern consumer journey moved from takeaway food to online shopping to quick or same-day deliveries. With evolving digital touchpoints, customers now favor fast deliveries and convenience.

According to a 2020 survey by KPMG in the UK, 43% of consumers chose next-day delivery, a 4% increase from last year. Interestingly, 17% of consumers abandoned a brand if they faced a longer delivery. Standard delivery time has shortened from 3 to 4 days and two-day shipping to next-day or same-day delivery. This increasing trend of quick delivery has led to the boom of quick commerce or Q-Commerce. Quick commerce or on-demand delivery refers to retailers that deliver goods in under an hour or as quickly as 10 minutes. The rise of Q-commerce is caused by changing consumer behavior and rising expectations since the pandemic.

In this blog, you’ll learn about quick commerce or Q-Commerce and its benefits. You’ll also read about factors to consider for quick commerce and tips to implement this business model.

1. What is Quick Commerce?

On-Demand Delivery

Quick commerce or on-demand delivery is a set of sales and logistics processes that empowers eCommerce businesses, restaurants, grocery chains, and manufacturers to deliver products in less than 24-hours. A study shows that 41% of consumers are willing to pay for same-day delivery while 24% of customers will pay more to deliver their items within a one- or two-hour window.

Changing lifestyles and customer behavior directly impacted the rise of Q-Commerce. The takeaway food industry had used quick commerce for many years. But with Q-Commerce businesses consistently cutting delivery time, quick commerce for instant grocery delivery has become a new trend. For instance, India-based online grocery delivery firm Grofers rebranded to BlinkIt amid rising competition, promising 10-minute instant delivery.

2. How quick is Quick Commerce?

The post-pandemic lifestyle & the rise in the number of small and single-person households has led to an increase in demand for products in small quantities that need to be delivered sooner than later. Sometimes in as little as 10 minutes! This trend is oriented towards specific products such as packed or fresh foods, Groceries, Food delivery, Gifts, Flowers, Medicines to name a few.

Quick Commerce Categories

Local shops that can reach more customers with less friction have swapped traditional brick-and-mortar warehouses to cater to an urban population. These online Q-Commerce stores can deliver goods from favorite stores and offer a vast choice of products that are available 24/7. However, it requires real-time inventory management, data-driven pricing management, innovative logistics technology, a fantastic rider community, and a proper assortment.

3. Factors to consider for Quick Commerce

Competitive Assortment & Pricing

a. Assortment

With growing competition, getting product assortment right isn’t easy for quick commerce businesses, yet it’s critical to their success. To optimize assortment for quick commerce stores, they need to understand how demand differs between demographics and various stores. Since quick delivery involves packed and fresh products, it is even more essential to carry a unique assortment for each store.

Data analytics will help Q-Commerce businesses understand which products are repeatedly purchased in every store. It also helps identify high-demand gaps in your competitors’ platforms. Assortment analytics can help distinguish shifts in customer behavior across short- and long-term demands. The key to increasing sales is shaping inventory to match the overlap between market opportunity and consumer interest. With assortment analytics, they can determine the optimal mix of products for their daily inventory.

b. Pricing

Pricing information is readily available on quick commerce businesses, allowing customers to compare prices before making purchase decisions. Before deciding on a product, shoppers actively track the best deals on platforms across various Q-Commerce delivery platforms. According to a survey, 31% of consumers rated price comparisons as the essential aspect of their shopping experience. Understanding price perception can help quick commerce companies to optimize their pricing strategy while remaining competitive.

A competitive pricing strategy does not imply that Q-Commerce businesses have to cut prices. Instead, it’s about adjusting prices relative to your competitors but not significantly impacting the bottom line. Competitive pricing provides real-time pricing updates, allowing quick commerce platforms to drive sales by nailing their pricing strategy.

c. Delivery Time

Grocery Delivery Race In India

Delivery time has become the game-changer in quick commerce, with platforms fighting over shorter delivery times. Unpredictable factors such as specific delivery windows, last-minute customer requests, and traffic congestion can wreak havoc in your planning. Optimizing your delivery time can improve operational efficiency through faster delivery, quick route planning, and driver monitoring.

Big eCommerce platforms like Amazon offer same-day or next-day delivery to prime members with no extra fee on minimum order criteria. The only demand of customers who do not worry about discounts or lower wholesale prices is quick delivery. The demand for quick delivery services has led to many global retailers offering same-day delivery to meet those expectations.

d. Demand Forecasting

Since quick commerce is a viable solution for certain products, businesses must determine what customers want and when they want it. Q-Commerce businesses can use historical data to predict future sales patterns with demand forecasting. It ensures that Q-Commerce businesses can limit wastages and their inventory can cater to a targeted market. Demand forecasting also helps to replenish stock based on real-time data. Furthermore, companies can identify bottlenecks and points of wastage in the supply chain with a demand-driven system in place.

4. Benefits of Quick Commerce

Q-Commerce Benefits

a. Competitive USP

Q-Commerce businesses get new value propositions because customers that need immediate delivery are willing to try new brands and order from new stores. It also allows online Q-Commerce businesses to compete with global marketplaces and brick-and-mortar stores.

We at DataWeave have helped quick-service restaurants (QSRs) that are going the Q-Commerce route & selling via food aggregator apps to increase their revenue significantly. Our AI-Powered Food Analytic solutions have helped QSRs diagnose improvement areas, monitor key metrics, and drive 10-15% growth. Our data has helped them understand availability during peak times, monitor product visibility by region, track competitors, and choose suitable banners for promotion. Read more about that here.

b. Increase margins

A study from Deloitte suggests that 50% of online shoppers spend extra money to get convenient delivery of the products they need during the pandemic. These customers also paid extra for on-demand fulfillment and bought online pick-up in-store options.

Since the assortment of products in quick commerce is relatively small, Q-Commerce businesses can drive sales for their most profitable product lines. There is a potential for greater margins because wealthier demographics often require convenience. For instance, time-stranded professionals value convenience over discounts.

c. Customer experience is paramount

With quick commerce, retailers can meet customer expectations and exceed them, fostering brand loyalty. Quick commerce addresses customer pain points such as running out of food before a small party or getting a birthday present for your friends. It can simply help people who cannot make it to the shop or stock up essentials.

5. How to implement Quick Commerce

Implementation of Quick Commerce

a. The need for local hubs

To pack and deliver products in under an hour, businesses must be located close to the customers. Therefore, quick commerce relies on local warehouses that can serve customers in immediate proximity. Since the duration of two-wheelers is less likely to be impacted by heavy traffic or parking spaces, delivery services employ riders to deliver products.

b. Ensure you have the right analytics in place

Another essential part of running a quick commerce business is to have a web or phone application that can facilitate online ordering and offer accurate stock information to customers. Q-Commerce businesses also need a real-time inventory management tool that will provide insights into stock levels and allow for quick reordering and redistribution of products. This will also prevent deadstock and stockouts.

DataWeave’s Food Delivery Analytics product suite helps companies to increase order volumes, understand inventory, and optimize prices. It also provides access to discounts, offers, delivery charges, inventory, and final cart value across all your competitors.

c. It’s all about stock availability & assortment

Q-Commerce in the Grocery Delivery space is excellent for specific product niches like packed or fresh foods and vegetables, drinks, gifts, cosmetics, and other CPG products that customers use every day.

The stock assortment is as important in the Food Delivery space with restaurant chains like McDonald’s or Burger King that generate as much as 75% of their sales from online orders. These businesses have to make sure they’re carrying the most in-demand product assortment there is.

Conclusion

Same Day Delivery

The rise of quick commerce represents the next big change in eCommerce, accompanied by a shift in consumer behavior towards online grocery shopping and food ordering. When positioned with proper assortment and pricing, instant delivery services can allow Q-Commerce businesses to capture the influx of consumers looking for speedy delivery. By tapping into big data from quick commerce markets, Q-Commerce businesses can gain insights into consumer demands.

If you’re a Q-Commerce business in the Food Delivery or Grocery Delivery space, reach out to our experts at DataWeave to learn how our solutions can help you understand the best Pricing Strategy, Delivery Time SLAs, Assortment Mix you need in order to successfully sell on Q-Commerce platforms.

January 25, 2022
Beauty & Grooming Brands that are dominating on Amazon India
Growing awareness of personal hygiene and changing lifestyles has contributed to a significant development of India’s cosmetics, beauty, and personal care products. The Indian cosmetic industry reached a value of USD $26.1 bn in 2020. The major boom in sales is because of rising digitization, social media marketing, and the advent of eCommerce beauty platforms. However, the increase in demand and technological advancements has led to a competitive landscape for Indian and international brands competing for digital and physical channels. As of February 2019, 18.92% of respondents spent between 700 to 1700 rupees, and 43.9% spent up to 700 rupees monthly on cosmetics and personal care products in India.

Monthly spend on Personal Care Products in India

Shattering stereotypes and gender norms, India is also seeing a revolution in the male grooming industry, which is expected to reach INR 319.82 bn by 2024. The D2C market is expanding beyond metropolitan cities, and at present both D2C brands and startups have launched over 177 new products for men. “We realized there is an opportunity to create India’s first experiential brand exclusive for men,” says Hitesh Dhingra, Co-founder, The Man Company. He adds ecommerce business has grown almost by 200 percent. In a similar vein, Shantanu Deshpande, founder, and CEO, Bombay Shaving Company, concurs and adds the pandemic boosted online sales. He says that it has become easier for the company to compete with big brands on marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart.

With the onset of the pandemic, it has become more and more important for these D2C brands to have a strong digital presence and an even stronger Digital Shelf when selling on platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, Nykaa, and the likes. On these marketplaces, brands need to track critical KPIs like product discoverability, stock status & availability, reviews and ratings, pricing & promotions to make sure they’re optimizing product performance across all online channels to amplify their eCommerce growth.

So which beauty and grooming brands and categories have a strong Digital Shelf and are dominating on Amazon? Let’s take a look.

Men’s Grooming Brands and Categories

Methodology
- We tracked the first 250 products on Amazon against certain keyword searches specific to India’s Beauty & Grooming space.
  – Keywords specific to women’s grooming: anti-aging Cream, Face Mask, Paraben-free Shampoo, Onion Hair Oil, Body Wash, Moisturizer
  – Keywords specific to male grooming: Beard Oil, Hair Wax for men, Shaving Cream, After Shave Lotion, Beard Trimmer
- Share of Search (SoS) – The percentage of products that appeared on the search results page on Amazon belonging to a brand against a specific keyword or category.
- Data Scrape time period: From 14^th Oct 2021 to 10^th Nov 2021
THE BEAUTY IS IN THE DATA

On Amazon, brands use sponsored ads to increase visibility and drive more sales. When we looked at the product category with the most aggressive ad spends, products in the men’s grooming category came out on top and had the maximum number of sponsored products. 26% of beard trimmers were sponsored, followed by Beard Wax and Beard Oil at 25%. During the lockdown, more men started searching online for new products and watching instructional videos on how to groom their beards or how to get a salon-like shave at home. Demand for razors and trimmers is up by 50% compared to last year,” said Sidharth S Oberoi, founder and CEO, LetsShave. In contrast, we saw that only 11% of after-shave lotions and 15% shaving creams were discounted.

Percentage of Sponsered Items per Product Category

For women, we saw a similar trend. 24% of products in the Paraben-free Shampoos and Onion Oil category was sponsored. In contrast, only 5% of anti-aging creams were sponsored. Additionally, 21% of products in the face mask category and 23% in body wash were sponsored.

Competition is fierce in these categories, making an artificial boost necessary for increasing discoverability. In fact, we saw that the competition was the fiercest in the face mask category, which had the highest “1^st Page Change Rate.” It is an indicator of how much the results on the 1st page for a particular keyword change from time to time. This reflects higher competition and brands constantly updating their digital shelf KPIs to ensure their products appear on page 1. One of the biggest reasons why brands need to constantly gauge their online visibility is to track their sponsored & organic ranking compared to competitors.

Driving sales using a smart Discounting Strategy

Price can play a big role in the final purchase decision. So we looked at two things wrt price across all these beauty & grooming products.
- Which product Category had the maximum number of products on discount?
- … & how large were these discounts?
Percentage of Products on Discount

We saw that almost 55% of products in the body wash category & 46% of anti-aging creams were available at a discount. Beard Oil & Onion Hair oil had the least number of products discounted at 29% each.

Magnitude of Discount

How high were these discounts? Let’s take a look.

The highest discount was seen in the beard oil and moisturizer category, with an average discount of 17% across all products. The average discount trend across most product categories ranged between 14 to 17%, so we did see some consistency there.

Digital channels provide transparent insights into pricing & promotions, which is why customers are constantly comparing prices across various brands before making a purchase. This is why it is crucial for brands to remain competitive by tracking & comparing promotional strategies with those of their rivals.

To Review or Not to Review?

Consumers worldwide don’t make a purchase decision without reading online reviews. Online reviews and ratings have become a significant milestone in the modern consumer shopping journey, and eCommerce brands can leverage reviews as valuable sales tools. Given a choice between loyalty programs, discounts, reviews, and free shipping, online shoppers say reviews are the most important factor while making a purchase. Consumers trust user-generated content (UGC) more than product information and videos created by brands.

Number of Reviews per Product Category

We looked at product reviews to check consumers of which categories are actively sharing their experience and found that three categories stood out — beard trimmers, moisturizers, and paraben-free shampoo. At the same time, beard oil was the product category with the least number of reviews.

Companies can build consumer trust by identifying and acting on negative feedback. But in order to do that, they first need to de-code and understand the collective sentiment behind these reviews. DataWeave’s AI-Powered solutions can help brands break down & analyze online reviews and give them a wealth of insights to enrich their market research as well as create a seamless customer experience.

UNDERSTANDING THE COMPETITION ON AMAZON

When selling on Amazon, brands need to make sure shoppers find their products with ease. Keyword searches are the top ways consumers discover and find products across eCommerce sites. We tracked search visibility for the following keywords to see which brands had the highest share of search and appeared on the 1^st page on Amazon.

Be in any product category – moisturizers, shampoo, anti-aging cream, Mamaearth & WOW featured against most keywords, showing popularity among customers. WOW Skin Science raised $50 million in April 2021, and Mamaearth raised $50 million in July 2021. These two fresh-faced brands have built credibility among health- and environment-conscious users. They are big competitors when it comes to natural and toxin-free products. It’s their high product visibility in multiple categories that is likely leading to better discoverability, higher sales & increased valuation, and brand value.

Rankings of Top Brands in various cosmetic categories- (A)

In the male grooming space, we observed that established brands like Nivea, Old Spice, and Park Avenue had a lower share of search than new D2C brands like Beardo, The Man Company, Bombay Shaving Company, and Ustraa. Here’s clear proof of concept that brands need to evolve and adapt their Digital Shelf to selling online if they want to beat the competition.

Rankings of Top Brands in various cosmetic categories– (B)

Who were the Amazon Bestsellers?

Products on Amazon that have the highest sales in their respective categories are called Amazon Bestsellers. The Amazon Bestsellers rank is based on product sales and sales history where the list undergoes an hourly update. The bestseller ranking or bestseller badge is available in the product information section on the product page. The rankings are determined by comparing sales and historical data with products in the same category or subcategory.

Brands can make it to Amazon’s bestseller list by optimizing their listings, encouraging reviews, and listing products in the relevance of categories. Although Amazon does not consider reviews for product ranking, they help users convince them to buy your product.

Here are the Brands we say that made it to #1 on the Amazon BestSeller List for the following product categories.

Amazon Bestseller List

Gillette made it to the top in the aftershave lotion and shaving cream category, while D2C brands Ustraa made its mark bearing number 1 on Amazon Bestseller list for hair wax for men and beard oil.

Amazon Bestseller List

Products from Nivea and L’Oreal made it to #1 seller in 2 categories each. Interestingly, in the Paraben-Free shampoo category, when D2C brands like WoW, Mamaearth have a stronger value proposition, traditional brand L’Oreal had the best-selling product.

L’Oreal must’ve pulled various levers and built a robust Digital Shelf to get to the top – from optimizing their content, ensuring product availability, tracking ratings and reviews, and proper competitive pricing.

Conclusion

An increase in new D2C brands in popular and trending categories has led to increasing competition. Unless a brand can position itself in front of the target audience and command their attention right away, another brand can step in and grab the sale. Do you know if your brand is prepped and ready to make an impact on marketplaces like Amazon? Or simply just wondering if your Digital Shelf is optimized with the right price, discounts, reviews, and keywords? Our team at DataWeave can help! Reach out to our Digital Shelf experts to learn more!
January 7, 2022
2021 Cost-Push Inflationary Trends Ran Rampant, Impacting Holiday Discounts

Business has been anything but usual this holiday season, especially in the digital retail world. The holiday hustle and bustle historically seen in stores was once again occurring online, but not as anticipated given the current strength of consumer demand and the reemergence of COVID-19 limiting in-store traffic. While ‘Cyber Weekend’, Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, continues to further its importance to retailers and brands, this year’s performance fell short of expectation due to product shortages and earlier promotions that pulled forward holiday demand.

Holiday promotions were seen beginning as early as October in order to compete with 2020 Prime Day sales, but discounting, pricing and availability took an opposite direction from usual. This shift influenced our team to get a jump start on our 2021 digital holiday analysis to assess how drastic the changes were versus 2020 activity, and to understand how much of this change has been influenced by inflationary pressures and product scarcity.

Scarcity Becomes a Reality

Our initial analysis started by reviewing year-over-year product availability and pricing changes from January through September 2021, leading up to the holiday season, as detailed in our 2021 Cyber Weekend Preliminary Insights blog. We reviewed popular holiday categories like apparel, electronics, and toys, to have a broad sense of notable trends seen consistently throughout various, applicable marketplaces. What we found was a consistent decline in product availability over the last six months compared to last year, alongside an increase in prices.

Although retailers significantly improved stock availability in November and early December 2021, even digital commerce giants like Amazon and Target were challenged to maintain consistent product availability on their website as seen below. While small in magnitude, there is also a declining trend occurring again closer toward the end of our analysis period, post Cyber Weekend, across all websites included in our analysis.

Source: Commerce Intelligence – Product Availability insights for Home & Garden, Jewelry & Watches, Clothing & Shoes, Bed N Bath, Lighting & Ceiling Fans categories

Greater Discounts, Higher Prices?

With inflation at a thirty-nine year high, retailers and manufacturers have realized they can command higher prices without impacting demand as consumers have shown their willingness to pay the price, especially when threatened by product scarcity. Our assessment is that while some products and categories have responded drastically, manufacturers’ suggested retail prices (MSRPs) have increased nearly seven percent on average from January to December 2021. MSRP adjustments are not taken lightly either, as this is an indication increased prices will be part of a longer-term shift in product strategy.

Source: Commerce Intelligence – Pricing Insights for Bed & Bath, Electronics, Furniture, Healthy & Beauty, and Fashion categories on Amazon.com & Target.com each month in 2021 comparing price increases from January 2021 base

Our 2021 pre-Cyber Weekend analysis reviewed MSRP changes for select categories (Bed & Bath, Electronics, Furniture, Healthy & Beauty, and Fashion) on Amazon and Target.com, and found around forty-eight percent of products on Amazon and thirty-five percent of products on Target.com have increased their MSRPs year-over-year, but kept pre-holiday discount percentages the same.

Looking more specifically as to what year-over-year changes occurred on Black Friday in 2021, we observed MSRPs increasing across the board for all categories at various magnitudes. This indicates why 2021 discounts appeared to be greater than or equivalent to 2020 for many categories, when in reality consumers paid a higher price than they would have in 2020 for the same items.

Source: Commerce Intelligence – MSRP Pricing Insights for Bed & Bath, Electronics, Furniture, Healthy & Beauty, and Fashion categories on Black Friday November 27th, 2021, versus average MSRP pricing for the same SKU count from November 20-26th 2021

On Amazon.com, categories like health & beauty have already increase MSRPs by a much greater percentage and magnitude versus Target.com leading up to and during Black Friday 2021, while other categories like furniture have increased MSRPs evenly on average across both retail websites. The below chart cites a few specific examples of year-over-year SKU-level MSRP, promotional price, and discount changes within found within the electronics, furniture, fashion, and health & beauty categories.

Source: Commerce Intelligence – MSRP Pricing Insights for Bed & Bath, Electronics, Furniture, Healthy & Beauty, and Fashion categories on Black Friday November 27th, 2021, versus average MSRP pricing for the same SKUs on Black Friday November 26th, 2020.

Fewer, but Deeper Discounts

From October through early November 2021, fewer products were discounted compared to this same period in 2020, and the few that were saw much deeper discounts apart from the home improvement category. The most extreme example we saw in discounts offered was within furniture where only three percent of SKUs were on discount in 2021 compared to twenty-six percent in 2020. Interestingly, the magnitude of discount was also higher pre-Cyber Weekend 2021 versus 2020, but this trend was not exclusive to furniture and was also seen within electronics, health & beauty, and home improvement.

Source: Commerce Intelligence – Pricing Insights for Bed & Bath, Electronics, Furniture, Healthy & Beauty, and Fashion categories on Amazon.com & Target.com Pre-Black Friday average selling price during November 20-26th 2021 versus average selling price from November 13-19th 2021 compared to Pre-Black Friday average selling price during November 19-25th 2020 versus average selling price from November 12-18th, 2020.

Within the furniture category, the subcategories offering the greatest number of SKUs with price decreases on Black Friday 2021 were rugs by a wide margin, followed by cabinets, bed and bath, and entertainment units, but the magnitude of discounts offered were all under twenty percent.

Source: Commerce Intelligence – Pricing Insights for Bed & Bath, Electronics, Furniture, Healthy & Beauty, and Fashion categories on Amazon.com and Target.com on Black Friday November 27th, 2021, versus average pricing for the same SKUs from Pre-Black Friday November 20-26th 2021 and Black Friday November 26th, 2020, versus average pricing for the same SKUs from Pre-Black Friday November 19th-25th 2020

Accounting for this phenomenon could have been retailers’ attempts to clear inventory for SKUs which hadn’t sold even during the period of severe supply chain shortages. With more products selling at higher prices this year, retailers were also able to use fewer SKUs with greater discounts to attract buyer in hopes of filling their digital baskets with more full-priced goods, helping to protect margins heading in to Cyber Weekend. Scarcity threats also encouraged consumers to buy early, even when not on promotion, to ensure they would have gifts in time for the holidays.

The same trends seen pre-Cyber Weekend 2021 were also seen on Black Friday with a year-over-year decrease in the percentage of SKUs offered on discount versus 2020, and steeper price reductions for the discounted products which can also be attributed to the increase in MSRPs.

Source: Commerce Intelligence – Pricing Insights for Bed & Bath, Electronics, Furniture, Healthy & Beauty, and Fashion categories on Amazon.com and Target.com on Black Friday November 27th, 2021, versus average pricing for the same SKUs from Pre-Black Friday November 20-26th 2021 and Black Friday November 26th, 2020, versus average pricing for the same SKUs from Pre-Black Friday November 19th-25th 2020

2021 Black Friday Price Increases?

We all know Black Friday is all about price reductions, discounts and deals and so it’s rare to see actual price increases, yet for Black Friday 2021, trends ran counter to this. We observed price increases across all categories for around thirteen to nineteen percent of SKUs, with an average price increase of around fifteen percent in 2021 versus an average of only two percent in 2020.

Source: Commerce Intelligence – Pricing Insights for Bed & Bath, Electronics, Furniture, Healthy & Beauty, and Fashion categories on Amazon.com and Target.com on Black Friday November 27th, 2021, versus pricing for the same SKUs from Pre-Black Friday November 20-26th 2021 and Black Friday November 26th, 2020, versus average pricing for the same SKUs from Pre-Black Friday November 19th-25th 2020

At an account level, we noticed a few interesting differences happening on Black Friday 2021 versus 2020 regarding category price changes. On Target.com, almost ninety percent of the bed and bath SKUs analyzed had a price change on Black Friday in 2021 versus 2020 with eighty-two percent presenting a higher price year-over-year versus only around seven percent showing a decrease, where on Amazon nearly forty-four percent of bed and bath SKUs showed an increase in price and around thirty-eight percent showed a decrease. Except for the health and beauty category on Target.com, more than half of the SKUs in each category saw a price increase on Black Friday versus a price decrease.

Source: Commerce Intelligence – Pricing Insights for Bed & Bath, Electronics, Furniture, Healthy & Beauty, and Fashion categories on Amazon.com and Target.com on Black Friday November 27th, 2021, versus average pricing for the same SKUs on Black Friday November 26th, 2020.

The magnitude of year-over-year price changes seen on Black Friday 2021 was significant across all categories, but the magnitude of price increases found on Amazon.com within the health and beauty category outpaced the rest by far. We reviewed three hundred and sixty-five SKUs on Amazon.com within the health & beauty category and saw almost eighty-three percent of them had a price change with around thirty-one percent decreasing prices and around fifty-two percent increasing prices. This means that within the health & beauty category on Amazon.com, more than fifty percent of the SKUs tracked were sold at a one hundred and seventy-six percent higher price on average during Black Friday 2021 versus 2020.

Source: Commerce Intelligence – Pricing Insights for Bed & Bath, Electronics, Furniture, Healthy & Beauty, and Fashion categories on Amazon.com and Target.com on Black Friday November 27th, 2021, versus average pricing for the same SKUs on Black Friday November 26th, 2020.

The subcategories offering the greatest number of SKUs with price increases on Black Friday 2021 were cameras, followed by men’s fragrances, laptops, and desktops & accessories, but the magnitude of discounts offered were all under ten percent.

Source: Commerce Intelligence – Pricing Insights for Bed & Bath, Electronics, Furniture, Healthy & Beauty, and Fashion categories on Amazon.com and Target.com on Black Friday November 27th, 2021, versus pricing for the same SKUs from Pre-Black Friday November 20-26th 2021 and Black Friday November 26th, 2020, versus average pricing for the same SKUs from Pre-Black Friday November 19th-25th 2020

The Aftermath Post-2021 Cyber Weekend

Extending this analysis beyond the holiday weekend, we analyzed price change activity from December third through the ninth across the top US retailers (chart below) and found that price decreases have been very minimal, comparatively speaking. Though there was a spike in number of price decreases from December 8^th to the 9^th, the percentage of SKUs with price decreases was still very low (less than three percent). We anticipate this trend will continue into 2022.

Source: Commerce Intelligence – Pricing insights for Home & Garden, Jewelry & Watches, Clothing & Shoes, Bed N Bath, Lighting & Ceiling Fans categories

A Sign of Things to Come

A confluence of inflationary trends, product shortages and consumer liquidity have driven many marketplace changes to occur simultaneously. Government programs in the form of stimulus checks, have put extra money in consumers’ hands, and so they’ve been more willing to spend. That, coupled with the shock in the supply chain, has motivated people to buy far ahead of the 2021 holiday season. Hence, retailers have needed to rely much less on across-the-board discounts. Promotions have been more strategic – we’ve seen deeper discounts over fewer products, likely used to draw consumers in to buy certain items, and once they’re there, customers are buying everything else at a non-discount level. When these factors once again normalize, we could see a return to the “race to the bottom” that has occurred since the financial crisis of 2008-2009, but for once, retailers may be able to maintain some pricing power as the 2021 holiday shopping season played out.

Even though performance was not as anticipated and holiday sales did not grow as rapidly as they did in 2020, Cyber Monday was still the greatest online shopping day in 2021. Through it all, retailers managed to keep their digital shelves stocked and orders filled in time for the holidays for the most part, running the risk of housing aged inventory if goods didn’t arrive in time. Despite predictions for steep promotions in January 2022, with supply chains still challenged and inflationary pressures still full steam ahead, we don’t anticipate much in the way of enhanced discounts to continue beyond the holidays.

Access to these types of real-time digital marketplace insights can enable retailers and brands to make strategic decisions like how and when to address inflationary pressures, while also supporting many other day-to-day operations and help drive profitable growth in an intensifying competitive environment. Continue to follow us in the coming weeks for a detailed 2021 year-end review across more retailers and categories. Be sure to reach out to our Retail Analytics experts for access to more details regarding the above analysis.

January 4, 2022
2021 Cyber Weekend Preliminary Insights

The exponential growth of eCommerce has forever changed holiday shopping as we know it. What was once led by the launch of Cyber Monday in 2005, has since expanded to ‘Cyber Five’ in 2018, now spans beyond an eight-week period, and is collectively the busiest digital shopping period of the year. Most retail websites have launched a ‘Thanksgiving Comes Early’ sales event for a mosaic of products, causing one to wonder how this ‘early start’ to holiday shopping will impact the traditional promotional cadence consumers have grown to expect to see launch closer to the holidays. Given today’s environmental challenges, threats of scarcity are also encouraging consumers to buy early, which could also impact traffic on the shopping days that have traditionally seen the highest sales volume from digital shoppers.

In the current environment, the onus will be on consumers to keep a watch for their categories of interest and buy them as and when they appear on sale in their favorite store, because there is no guarantee of sustained availability. Of course, they might return and buy at a different store if a better deal comes up, but there’s a time cost for the dollars saved. More broadly, there has been enough noise made about deals and discounts to keep consumer interest and curiosity going.

The early promotional start and heightened demand has influenced our team to get a jump start on our 2021 Black Friday analysis to look deeper at trends seen pre-Black Friday 2021 versus 2020. With this assessment, we can track how promotional prices and product availability rates may have changed throughout the event leading in to 2021 Cyber Five, and compare it to last year’s activity to understand how 2021 holiday sales may be impacted.

We reviewed popular holiday categories like apparel, electronics, and toys (for kids and pets), to have a broad sense of notable trends seen consistently throughout various, applicable marketplaces. What we found is a consistent decline in product availability over the last six months and as compared to last year, alongside an increase in prices.

We first analyzed availability changes for popular categories on Amazon, noted in the chart below, to understand how inventory may have changed throughout the year, and also compared to 2020. With the exception of batteries and solar power goods and books and maps, there appears to be consistency in greater product availability in 2021 versus 2020, but a slow decline in availability throughout 2021, leading into the holiday season.

Source: DataWeave Commerce Intelligence – Product Availability in-stock percentage from July 2020 through September 2021 for a sample size of 1000+ products on Amazon.com

When it came to our pricing analysis, we reviewed select categories on Amazon and Target.com, and found around fifty percent of products on both websites to have seen a price increase year-over-year, while only thirty-seven percent and sixteen percent of products saw a price decrease on Amazon and Target.com, respectively. We also see an increase in the manufacturer’s retail price (MRP) in 2021 versus 2020 for a very high proportion of products (forty-eight percent of products on Amazon and thirty-five percent of products on Target.com), but the discount percentages have remained the same.

Source: DataWeave Commerce Intelligence – Pricing Intelligence: MRP and promotional pricing for 1000+ products on Amazon and Target.com were analyzed from November 13^th – 15^th,2021 versus Pre-Black Friday November 24^th & 25^th 2020

*Please reach out to our Retail Analytics experts for access to sub-category details available within the above analysis conducted on Amazon and Target.com.

This indicates 2021 discounts may appear to be greater than or equivalent to 2020, but in reality, consumers will end up paying higher prices than they would have for the same items in 2020. The remainder of this article highlights our key findings found within each key category reviewed – Electronics, Apparel and Toys.

Electronics Category Analysis

The television category showcases a great example of how pricing fluctuations impact holiday promotional cadences. Based on our analysis, we found the average television price to have increased around seven percent from April to October 2021, as seen below and as noted within our analysis conducted with NerdWallet.

Source: DataWeave Commerce Intelligence – Pricing Intelligence: The change in average price captured for televisions sold on Amazon from May 2021 through October 2021.

In fact, on Amazon and Target.com, we see around eighty-four percent of the SKUs listed show both an MRP and promotional price increase in 2021 versus 2020 during pre-Black Friday times. One specific example found on Amazon is noted below for Samsung TV model QN65LS03TAFXZA, a 65 inch QLED TV that was priced at $1697 during this analysis at a fifteen percent discount from MRP, but was priced last year at $1497 without a discount from MRP. In essence, even though the TV offers a greater discount this year, it is actually more expensive than it was in 2020 at this same time of year.

Source: DataWeave Commerce Intelligence – Pricing Intelligence: MRP and promotional pricing analysis on Amazon.com comparing prices from November 13^th – 15^th,2021 versus Pre-Black Friday November 24^th & 25^th 2020

Unlike TVs, the price of laptops has experienced a decrease over time based on our analysis conducted during the same timeframe, indicating these are a great buy for consumers this holiday season versus promotional offers seen in 2020.

Source: DataWeave Commerce Intelligence – Pricing Intelligence: The month-over-month change in average price captured for televisions sold on Amazon from April 2021 through September 2021.

Overall, our prediction is that within the electronics category, promotions during Cyber Five may be equivalent to last year’s offers, however, supply will be limited and the total spend versus last year will be greater to the consumer outside of Doorbuster deals offered on select models.

Apparel Category Analysis

The Luxury market is seeing a Roaring 20s-like feeling this season given the Covid-induced changes in work and lifestyle and higher disposable income. Therefore, our prediction is that prices for these goods are likely to remain flat, or offer very little discounts this season both due to supply constraints as well as higher demand. For example, our analysis on shoe pricing changes shows relative stability from April to October 2021.

Source: DataWeave Commerce Intelligence – Pricing Intelligence: The change in average price captured for shoes sold on Amazon from May 2021 through October 2021.

Given heightened demand and the Global shipping crisis, we anticipate luxury apparel categories to face out-of-stock challenges this holiday season, and therefore we also anticipate seeing less promotional activity for these items as well during Cyber Five 2021. To dive deeper into the severity of the impact, we looked at availability for clothing, accessories, and footwear categories from August 2020 until present to verify our thesis.

Focusing only on clothing, accessories, and footwear, these categories followed the same downward trending pattern regarding product availability decreases this year with a decline from June (seventy-six percent versus eighty-six percent in May 2021) to September 2021 (the lowest rate seen at sixty-eight percent availability), followed by a partial recovery in October and November (achieving seventy-seven percent availability).

Source: DataWeave’s Commerce Intelligence – Product Availability: 10k SKUs tracked across 11 retailers US websites (Farfetch, Brownsfashion, NetAPorter, EndClothing, 24s, Selfridges, Ssense, Harrods, Luisaviaroma, MyTheresa, MrPorter) tracked daily stock status in apparel categories; Availability is calculated as percent of instances when product is in stock against all instances tracked.

Not all recoveries were the same however, and given this, we predict accessories to have the lowest availability rate and greatest risk of facing out of stocks heading into Cyber Five. From May through November 2021, accessories availability continued to decline significantly from month to month, beginning at eighty-three percent in May and ending at seventy-four percent in November. Given this continued decline and with Black Friday right around the corner, we don’t anticipate inventory levels to increase enough to meet the increased holiday demand.

Source: DataWeave’s Commerce Intelligence – Product Availability: 10k SKUs tracked across 11 retailers US websites (Farfetch, Brownsfashion, NetAPorter, EndClothing, 24s, Selfridges, Ssense, Harrods, Luisaviaroma, MyTheresa, MrPorter) tracked daily stock status in apparel categories; Availability is calculated as percent of instances when product is in stock against all instances tracked.

Toys & Games Category Analysis

As noted by DigitalCommerce360, we also anticipate toys to be one of the greatest impacted categories this holiday season given the continued decline in overall availability for these items on Amazon.com, as one great example. Within our category analysis, we saw a steady decline in availability from March 2021 through June (eighty percent to sixty-one percent), followed by a period of stability from June through August (approximately sixty percent), followed by another decline from September through October, finally reaching the lowest availability of fifty-six percent (down twenty-four percent from March 2021).

Source: DataWeave’s Commerce Intelligence – Product Availability – hundreds of Toys & Games SKUs tracked on Amazon.com on a weekly basis from March 2021-October 2021

The biggest sub-category within the toys department on Amazon, Sports and Outdoor Play, followed the same trend as Toys and Games overall through June 2021, also reaching its lowest availability of fifty-six percent. Instead of continuing along that pattern, Sports and Outdoor Play started on a recovery path, ending at a relatively high availability level of sixty-seven percent in October, which is only five percent lower than its highest availability (seventy-two percent in March 2021). Games and Accessories, the second largest sub-category in Toys and Games, had a continuous decline starting with eighty-nine percent in March 2021, reaching its lowest availability of fifty-four percent in October.

Source: DataWeave’s Commerce Intelligence – Product Availability – hundreds of Toys & Games SKUs tracked on Amazon.com on a weekly basis from March 2021-October 2021

The sub-category Tricycles, Scooters and Wagons interestingly had its highest availability from July to September 2021 (around eighty percent), unlike other sub-categories which as a whole, had their lowest availability during the same timeframe. From September through October, there was a significant decline (fourteen percent), reaching its lowest availability of sixty-seven percent. The sub-category Babies & Toddlers started on a continuous decline from its highest availability of eighty percent in April to its lowest availability of fifty-six percent in October.

Source: DataWeave’s Commerce Intelligence – Product Availability – hundreds of Toys & Games SKUs tracked on Amazon.com on a weekly basis from March 2021-October 2021

*Please reach out to our Retail Analytics experts for access to sub-category details available within the above analysis on the Toys and Games category on Amazon.com.

Pet Toys Category Analysis

When it comes to in demand holiday toys, you can’t forget about the needs for gifts for our furry friends and family. We also tracked sub-categories such as dog, cat, and bird toys, following the same methodology as tracked within Toys and Games to track pet toy availability changes.

Source: DataWeave’s Commerce Intelligence – Product Availability – hundreds of Pet Toys SKUs tracked on Amazon.com on a weekly basis from March 2021-October 2021

Dog toys, the biggest sub-category out of the three pet toys analyzed, had high availability – ninety percent in March 2021, but started to decline reaching a low of sixty-five percent in October. There was a period of stability from April to August (averaging seventy-seven percent), followed by a significant decline of over thirteen percent in from September to October. Cat toys, the second largest sub-category, also had its highest availability in March (eighty-nine percent) followed by a steady decline to sixty-six percent in June, a recovery from July to August (achieving seventy-three percent), followed by another decline during September and October, reaching its lowest availability of sixty-three percent (down twenty-six percent from eighty-one percent in March). Interestingly, dog toys which has a product count eight times greater than cat toys, had higher availability than cat toys during each of the months considered during the analysis.

Source: DataWeave’s Commerce Intelligence – Product Availability – hundreds of Pet Toys SKUs tracked on Amazon.com on a weekly basis from March 2021-October 2021

In Conclusion

If we consider discounts and availability to be a good indicator of sales for the 2021 holiday season, with the Global shipping crisis looming over this year’s event, we expect retailers to have trouble keeping their inventory well stocked, which might affect growth rates. That being said, while discounts may be muted and popular items may come on very limited sales given constraints, we believe digital sales on Black Friday will see the highest year-over-year growth to date, given a number of supporting factors: scarcity threats increasing demand and the reason to buy, and consumers waiting to see if holiday offers surpass those see in the early start promotions, followed by the sudden rush to buy on Black Friday so as not to risk a given product being out of stock beyond this time period.

We also anticipate seeing a continued decline in product availability day-to-day as we progress throughout Cyber Five 2021. Given the analysis conducted on 2020 trends, (we tracked nearly a one percent decline in availability on Black Friday 2020 vs. Thanksgiving Day, followed by a two percent decline on Cyber Monday), our data indicates products went out-of-stock at a faster rate then also.

Ultimately only the digital-savvy retailers and brands will thrive during these opportune times, while others will continue to be in catch-up mode. Access to real-time marketplace insights can enable a first-to-market strategy, while having access to historical patterns can also help react faster to commonly seen future market factors, such as another pandemic or Global shipping crisis. These types of insights also support day-to-day operations, enabling retailers and brands to accelerate eCommerce growth, determine systems to distinguish their online strategies, discover efficiencies and drive profitable growth in an intensifying competitive environment.

Continue to follow us in the coming weeks to see the insights we track through Cyber Five 2021, and be sure to reach out to our Retail Analytics experts for access to more details regarding the above analysis.

November 23, 2021
Gold, Gift Hampers & Gadgets – brands that sparkled this Diwali!
The festival of lights symbolized the victory of light over darkness, good over evil & knowledge over ignorance. Over the years, Diwali has become all that and more. It has single-handedly become the biggest shopping season in India! Splurging on a new Smart TV or Fridge, or a furniture upgrade at home has become customary during Diwali. Not to forget buying gold and gifts for all your loved ones!

As more and more people are doing their Diwali shopping online, we decided to look at the data, see what people were browsing and buying. And more importantly, which brands spruced up their Digital Shelf & put their best foot forward this Diwali Season.

Methodology
- We tracked the first 250 products on Amazon & Flipkart against specific keyword searches & product categories.
- Share of Search (SoS): The percentage of products that appeared on the search results page on Amazon or Flipkart belonging to a brand, against a specific keyword or category.
- Dates of Crawl during the Flipkart Big Billion Day / Amazon Great Indian Festival.
  – Pre-sale period: 1^st October 2021
  – Sale Period: 3^rd to 10^th October 2021
  – Post Sale Period: 11^th – 18^th October 2021
India’s E-Commerce Gold Rush

YouGov reported that almost three in ten urban Indians (28%) are planning to spend on gold in the next 3 months. Seven in ten (69%) of these prospective gold buyers agreed with the statement, “Diwali is the best time to buy gold”, highlighting their inclination to spend during the festive season. Also, the same survey showed that Tanishq was the most trusted gold brand. With Kalyan Jewellers, Malabar Gold & Diamonds and PC Jewellers also making it to the top 5 list.

While traditionally Gold was mostly sold offline, that trend has fast changed. We tracked brands that had the highest Share of Search against the keyword “Gold Coin” on both Amazon & Flipkart to see if Tanishq, Malabar Gold, PC Jewellers – the big trusted names in jewellery were making their mark online.

Search Insights for Gold Coin
- On Amazon, MMTC-PAMP (a joint venture between Switzerland-based PAMP SA & MMTC Ltd, a Government of India undertaking) and Kundan had the highest visibility for the keyword “Gold Coin” at 10%, followed by Malabar Gold at 9%. (Refer to above graph of Search Visibility on Amazon)
- MMTC-PAMP used the help of Sponsored ads to get this visibility. They sponsored 9 products during the sale, while ACPL, the largest supplier of silver in India sponsored 26 products and New Delhi-based PC Jewellers sponsored 12 products. (Refer to above graph of Sponsored Products on Amazon)
As recently as 2 weeks ago, MMTC-PAMP launched their e-commerce portal following in the footsteps of other jewellery brands. According to a report by the World Gold Council, the jewellery industry went through a massive slowdown amid the pandemic and prepping their e-commerce & digital strategies are likely going to be the only way forward.
- On Flipkart, PC Jewellers, Malabar Gold & Kundan occupied the top 3 spots on the search results page. While PC Jewellers sponsored 12 products on Amazon, on Flipkart they sponsored zero. Malabar Gold on the other hand sponsored a whopping 25 products on Flipkart! Interestingly Malabar Gold sponsored no products on Amazon for the keyword Gold Coin. (Refer to above graph of Sponsored Products on Flipkart)
Unboxing the love – Branded Diwali Gift Hampers

Branded-Diwali-Gift-Hampers

Now let’s talk about Diwali Gifts. How often have you thought of buying someone a Diwali gift but had absolutely no idea what to get them? You’re not alone! A lot of consumers would simply run a search for “Diwali Gift Hampers” or Diwali Gifts” in the hope to stumble across a great gifting idea and make an instant purchase! Smart brands who know this make sure their products have organic or sponsored visibility against these keywords

On Amazon, Tied Ribbons, a D2C gift and Décor company had the highest number of Sponsored products (15) against the keyword Diwali Gift followed by the iconic Brand Archies with (14) products.
Flipkart had a whole bunch of smaller brands and sellers optimizing their products for this keyword. Some bigger, more known brands like Chaayos, Cadbury, D2C Tea brand Vahdam did have visibility for the keywords “Diwali Gift Hampers/ Diwali Gifts” but they were way down on the list, at the bottom of the search results page, or on Page 2.

Was this a missed opportunity for them?

Give your home a festive upgrade!

Diwali is a perfect time to upgrade or buy new electrical appliances for your home. Great prices, new product launches, and an unmatched festive feeling make it even more ideal to make new purchases. If you’re eyeing smart innovative electrical appliances for your home this year and decided to go make your purchase during the Flipkart Big Billion Day or Amazon Great Indian Festival, let’s take a look at which brands made sure they showed up right on top in your online search.

We tracked search visibility for 5 keywords in the home appliance space – Smart TV, Washing Machine, Microwave, Air Conditioner & Refrigerators to see which brands had the highest share of search

Brands with the Highest Share of Search on Amazon
- On Amazon, both Samsung & LG had high visibility across all products except Air Conditioners!
- For ACs, Voltas had the highest share of search even though they sponsored 0 products! And that’s definitely noteworthy. So what really gave them the edge and put them in this winning position?
We took a look at their product reviews to draw an analysis. Voltas ACs had close to 10k reviews! The highest in the AC category. Ratings & Reviews play a key role in helping brands drive their Digital Shelf experience. Customers trust user-generated content more than information brands share with them. Also, Amazon’s A9 algorithm prioritizes products with better reviews & shows them higher up in search – a low-cost & organic way for brands to get to the top without spending money on Sponsored ads!

Most loved Air Conditioner brand
- When it comes to washing machines, Lloyd & White Westinghouse (trademark by Electrolux) sponsored the maximum number of products in the category, this gave them the highest Sponsored SoS (13%) on the first page.
- While their sponsored visibility was high, their overall SoS was low which is why they didn’t organically feature in the top 5. Sponsoring products is a great but expensive way to artificially boost product visibility during sale periods. Brands need to go the Voltas route by optimizing their reviews & rating or content, to organically gain and sustain product visibility.
… & here are the brands that made it to the top on Flipkart.

Brands with the Highest Share of Search-on-FLIPKART

Gift-worthy gizmos!

Buy the latest gadgets and pamper yourself this Diwali or gift them to your loved ones! You could be looking to upgrade your laptop, or buying a fancy DSLR or Smartwatch, buying it online may be your best bet. Discounts have dwindled over the years but you may still get the most lucrative discounts online. Let’s look at the discounts offered on Amazon & Flipkart for some gift-worthy gizmos like Laptops, Cameras, Smart Watches & Headphones this festive season.

The platform that offered the highest number of products in their catalog at a discount

On Amazon, during the sale, the headphones category offered a 75% of products on discount as compared to the pre-sales period. That number was just around 51% for cameras. Far more number of products were discounted on Flipkart – 87% for headphones & laptops. And cameras 77%. So if you were looking to shop for gadgets around Diwali, Flipkart would’ve been a better bet.

Let’s look at which platform offered the highest percentage of discounts on products.

Discounts were higher across all 4 product categories!

Apart from more products being discounted on Flipkart, Flipkart also offered higher discounts across these 4 categories. Discounts were higher across all 4 product categories!

Do you know if your brand is prepped and ready to make an impact on a Big Festival Sale Day? Or simply just wondering if your Digital Shelf is optimized with the right price, discounts, reviews and keywords? Our team can DataWeave can help! Reach out to our Digital Shelf experts to learn more.
November 12, 2021
Discounts continue to fizzle out on Amazon-Flipkart as e-commerce gathers steam

Around 30 percent of electronic products across Amazon and 19 percent across Flipkart continued to be sold without any discount during October which is ironically seen as the festive month where the two companies make tall claims about deals and discounts offered around Indian festivals.

Out of the 70-80 percent products where discounts were available, Flipkart surprisingly turned out to be more generous than Amazon during the period under review.

As per the data exclusively shared with Moneycontrol by digital commerce analytics platform DataWeave, Flipkart on an average offered 26.3 percent discounts across the categories mentioned as compared to Amazon which had just 10.6 percent discounts.

What makes it more interesting is that while Amazon was officially running its flagship sale The Great Indian Festival for the entire month, Flipkart had concluded its The Big Billion Days on October 10th itself.

However, it looks like the latter was in no mood to let the competition have it all.

The pattern is slightly different from the week-long data which was reported by Moneycontrol last month. During the first week of the festive sale, both the two companies offered no additional discounts across 30 percent of the products across the electronics category which houses products like refrigerators, air-conditioners, and laptops.

While Amazon continues to stick to the trend, Flipkart seems to have become a little aggressive there.

On a product level, across air conditioners, while Flipkart offered discounts across 84 percent of the products, Amazon offered it only across 73.1 percent of products. Laptops saw at least 87 percent of products on Flipkart having discounts while on Amazon it was across 76.3 percent.

Smart TV interestingly had a different pattern. While Amazon had 72.1 percent of the products at a discounted price, Flipkart had just 63.7 percent of smart TV’s on discount.

Interestingly, on Amazon and Flipkart at least 2.5 percent and 3.1 percent of electronic products also had a price hike during the period under review respectively.

This is a far cry from discounts in the 60-70 percent range that the two companies advertise across electronics and appliances categories on their platforms during the sale period to lure customers.

“Sellers decide the price of their products on Amazon. Our investment in technology and infrastructure has allowed them to save costs and consistently offer great prices to customers. Our partnership with banks, sellers, and ecosystem partners allow us to add further value through exchange offers, no-cost EMI, instant bank discounts among others, ” said an Amazon spokesperson.

Flipkart did not respond to queries.

Bengaluru-based Dataweave counts Japanese ad-tech firm FreakOut Group and domestic venture capital firm Blume Ventures among its investors. The data was shared exclusively with Moneycontrol.

The price comparisons were made with rates displayed on October 1, the last business-as-usual day before the sale started and the month-long sale period beginning October 3.

For this analysis, DataWeave crawled pages of the electronics category, which houses products, including air-conditioners, cameras, headphones, laptops, microwave ovens, refrigerators, smart televisions, smartwatches and washing machines. The firm scanned 2,285 products on Amazon and 3,131 on Flipkart.

According to experts,…Continue reading the article here
This article was originally published on Moneycontrol on November 3, 2021

November 3, 2021
Amazon-Flipkart sops war in festive sales fizzles out, shows data

Discounts may have been scaled down as the e-commerce market matures and the government looks out for alleged malpractices.

Radhika Subramanium made umpteen trips to the shiny black Bosch mixer-grinder on her phone in the last few weeks. She put it in her shopping cart and waited for the festive season sale to begin, hoping to get a good deal. At the end of the day, who doesn’t want to save a few extra bucks?

But, on October 3, the big day when e-commerce giants Amazon and Flipkart locked horns and launched The Great Indian Festival and Big Billion Days, Subramaniam was sorely disappointed. Her cart barely showed any discount. She bought the appliance anyway because it was needed, but her excitement was gone.

It was largely the same story for Vaibhav Jaiswal. His Boat headphones didn’t even fetch a Rs 200 discount.

Revati Krishna, in fact, checked out with zero discount on the sit-and-bounce ball she had picked up for her nephew.

Subramanium, Jaiswal and Krishna are among hundreds of Indians who realised that e-commerce sales no longer offer the lucrative discounts they used to, except for select products such as mobile phones.

On average, 30 percent of the products sold across the electronics category which houses products like refrigerators, air-conditioners and laptops on Amazon and Flipkart had no discount during their week-long festive sale season, according to a study by a data analytics company.

Higher prices

Interestingly, 8-11 percent of the products across categories such as washing machines, microwave ovens and laptops even showed higher prices during the sale across the two platforms.

The price comparisons were made with rates displayed on October 1, the last business-as-usual day before the sale started.

The data was compiled by Bengaluru-based digital commerce analytics platform DataWeave, which counts Japanese ad-tech firm FreakOut Group and domestic venture capital firm Blume Ventures among its investors. The data was shared exclusively with Moneycontrol.

The discounts were lean even on lower-priced products. Amazon dangled a 6.4 percent discount on air-conditioners priced at Rs 33,500-34,000 during the sale, while Flipkart offered barely a 5 percent discount, according to the data.

This is a far cry from discounts in the 60-70 percent range that used to be advertised across electronics and appliances categories on online marketplaces.

For this analysis, DataWeave trawled the first five pages of the electronics category, which houses products, including air-conditioners, cameras, headphones, laptops, microwave ovens, refrigerators, smart televisions, smartwatches, and washing machines. The firm scanned 1,184 products.

Gone are the days when discounts were offered for habit-forming. According to experts, with the markets maturing, companies no longer fancy hoarding deal hunters.

“As people have got used to buying online, the companies have decided to focus on convenience rather than price,” said Harish HV, managing partner at ECube Investment Advisors. “You won’t even find a significant difference between the price of a product across the two marketplaces Amazon and Flipkart, which have a clear duopoly. It will go on like this unless a big new entrant starts disrupting prices again.”

According to Harish Bijoor, … Continue reading the article here
This article was originally published on Moneycontrol on October 27, 2021

October 29, 2021
Amazon Prime Day Secrets all Brands need to know.
Prime Day or not, brands need to make sure their Digital Shelf is well stocked, highly discoverable in crowded marketplaces, have the right offers and discounts to stay competitive, all while making sure their products have glowing reviews, ratings and optimized content. While this is a year-round effort, brands go the extra mile on Prime Day to make sure they’re putting their best foot forward.

Methodology
To understand how brands adapted their digital shelf for Prime Day, we examined data insights across Amazon in 6 markets and compared the following brand KPIs:
- Share of voice (SOV): The percentage of a brands products that appear in the search results page for relevant keywords on Amazon.
- Availability: The percentage of products in stock on Amazon for Prime Day.
- Additional discounts: The reduction in the listing price of a product during Prime Day compared to before or after the event to see how brands adapted their pricing strategies to stand out from rivals
Winning brands made sure their products were ‘highly’ discoverable

With all the global lockdowns, home entertainment hit a new high. So we looked at the word “TV” to see which brand had the highest share against this keyword during the Prime Day event.
- In the US – Samsung won hands down with close to 15% SOV. LG came in at a not so close 2nd with 9% SOV.
- In the UK – Samsung won again with a whooping 16.7% SOV with Sharp at # 2 at 12%.
Now let’s look at some key European markets
- On Amazon Italy we saw a similar trend – Samsung & LG, neck to neck at 22% & 19% respectively.
- Amazon Germany was no different – Samsung had the highest SOV at 15% and Philips far behind at 7%.
Samsung has such a strong association with the keyword TV. This means, when customers are searching for TVs on Amazon in these regions – the brand that has the largest selection up on display for them to choose from is Samsung! That’s definitely going to have a positive impact on sales, don’t you think?

Do you know which keywords you should be tracking for your brand? And do you know your Brand’s SOV against those keywords?

… & finally, an outlier!
- In Amazon France, LG took the lead for a change – with 15% SOV. But we have Samsung not far behind at 13%.
Kudos to team Samsung!

Winning Brands kept a close eye on product availability

Poor product availability leads to lost sales. But not on Amazon Prime Day! Bigger brands that sell over 500 products created artificial scarcity by listing a chunk of products out of stock before the sale. And restocked aggressively during the sale.

In contrast, the smaller brands that sold fewer than 100 products didn’t dare make such bold moves and stayed stocked up even pre-event to avoid even a single day of lost sales.

Let’s look at some data from the US
- The average availability for bigger brands selling 500+ products before the sale was 41% and then went up dramatically to 81.4% the day of the sale when they aggressively restocked.
Similar trend in the UAE
- Availability pre-sale was 26.2% and during the sale shot up to 87.6%!
Various other markets displayed similar patterns. And this was only possible because these brands were able to track their availability with precision and plan their stock levels accordingly.

How are you tracking your availability across marketplaces? Do you know when your products are out of stock and are in immediate need of replenishment?

Winning Brands made strategic pricing and discounting decisions

Discounts matter. Period. And brands that use discounts strategically, win.

Let’s look at Airpods on Amazon in the US.
- During the event, Apple had the highest SOV for the keyword Airpod at 7.5% followed by SkullCandy, an American audio accessory manufacturer at 5.6%.
- Here’s the interesting part – during the sale Apple offered just 3.4% additional discounts while SkullCandy offered 32.1% additional discount to try and win sales from Apple. And looks like it worked! Apples SOV dropped from 13.5% before the event to 7.5% during the event and SkullCandy’s SOV improved
Now let’s look at the same data cut in the UAE – a market where Apple products have a fair penetration, but not as high as in the US. They needed a more aggressive discounting strategy in this market.
- In the US, during the sale, Apple offered additional discounts on just 30% of products. However, in the UAE that number rose to 90% – a clear strategy to make their product pricing more attractive to customers to win sales
Discounts and markdowns aren’t always the answer to improving sales, but when used strategically can drive significant impact to your bottom line.

Are you tracking your competitor pricing? Do you know if they’re keeping tabs on your pricing strategy to get ahead of you?

Winning Brands made it to the Amazon Best Seller list

Amazon Best Sellers are products that have the highest sales on Amazon. Products with a higher Amazon Best Seller Rank have higher sales.
- In the US, Nintendo had the highest share in the Electronics Best Seller category during the sale at 18.6%. Before the sale their share stood at 22.5% – so they lost ground a little ground with a 27.2% drop in their Best Seller share. While they gave additional discounts of 17%, only 27% of their catalogue was discounted.
- But here’s a brand that knocked it out of the park! The Razer had an SOV of just 1.18% before the sale and during Prime Day it shot up to 6%! A clear indication that sales for the Razer spiked exponentially during Prime Day. Could this be because Razer offered 100% of their catalogue on an additional discount of 31%? It’s a bold move that could have paid off and contributed to super high sales.
Now let’s look at France – the Fashion Capital of the World and which brand came out on top in the Fashion Best Seller Category
- Footwear brand Havaianas had the highest SOV on Prime Day (13.48%) Not too surprising because before the sale they were at 14.09%
- Now let’s look at the Best Seller Rank – Lacoste secured BSR #1 at the event. Pat on the back for them because before the sale they were at Rank 46! And post-sale they dropped to #6. Definitely a combination of techniques involved here that got them from #46 to #1 at super speed!
What techniques have you tried to boost sales for your products on Amazon?

Brands that do not optimize their Digital Shelf risk losing out on their share of basket. If you’ve been thinking about how to optimize your Brands Digital Shelf, then get in touch & learn how DataWeave can help!
August 3, 2021
Amazon Prime Day 2021 Discounts Set Home Leaders Apart

Home is where the shopping cart is.

After last year’s blistering pace of e-commerce sales growth in the home category, we at DataWeave wanted to know how Prime Day 2021 discounts on home products would impact retailers and brands around the world.

We focused our analysis on how international retailers adapted their Prime Day pricing strategies to distinguish their offerings across eight home subcategories, including bed & bath, kitchen and pet supplies.

Our Methodology
We tracked the pricing of products among 21 leading retailers in nine countries across five regions, including:

• The US (Ace Hardware, Amazon US, Best Buy, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Petco, PetSmart, Target and Wayfair US)
• The UK (Amazon UK, Ebay, Etsy, OnBuy and Wayfair UK)
• Europe (Amazon France, Amazon Germany and Amazon Italy)
• The Middle East (Amazon Saudi Arabia and Amazon UAE)
• Asia (Amazon Japan and Amazon Singapore)

The results showed some surprising differences among retailers and regions. See how retailers used pricing as a competitive strategy to win Prime Day sales in the home category, as well as international home brands that stood out for the discounts on their products.

Percentage of items with a price decrease

The US retailer with the overall highest percentage of home products with a price decrease for Prime Day was Amazon US (26.4%).

Home subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per US retailer were:

• Ace Hardware: Power & hand tools (21.2%)
• Amazon US: Furniture (36.3%), appliances (34.1%) and kitchen (28.3%)
• Best Buy: Appliances (0.9%)
• Home Depot: Power & hand tools (0.2%)
• Lowe’s: Furniture (29.2%), power & hand tools (5.5%) and appliances (4.1%)
• Petco: Pet supplies (11.6%)
• Target: Bed & bath (37.9%), furniture (32.5%) and kitchen (11.5%)
• Wayfair US: Pet supplies (31.9%), home & garden (25.6%) and bed & bath (24.8%)

The UK retailer with the overall highest percentage of items with a price decrease for Prime Day was Amazon UK (36.4%).

Home subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per UK retailer were:

• Amazon UK: Appliances (41.7%), power & hand tools (39.5%) and furniture (36.4%)
• Ebay: Smart home (10.5%), bed & bath (10.1%) and furniture (8.3%)
• Etsy: Bed & bath (1.7%), kitchen and pet supplies (both 1.5%)
• Wayfair UK: Kitchen (17.7%), bed & bath (10.8%) and home & garden (5.9)

In Europe, Amazon Germany had the overall highest percentage of items with a price decrease for Prime Day (27.3%).

Home subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per European retailer were:

• Amazon France: Appliances (15.9%), power & hand tools (15.8%) and furniture (14.2%)
• Amazon Germany: Power & hand tools (40.0%), appliances (33.7%) and pet supplies (28.4%)
• Amazon Italy: Furniture (11.8%)

Across the Middle East & Asia, Amazon UAE had the overall highest percentage of items with a price decrease for Prime Day (41.6%).

Home subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per retailer were:

• Amazon Saudi Arabia: Power & hand tools (53.8%), pet supplies (33.3%) and appliances (30.4%)
• Amazon UAE: Appliances (55.8%), kitchen (49.9%) and pet supplies (49.0%)
• Amazon Japan: Appliances (15.3%), power & hand tools (10.8%) and furniture (9.0%)
• Amazon Singapore: Bed & bath (35.4%), appliances (30.2%) and power & hand tools (27.2%)

Magnitude of price decrease

The US retailer with the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease for Prime Day was Target (20.3%).

The home subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per US retailer were:

• Ace Hardware: Power & hand tools (14.3%)
• Amazon US: Kitchen (21.0%), appliances and pet supplies (both 18.3%) and furniture (15.1%)
• Best Buy: Appliances (8.7%)
• Home Depot: Power & hand tools (17.7%)
• Lowe’s: Power & hand tools (13.4%), furniture (13.0%) and appliances (10.8%)
• Petco: Pet supplies (17.2%)
• Target: Bed & bath (28.9%), smart home and kitchen (both 19.1%) and furniture (18.5%)
• Wayfair US: Pet supplies (4.6%), kitchen (4.4%) and bed & bath (4.1%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases per US retailer included:

• Ace Hardware: Zircon (48.6%), Smith\u0027s (36.1%) and DMT (30.0%)
• Amazon US: Supply Guru (56.3%), Seresto (55.4%) and Advantage (53.4%)
• Best Buy: Panasonic (29.1%), Farberware (16.6%) and Insignia™ (14.0%)
• Home Depot: Husky (17.7%)
• Lowe’s: Metabo HPT (43.2%), Dewalt (27.8%) and GZMR (26.5%)
• Petco: Seresto (50.0%), Open Road Brands (45.4%) and Starmark (42.1%)
• Target: Little Tikes (50.0%), Bobsweep (43.9%) and Shark (42.2%)
• Wayfair US: Sorbus (57.8%), GE Appliances (45.9%) and Nu Steel (42.1%)

The UK retailer with the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease for Prime Day was Etsy UK (19.8%).

The home subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per UK retailer were:

• Amazon UK: Furniture (21.8%), power & hand tools (21.5%) and appliances (20.8%)
• Ebay: Pet supplies (12.2%), appliances and furniture (both 12.0%) and bed & bath (10.0%)
• Etsy: Pet supplies (44.3%), kitchen (18.1%) and bed & bath (14.2%)
• Wayfair UK: Home & garden (12.2%), bed & bath (9.2%) and furniture (8.9%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases across home sub-categories per UK retailer included:

• Amazon UK: Tefal (54.0%), Caterpack (51.6%) and Nylabone (49.9%)
• Ebay: Bob Martin (59.8%), Fridgemaster (57.5%) and Tetramin (49.3%)
• Etsy: Celebnails and vitrifiedstudio (both 49.5%), Deco-Den UK Supplies (46.5%) and Caxo Beauty (36.9%)
• Wayfair UK: Breakwater Bay (41.1%), Zipcode Design (33.3%) and Heritage Brass (29.7

Among European retailers, Amazon Italy offered the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease for Prime Day (29.9%) among a total of 49 products.

The home subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per European retailer were:

• Amazon France: Bed & bath (11.7%), pet supplies (11.2%) and appliance (9.2%)
• Amazon Germany: Kitchen (23.4%), power & hand tools (22.3%) and furniture (20.2%)
• Amazon Italy: Furniture (29.9%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases per European retailer included:

• Amazon France: Thermobaby (47.6%), Sinogoods (44.6%) and Tractive (40.0%)
• Amazon Germany: Sage Appliances (56.5%), Nasum (51.7%) and Hikenture (49.2%)
• Amazon Italy: Gifort (55.1%) and Wokkol (4.8%)

Across the Middle East and Asia, Amazon UAE offered the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease for Prime Day (15.3%).

The home subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per retailer were:

• Amazon Saudi Arabia: Furniture (18.0%), pet supplies (15.9%) and power & hand tools (15.8%)
• Amazon UAE: Pet supplies (17.8%), appliances (16.4%) and kitchen (16.2%)
• Amazon Japan: Kitchen (25.4%), furniture (14.5%) and bed & bath (13.6%)
• Amazon Singapore: Kitchen (14.0%), furniture (11.1%) and appliances (8.0%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases per retailer in the Middle East and Asia included:

• Amazon Saudi Arabia: American Baby Company (55.5%), Charmcollection (49.0%) and LG (46.9%)
• Amazon UAE: Knorr (54.0%), Ocean Patio (50.0%) and Bikuul (48.2%)
• Amazon Japan: キングジム (King Jim) (59.1%), Skylight (52.0%) and Cozyone, Hbada and Bauhutte (バウヒュッテ) (all 50.0%)
• Amazon Singapore: Trademark Home (59.8%), Gaggia (54.5%) and Ely’s & Co. (46.8%)

Discounts before, during and after the event

The US retailer with the biggest overall home discount before Prime Day was Amazon US (27.0%). Amazon’s biggest pre-event discounts were on power & hand tools (28.6%), kitchen (28.3%) and furniture (28.0%).

Ace Hardware offered the biggest discounts on power & hand tools during and after the event (both 34.1%).

Amazon UK stood out for discounts this Prime Day. It was the UK retailer with the biggest overall home discount before (26.1%) Prime Day, with the deepest discounts on appliances (29.0%), power & hand tools (27.1%) and pet supplies (25.9%).

During Prime Day, Etsy and Amazon UK offered the biggest discounts (29.7% and 29.6%, respectively).
Etsy’s top discounts were on pet supplies (40.0%), kitchen (32.5%) and bed & bath (28.1%), while Amazon UK’s top discounts were on power & hand tools (32.3%), appliances (31.4%) and pet supplies (28.9%).

After the event, Etsy had the biggest discount (29.8%), led by kitchen (34.3%), pet supplies (32.9%) and bed & bath (28.9%).

In Europe, Amazon Italy offered the biggest overall home discount before (31.6%) and during (29.4%) Prime Day. Amazon France offered the biggest discount after (21.4%) Prime Day.

In the pre-sales event, Amazon Italy gave the most generous discounts on pet supplies (31.6%) and appliances (9.3%).

During Prime Day, Amazon Italy offered the biggest discounts on pet supplies (31.6%), furniture (28.3%) and appliances (9.3%).

After Prime Day, Amazon France offered the biggest discounts on kitchen (24.6%), appliances (22.9%) and pet supplies (21.4%).

Popularity

In the US, among home products with high popularity, Amazon US offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (26.8%) and Target offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (23.6%).

For home items with moderate popularity, Amazon US offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (26.9%) and Target offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (18.9%).

Among home merchandise with low popularity, Amazon US offered both the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (23.8%) and the greatest magnitude of price decrease (15.9%).

Amazon UK stood out in this analysis of product popularity. In the UK, among home products with high popularity, Amazon UK offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (37.1%) and Etsy offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (20.9%).

For home items with medium popularity, Amazon UK offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (35.9%) and Etsy offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (24.4%).

Among home merchandise with low popularity, Amazon UK offered both the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (34.9%) and the greatest magnitude of price decrease (21.7%).

In Europe, Amazon Germany stood out for discounts for home products across all levels of popularity.

Among home goods with high popularity, Amazon Germany offered both the highest overall percentage of items with a price decrease (29.1%) and the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease (19.1%).

For home items with medium popularity, Amazon Germany offered both the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (28.4%) and the greatest magnitude of price decrease (19.8%).

Among home merchandise with low popularity, Amazon Germany offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (22.5%) and Amazon Italy offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (55.1%) related to a product count of 9.

In Middle East & Asia, among home items with high popularity, Amazon Singapore offered the highest overall percentage of items with a price decrease (35.6%) and Amazon Saudi Arabia had the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease (19.4%).

For home products with medium popularity, Amazon UAE offered both the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (47.5%) and the greatest magnitude of price decrease (16.0%).

Among home goods with low popularity, Amazon UAE offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (43.3%) and Amazon Japan had the greatest magnitude of price decrease (15.5%).

Prime Day 2021 hit a global home run

Overall, Prime Day 2021 offered consumers many generous deals on home products across every region.

According to our analysis, the retailers whose Prime Day pricing stood the most were Amazon US and Target in the US, Amazon UK and Etsy in the UK, Amazon Germany and Amazon Italy in Europe, Amazon UAE in the Middle East and Amazon Japan in Asia.

Check out our Prime Day 2021 pricing insights across other categories, including health & beauty, fashion and electronics.

July 30, 2021
Prime Day 2021’s Best Fashion Discounts Around the World

Consumers are moving beyond yoga pants. After a long year of pandemic lockdowns and the casual comfort of a homebody lifestyle, shoppers are giving their wardrobes a makeover. During this year’s Prime Day sales event, retailers around the world were well prepared for fashion shoppers’ enthusiasm for a fresh look.

That’s why we at DataWeave wanted to know how Prime Day 2021 discounts played a role in fashion marketing. We focused our analysis on how global retailers adapted their Prime Day pricing strategies to distinguish their offerings across seven fashion subcategories, including men’s and women’s shoes, and clothing & accessories.

Our Methodology
We tracked the pricing of products among 16 leading retailers in nine countries across five regions, including:

• The US (Amazon US, Nordstrom, Target, Walmart and Zappos)
• The UK (Amazon UK, Ebay, Etsy and OnBuy)
• Europe (Amazon France, Amazon Germany and Amazon Italy)
• The Middle East (Amazon Saudi Arabia and Amazon UAE)
• Asia (Amazon Japan and Amazon Singapore)

This year’s results showed some impressive discounts among retailers and across regions. Let’s see how retailers used pricing as a competitive strategy to win Prime Day sales in the fashion category, as well as international fashion brands that stood out for the generous discounts on their products.

Percentage of items with a price decrease

The US retailer with the overall highest percentage of fashion products with a price decrease for Prime Day was Amazon US (34.5%).

Fashion subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per US retailer were:

• Amazon US: Watches (43.1%), men’s clothing & accessories (34.0%) and men’s shoes and women’s shoes (both 32.8%)
• Nordstrom: Men’s clothing & accessories (5.2%), women’s shoes (2.1%) and women’s clothing & accessories (1.5%)
• Target: Women’s shoes (28.3%), men’s shoes (13.0%) and women’s clothing & accessories (7.2%)
• Walmart: Watches (6.8%), women’s clothing & accessories (6.4%) and men’s shoes (4.2%)
• Zappos: Women’s shoes (28.2%), men’s clothing & accessories (13.6%) and men’s shoes (6.5%

By far, the UK retailer with the overall highest percentage of items with a price decrease for Prime Day was Amazon UK (30.7%).

Fashion subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per UK retailer were:

• Amazon UK: Women’s shoes (38.5%), watches (33.5%) and men’s shoes (25.0%)
• Ebay: Men’s shoes (7.6%), women’s clothing & accessories (6.0%) and women’s shoes (5.5%)
• Etsy: Jewellery & accessories (4.7%), men’s clothing & accessories (4.3%) and women’s clothing & accessories (2.4%)

In Europe, Amazon Germany had the overall highest percentage of items with a price decrease for Prime Day (35.0%).

Fashion subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per European retailer were:

• Amazon France: Women’s clothing & accessories (27.6%), watches (24.2%) and men’s shoes (19.4%)
• Amazon Germany: Women’s shoes (38.7%), watches (37.6%) and men’s shoes (36.7%)

Across the Middle East & Asia, Amazon UAE had the overall highest percentage of fashion items with a price decrease for Prime Day (49.1%).

Fashion subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per retailer were:

• Amazon Saudi Arabia: Men’s clothing & accessories (54.0%), watches (52.0%) and men’s shoes (47.0%)
• Amazon UAE: Watches (55.8%), men’s clothing & accessories (54.3%) and men’s shoes (51.0%)
• Amazon Japan: Women’s clothing & accessories (17.5%) and men’s clothing & accessories (2.6%)
• Amazon Singapore: Women’s clothing & accessories (50.0%), men’s shoes (44.8%) and women’s shoes (40.9%)

Magnitude of price decrease

The US retailer with the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease for Prime Day was Nordstrom (29.3%).

The fashion subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per US retailer were:

• Amazon US: Women’s clothing & accessories (16.3%), watches (14.6%) and men’s clothing & accessories (14.3%)
• Nordstrom: Women’s clothing & accessories (35.0%), women’s shoes (29.3%) and men’s clothing & accessories (28.4%)
• Target: Men’s clothing & accessories (21.9%), women’s clothing & accessories (19.3%) and women’s shoes (18.6%)
• Walmart: Men’s clothing & accessories (23.5%), women’s shoes (16.7%) and women’s clothing & accessories (11.5%)
• Zappos: Women’s clothing & accessories (11.9%), men’s clothing & accessories (10.6%) and women’s shoes (6.6%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases on fashions per US retailer included:

• Amazon US: Free Soldier (57.3%), Rockport (52.0%) and Alvaq (48.9%)
• Nordstrom: Little Words Project (60.0%), Robert Barakett and Nordstrom (50.0%) and Bonobos (49.1%)
• Target: Cowboy Bebop, Avatar: The Last Airbender, YuYu Hakusho, Dragon Ball Z and Naruto (all 40.0%)
• Walmart: Tredsafe (42.2%), C. Wonder and Crocs (both 30.0%) and Deer Stags (26.1%)
• Zappos: Volcom (25.9%), O’Neill (20.8%) and Bandolino (20.5%)

In the UK, Ebay and Etsy tied for the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease on fashion products for Prime Day (both 14.7%).

The fashion subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per UK retailer were:

• Amazon UK: Women’s shoes (27.9%), men’s shoes (27.5%) and men’s clothing & accessories (18.2%)
• Ebay: Men’s clothing & accessories (19.1%), men’s shoes (17.7%) and watches (17.6%)
• Etsy: Women’s shoes (30.2%), men’s shoes (17.1%) and jewellery & accessories (16.3%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases across fashion sub-categories per UK retailer included:

• Amazon UK: Invicta (43.9%), Boss (42.7%) and Accurist (41.2%)
• Ebay: Dickies (55.6%), Havaianas (55.0%) and Branded (46.7%)
• Etsy: Mirugb (50.0%), LilisLeatherShop (41.6%) and OnaieShop (40.0%)

Among European retailers, Amazon Germany offered the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease on fashion products for Prime Day (16.1%).

The fashion subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per European retailer were:

• Amazon France: Women’s shoes (22.4%), men’s clothing & accessories (12.1%) and watches (9.1%)
• Amazon Germany: Women’s clothing & accessories (17.7%), watches (17.3%) and men’s clothing & accessories (15.0%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases per European retailer included:

• Amazon France: Converse (58.3%), Alsino (43.2%) and Scuderia Ferrari (35.6%)
• Amazon Germany: Truth & Fable Damen Kleider (59.6%), Victorinox (59.5%) and Sockenkauf24 (56.7%)

Across the Middle East and Asia, Amazon Japan offered the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease on fashion products for Prime Day (18.4%).

The fashion subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per retailer were:

• Amazon Saudi Arabia: Men’s clothing & accessories (20.3%), men’s shoes (18.4%) and women’s shoes (16.7%)
• Amazon UAE: Men’s shoes (20.5%), men’s clothing & accessories (19.0%) and women’s shoes (18.9%)
• Amazon Japan: Men’s clothing & accessories (23.7%) and women’s clothing & accessories (18.0%)
• Amazon Singapore: Women’s shoes (12.2%), watches (7.6%) and men’s shoes (5.0%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases per retailer in the Middle East and Asia included:

• Amazon Saudi Arabia: Dorina (48.7%), Cole Haan (40.2%) and Boss (39.7%)
• Amazon UAE: Aldo (53.2%), Mvmt (51.4%) and Inkast Denim Co. (39.4%)
• Amazon Japan: Face Trick Glasses (30.2%), モアプレッシャー (More Pressure) (23.7%) and
アツギ (Atsugi) (21.7%)
• Amazon Singapore: Bloch (49.0%), Adidas (38.5%) and Chums (31.4%)

Discounts before, during and after the event

Nordstrom was the US retailer with the biggest overall fashion discount before (39.0%), during (40.5%) and after (41.2%) Prime Day.

Nordstrom’s biggest pre-event discounts were on women’s shoes (44.2%), women’s clothing & accessories (36.6%) and men’s clothing & accessories (36.1%).

Women’s shoes (43.1%), men’s shoes (42.6%) and men’s clothing & accessories (39.5%) were the leading subcategories for Nordstrom’s discounts during Prime Day.

After the event, Nordstrom’s biggest discounts were for women’s shoes (42.5%), men’s shoes (42.2%) and men’s clothing & accessories (41.5%).

In the UK, Ebay offered the highest discounts before (43.7%), during (42.1%) and after (42.3%) Prime Day.

Before Prime Day, Ebay biggest discounts were on men’s clothing & accessories (47.9%), men’s shoes (43.9%) and watches (43.3%).

Ebay’s top discounts during Prime Day were on men’s clothing & accessories (45.3%), men’s shoes (44.6%) and women’s shoes (39.5%).

After the event, Ebay had the biggest discounts on men’s clothing & accessories (45.6%), women’s shoes (42.9%) and men’s shoes (41.9%).

In Europe, Amazon Germany dominated with the biggest overall fashion discounts before (27.1%), during (31.8%) and after (26.5%) Prime Day.

In the pre-sales event, Amazon Germany offered its most generous discounts on watches (27.5%), women’s shoes (12.6%) and men’s shoes (5.7%).

During Prime Day, Amazon Germany’s biggest discounts were on women’s clothing & accessories (36.8%), men’s clothing & accessories (32.5%) and watches (32.0%).

After Prime Day, Amazon Germany had the highest discounts on women’s clothing & accessories (34.1%), men’s clothing & accessories (27.6%) and watches (26.6%).

Popularity

In the US, among fashion products with high popularity, Amazon US offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (36.8%) and Nordstrom offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (29.8%).

For fashion items with medium popularity, Amazon US offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (35.2%), and Nordstrom offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (28.1%).

Among fashion merchandise with low popularity, Amazon US offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (27.2%) and Nordstrom offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (31.6%).

In the UK, among fashion products with high popularity, Amazon UK offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (31.6%) and Ebay offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (14.3%).

For fashion items with medium popularity, Amazon UK offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (32.5%) and Ebay offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (17.6%).

Among fashion merchandise with low popularity, Amazon UK offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (24.5%) and Etsy offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (23.1%).

In Europe, Amazon Germany dominated discounts for Prime Day 2021 across all levels of popularity.

Among fashion goods with high popularity, Amazon Germany offered both the highest overall percentage of items with a price decrease (40.5%) and the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease (16.3%).

For fashion items with medium popularity, Amazon Germany offered both the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (32.5%) and the greatest magnitude of price decrease (16.5%).

Among fashion merchandise with low popularity, Amazon Germany offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (30.8%) and the greatest magnitude of price decrease (15.1%).

In Middle East & Asia, among fashion items with high popularity, Amazon Saudi Arabia offered the highest overall percentage of items with a price decrease (55.9%) and Amazon UAE had the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease (20.6%).

For fashion products with medium popularity, Amazon UAE offered both the highest overall percentage of items with a price decrease (49.3%) and the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease (17.8%).

Among fashion items with low popularity, Amazon UAE offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (46.1%) and Amazon Japan had the greatest magnitude of price decrease (21.5%).

Prime Day fashion deals galore

Overall, Prime Day 2021 gave global shoppers an abundance of generous discounts on fashion items.

According to our analysis, the retailers whose Prime Day pricing stood out the most were Amazon US and Nordstrom in the US, Amazon UK and Ebay in the UK, Amazon Germany in Europe, Amazon UAE in the Middle East and Amazon Japan in Asia.

For more global Prime Day 2021 pricing insights, see our analysis of electronics and health & beauty products.

July 27, 2021
Prep, Prime and Plenish For Prime Day India 2021

After demonetization, Covid-19 has probably been one of the worst scenarios for the retail sector in India. The entire nation went into lockdown and the industry noticed some big changes around the entire globe. From remote working to shopping, everything turned to digital and Bharat witnessed new trends across payments, e-commerce, and more.

Not surprisingly, D2C has been a favorite amongst businesses thanks to its agility. More than 800 brands have joined the direct-to-consumer bandwagon in order to reach their audience quickly and in an efficient way. Where brands such as MamaEarth, Clovia, Bewakoof, Lenskart have been some of the popular brands in the sector, last year even traditional giants such as LG, Ajanta-Orpat, Piaggio, Havells also adopted the D2C model.

Source: Avendus

Brands are more focused on making the user experience better and it will be safe to say that this year, D2C will be the highlight of the e-tail ecosystem. Naturally, e-commerce giants such as Amazon, Flipkart have played an important role in this revolution. Amazon, which has over 100 Million registered users in India, announced that it will host its flagship event, Prime Day this year on 26-27 July.

Let’s look at some of the things brands can do to leave their mark this Prime Day in India.

Digital Shelf Optimisation: Need Of The Hour

Given that the pandemic has accelerated online shopping nationwide, Digital Shelf Optimisation (DSO) should be the key lever for any brand to accelerate its digital commerce growth. Events such as Prime day are significant for a brand’s reputation, customer experience, overall sales and can help you build a loyal customer base.

With that in mind, we have prepared a list of things to consider, in order to help brands stand out from the crowd.

1. Pricing And Discounting

Pricing and Discounting: Offer discounts and deals to attract customers.

It is obvious that Prime Day will see a tremendous influx of shoppers. Noticeably, impulsive shopping is a trend during these sales, as everybody loves a good product for a discounted price. Make sure to offer discounts and deals to attract customers.

Another suggestion is to keep a track of competition, their pricing and promotional strategies and keep an eye on price changes happening across relevant categories or SKU’s (Stock Keeping Unit). Competition analysis is a powerful tool and having accurate data on their sales, market share is a critical part of this.

2. Optimise Product Visibility

Product Visibility: Lakhs of sellers & brands are vying for the same spot

Marketplaces are crowded, and getting discovered is already hard. Lakhs of sellers & brands are vying for the same spot. And with more people moving online, it’s going to get increasingly harder for brands to stand out. Optimize your search visibility using the right keywords relevant to your brand, strategically spend on Sponsored Ads to secure high visibility placements on Amazon and lastly make sure your online product packaging via product pages contain attractive images to position your product in the best light.

3. Product Availability

Product Availability: Have plenty of stock available

Make sure to have plenty of stock available as shoppers are likely to turn to other brands/products in case your product is unavailable. Also, keep in mind that people are generally more open to trying new products during a sale as it offers discounts. Track your products’ stock status to make sure they’re available 24 x 7.

As the foremost goal during sales is to move inventory as much as possible, offering a large assortment is a good idea. Create product bundles that complement each other.

4. Use A + Content

A+ Content is King: The new age packaging for your product

Content is the new age packaging for your product. Content is crucial to change consumer shortlists & considerations into conversions.

Your content tells your product story & gives customers the information they need to make a purchase. Use high resolution and accurate images, add features, benefits, USPs of your products clearly. It is advisable to use more than one image to show your product more clearly. Make sure all your brand & product pages on Amazon are optimized.

5. Ratings And Reviews

Reviews and Ratings: Feedback is a very important e-commerce tool.

Why would shoppers rely on word-of-mouth when they can take help from millions of people from the community? Not said enough, feedback is a very important e-commerce tool. Amazon’s A9 algorithm presents the choices to the consumers but reviews and star ratings still play an influential role in the journey from consideration to conversion.

Brands could consider partnering with Dataweave, to keep track of reviews and manage negative ratings on Amazon.

Summary

According to a report by EY-IVCA Trend Book 2021, “ The e-commerce industry in India is expected to reach $99 Bn by 2024 and penetration of retail is expected to be 10.7% by 2024, compared to 4.7% in 2019.”

Source: Statista

The same report also revealed that India will have 220 Million online shoppers by 2025. With e-commerce growing at an exponential rate, brands are advised to be more statistical & data-driven to win a larger % of online sales.
If you think this is the right time to optimize your digital shelf, take a look at our products and services.

We at DataWeave would be happy to be a part of your e-commerce and digitization journey. You can sign up for a demo with our team to know more

July 26, 2021
Prime Day 2021 Reflected the Global Health & Beauty Category

As consumers socialize more this year, retailers around the world are competing for sales in the torrid health & beauty category.

That’s why we at DataWeave wanted to know how Prime Day 2021 discounts played a role in the pricing strategies for health & beauty products. We focused our analysis on how global retailers adapted their Prime Day pricing strategies to distinguish their offerings across seven health & beauty subcategories, including makeup, health care and baby care.

Our Methodology
We tracked the pricing of products among 16 leading retailers in nine countries across five regions, including:

● The US (Amazon US, Sephora, Target, Ulta and Walmart)
● The UK (Amazon UK, Ebay, Etsy and OnBuy)
● Europe (Amazon France, Amazon Germany and Amazon Italy)
● The Middle East (Amazon Saudi Arabia and Amazon UAE)
● Asia (Amazon Japan and Amazon Singapore)

The results showed some surprising differences among retailers and regions. See how retailers used pricing as a competitive strategy to win Prime Day sales in the health & beauty category, as well as international health & beauty brands that stood out for the discounts on their products.

Percentage of items with a price decrease

The US retailer with the overall highest percentage of health & beauty products with a price decrease for Prime Day was Amazon US (23.9%).

Health & beauty subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per US retailer were:

● Amazon US: Fragrance (32.4%), oral care (27.1%) and skin care (22.7%)
● Sephora: Makeup (0.2%)
● Target: Oral care (2.7%), baby care (1.6%) and hair care (0.8%)
● Ulta: Makeup (3.7%), skin care (0.8%) and hair care (0.1%)
● Walmart: Fragrance (35.3%), hair care (27.0%) and skin care (23.1%)

By far, the UK retailer with the overall highest percentage of items with a price decrease for Prime Day was Amazon UK (41.9%).

Health & beauty subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per UK retailer were:

● Amazon UK: Oral care (62.5%), fragrance (46.2%) and hair care and skin care (both 45.4%)
● Ebay: Makeup (8.1%), fragrance (7.1%) and skin care (4.7%)
● Etsy: Oral care (3.4%), skin care (2.3%) and makeup (0.9%)

In Europe, Amazon Germany had the overall highest percentage of items with a price decrease for Prime Day (33.1%).

Health & beauty subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per European retailer were:

● Amazon France: Skin care (27.2%), fragrance (25.0%) and hair care (24.4%)
● Amazon Germany: Skin care (49.7%), fragrance (41.3%) and hair care (37.2%)
● Amazon Italy: Skin care (5.9%)

Across the Middle East & Asia, Amazon UAE had the overall highest percentage of health & beauty items with a price decrease for Prime Day (54.1%).

Health & beauty subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per retailer were:

● Amazon Saudi Arabia: Health care (56.4%), hair care (48.8%) and fragrance (46.2%)
● Amazon UAE: Skin care (64.3%), fragrance (64.0%), and hair care (58.4%)
● Amazon Japan: Oral care (5.3%), skin care (4.5%) and makeup (3.3%)
● Amazon Singapore: Baby care and health care (both 35.6%), makeup (32.6%) and fragrance (31.3%)

Magnitude of price decrease

The US retailer with the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease for Prime Day was Ulta (33.3%).

The health & beauty subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per US retailer were:

● Amazon US: Hair care (18.0%), baby care (15.5%) and health care (15.4%)
● Sephora: Makeup (24.5%)
● Target: Hair care (46.6%), oral care (28.4%) and skin care and baby care (both 15.0%)
● Ulta: Hair care (40.8%), skin care (34.0%) and makeup (32.5%)
● Walmart: Baby care (11.5%), skin care (11.3%) and hair care (11.0%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases per US retailer included:

● Amazon US: Cerave (54.5%), Aquaphor (54.4%) and Yankee Candle (50.7%)
● Sephora: Nars (25.9%) and Marc Jacobs Beauty (23.1%)
● Target: Kristin Ess (50.0%), Hot Tools (48.6%) and Arc Oral Care (both 40.1%)
● Ulta: KKW Beauty, Lime Crime, Ulta and NYX Professional Makeup (all 50.0%), CoverGirl (47.8%) and Biolage (40.8%)
● Walmart: Whitening Toothpaste (57.6%), Absolute New York (56.7%) and Zdmathe (48.5%)

The UK retailer with the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease on health & beauty products for Prime Day was Amazon UK (18.6%).

The health & beauty subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per UK retailer were:

● Amazon UK: Oral care (23.5%), makeup (22.0%) and skin care (20.2%)
● Ebay: Hair care (16.0%), fragrance (14.4%) and makeup (11.5%)
● Etsy: Makeup (20.0%), oral care (16.1%) and skin care (13.3%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases across health & beauty sub-categories per UK retailer included:

● Amazon UK: Philips Sonicair (56.8%), BaByliss For Men (53.0%) and Dr. PawPaw (52.9%)
● Ebay: Oral-B Braun (50.3%), Clean (50.1%) and Versace (46.0%)
● Etsy: Valdenize (both 48.4%), Allure Wedding Jewelry (32.8%) and Moroccan White (30.0%)

Among European retailers, Amazon Germany offered the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease on health & beauty products for Prime Day (20.2%).

The health & beauty subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per European retailer were:

● Amazon France: Skin care (20.4%), baby care (17.8%) and makeup (16.2%)
● Amazon Germany: Skin care (28.2%), makeup (22.6%) and health care (21.3%)
● Amazon Italy: Skin care (9.9%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases per European retailer included:

● Amazon France: Look Concept (59.8%), Douyao (57.5%) and Eco Styler (57.4% for both hair care and health care)
● Amazon Germany: Le Cuisinier (58.4%), Beurer (47.5%) and Solida (45.9%)
● Amazon Italy: Bezox (9.9%)

Across the Middle East and Asia, Amazon Japan offered the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease on health & beauty products for Prime Day (18.0%).

The health & beauty subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per retailer were:

● Amazon Saudi Arabia: Health care (25.1%), skin care (19.3%) and baby care (16.5%)
● Amazon UAE: Makeup (23.1%), hair care (18.3%) and baby care (18.1%)
● Amazon Japan: Skin care (27.6%), hair care (17.2%) and makeup (14.7%)
● Amazon Singapore: Skin care (10.1%), hair care (8.9%) and health care (8.2%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases per retailer in the Middle East and Asia included:

● Amazon Saudi Arabia: Tide (59.8%), bblüv (58.3%) and Mas (55.0%)
● Amazon UAE: Syoss (59.7%), Vertex (59.1%) and Onesea (58.7%)
● Amazon Japan: ドクターブロナー (Dr. Bronner’s) (54.8%), ゼルマ (Zelma) (50.0%) and いち髪 (47.8%)
● Amazon Singapore: Changing Lifestyles (56.6%), Dynarex (53.0%) and Grohe (52.5%)

Discounts before, during and after the event

In the US, specialty beauty retailers’ discounts stood out during Prime Day sales. The US retailer with the biggest overall health & beauty discount before (43.4%), during (39.3%) and after (39.4%) Prime Day was Ulta. During and after Prime Day, Sephora was a close second at 38.2% for both periods.

Ulta’s biggest pre-event discounts were on makeup (44.2%) and skin care (33.0%). Hair care (40.8%). makeup (39.5%) and skin care (36.0%) were the leading subcategories for Ulta’s discounts during Prime Day. After the event, Ulta’s biggest discounts were for hair care (40.8%), makeup (39.6%) and skin care (37.3%)

In the UK, OnBuy offered the highest discounts before, during and after Prime Day at 70.0% off baby care products. Yet the total product count was only 2.

Among the remaining rivals, all of whom had a product count above 1000, Ebay had the highest discounts before (30.8%), during (33.8%) and after (35.0%) Prime Day.

Before Prime Day, Ebay biggest discounts were on hair care (48.9%), fragrance (23.9%) and makeup (23.4%). Ebay’s top discounts during Prime Day were on hair care (50.3%), makeup (24.9%) and fragrance (24.8%). Similarly, after the event, Ebay had the biggest discounts on hair care (49.9%), makeup (26.7%) and fragrance (26.2%).

Across retailers in the Middle East & Asia, Amazon UAE offered the biggest overall health & beauty discounts before (26.0%), during (30.7%) and after (26.0%) Prime Day.

In the pre-sales event, Amazon UAE offered the most generous discounts on makeup (30.7%), fragrance (29.9%) and health care (29.2%).

During Prime Day, Amazon UAE’s biggest discounts were on makeup (37.2%), fragrance (31.6%) and health care (31.3%).

During Prime Day, Amazon UAE offered the biggest discounts on fragrance (30.5%), makeup (30.0%) and health care and baby care (both 26.8%).

Popularity

In the US, among health & beauty products with high popularity, Amazon US offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (24.3%) and Target offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (29.3%).

For health & beauty items with medium popularity, Amazon US offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (26.0%), and strategic partners Target and Ulta both offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (33.4%).

Among health & beauty merchandise with low popularity, Walmart offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (18.5%) and Ulta offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (37.4%).

Amazon UK stood out among all levels of health & beauty product popularity.

In the UK, among health & beauty products with high popularity, Amazon UK offered both the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (42.8%) and the greatest magnitude of price decrease (18.6%).

For health & beauty items with medium popularity, Amazon UK offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (42.8%) and Etsy offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (20.1%).

Among health & beauty merchandise with low popularity, Amazon UK offered both the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (35.4%) and the greatest magnitude of price decrease (17.6%).

In Europe, Amazon Germany dominated discounts for health & beauty products across all levels of popularity.

Among health & beauty goods with high popularity, Amazon Germany offered both the highest overall percentage of items with a price decrease (34.6%) and the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease (20.6%).

For health & beauty items with medium popularity, Amazon Germany offered both the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (32.7%) and the greatest magnitude of price decrease (20.0%).

Among health & beauty merchandise with low popularity, Amazon Germany offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (33.5%) and the greatest magnitude of price decrease (20.6%).

In Middle East & Asia, among health & beauty items with high popularity, Amazon UAE offered the highest overall percentage of items with a price decrease (53.0%) and Amazon Saudi Arabia had the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease (18.7%).

For health & beauty products with medium popularity, Amazon UAE offered the highest overall percentage of items with a price decrease (55.3%) and Amazon Saudi Arabia had the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease (19.7%).

Among health & beauty goods with low popularity, Amazon UAE offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (54.5%) and Amazon Japan had the greatest magnitude of price decrease (18.7%).

Health & beauty’s stunning Prime Day deals

Overall, Prime Day 2021 gave shoppers around the world the opportunity to score generous discounts on health & beauty products.

According to our analysis, the retailers whose Prime Day pricing stood out the most were Amazon US and Ulta in the US, Amazon UK and Ebay in the UK, Amazon Germany in Europe, Amazon UAE in the Middle East and Amazon Japan in Asia.

Stay tuned for Prime Day 2021 international fashion and home goods pricing insights.

July 22, 2021
Who Won Prime Day 2021’s Consumer Electronics Price War?

Amazon’s Prime Day 2021 global shopping event took place June 21 and 22, 2021 and smashed previous sales records. At DataWeave, we wanted to know how Prime Day 2021 deals and discounts on electronics compared across retailers and regions. We focused on how retailers adapted their Prime Day pricing strategies to stand out in the competitive consumer electronics category.

Our Methodology
We tracked the pricing of several leading retailers in nine countries across five regions, including:

• The US (Amazon US, Best Buy, Target and Walmart)
• The UK (Amazon UK, Ebay, Etsy and OnBuy)
• Europe (Amazon France, Amazon Germany and Amazon Italy)
• The Middle East (Amazon Saudi Arabia and Amazon UAE)
• Asia (Amazon Japan and Amazon Singapore)

Let’s see how retailers used pricing tactics to gain a competitive advantage during Prime Day, as well as which electronics brands had the highest discounts around the world.

Percentage of items with a price decrease

The US retailer with the overall highest percentage of items with a price decrease for Prime Day was Amazon US (26.3%).

Electronics subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per US retailer were:

• Amazon US: Headphones (36.3%), video games and electronics (both 35.8%) and cameras (35.7%)
• Best Buy: Wearables (10.1%) and electronics (6.8%)
• Target: Electronics (21.4%), Bluetooth & wireless speakers (19.4%) and tech accessories (14.8%)
• Walmart: Cell phones & accessories (25.8%), TV & video (14.9%) and cameras (9.4%)

The UK retailer with the overall highest percentage of items with a price decrease for Prime Day was Amazon UK (30.4%), closely followed by OnBuy (30.0%). Of note, Amazon UK offered price increases on 10 times as many products as OnBuy (2379 vs. 237).

Electronics subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per UK retailer were:

• Amazon UK: Electronics (53.2%), cameras (41.8%) and headphones (41.5%)
• Ebay: TV & video (19.2%), computers & office (12.2%) and cell phones & accessories (7.5%)
• Etsy: Electronics (1.4%)
• OnBuy: Cell phones & accessories (35.5%) and wearables (4.8%)

In Europe, Amazon Germany had the overall highest percentage of items with a price decrease for Prime Day (28.9%).

Electronics subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per European retailer were:

• Amazon France: Cell phones & accessories (35.2%), electronics (21.0%) and cameras (19.6%)
• Amazon Germany: Cell phones & accessories (43.3%), electronics (42.5%) and headphones (39.2%)
• Amazon Italy: Headphones (25.0%), cell phones & accessories (14.3%) and Bluetooth & wireless speakers (8.3%)

Across the Middle East & Asia, Amazon UAE had the overall highest percentage of items with a price decrease for Prime Day (36.1%).

Electronics subcategories with the highest percentage of items with a price decrease per retailer were:

• Amazon Saudi Arabia: Video games (47.8%), electronics (46.8%) and cell phones & accessories (41.2%)
• Amazon UAE: Electronics (63.4%), tech accessories (60.3%) and cell phones & accessories (60.1%)
• Amazon Japan: TV & video (14.9%), musical instruments (11.8%) and electronics (10.3%)
• Amazon Singapore: Wearables (32.2%), car electronics (30.4%) and musical instruments (30.2%)

Magnitude of price decrease

The US retailer with the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease for Prime Day was Target (18.6%).

The electronics subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per US retailer were:

• Amazon US: Cell phones & accessories (20.4%), electronics (20.1%) and headphones (18.7%)
• Best Buy: Wearables (16.9%) and electronics (13.3%)
• Target: Video games (27.9%), tech accessories (25.6%) and headphones (24.4%)
• Walmart: TV & video (10.6%), computers & office (10.3%) and home audio & theater (10.1%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases per US retailer included:

• Amazon US: JBL (57.2%), Hape (55.0%) and Falcon (52.8%)
• Best Buy: Bower (40.0%), Vtech (36.7%) and Wingthings (30.0%)
• Target: 2k Sports and 2K Games (both 56.7%), Little Tikes (50.0%)
• Walmart: Moonlite (54.3%), Sceptre (45.9%) and Polaroid (38.5%)

The UK retailer with the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease for Prime Day was OnBuy (22.1%).

The electronics subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per UK retailer were:

• Amazon UK: Home audio & theater (28.4%), electronics (21.7%) and cell phones & accessories (20.1%)
• Ebay: TV & video (19.5%), wearables (18.7%) and computer & office (16.6%)
• Etsy: Electronics (14.8%)
• OnBuy: Cell phones & accessories (22.3%) and wearables (5.9%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases across electronics categories per UK retailer included:

• Amazon UK: Amazon (58.3% for both cell phones & accessories and headphones), Flexson (55.4%) and Ibra (47.9% for both cameras and TV & video)
• Ebay: Falcon (52.0%), Ticwatch (48.4%) and Grougs by Live Lead (47.9%)
• OnBuy: Sony (33.1%), Apple (23.1%) and Samsung (21.3%)

Among European retailers, Amazon Italy offered the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease for Prime Day (18.9%) among a total of 66 products.

The electronics subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per European retailer were:

• Amazon France: Home audio & theater (13.1%), video games (10.5%) and TV & video (10.3%)
• Amazon Germany: Video games (22.0%), electronics and musical instruments (both 20.3%) and cell phones & accessories (20.2%)
• Amazon Italy: Cell phones & accessories (41.2%) and headphones (28.1%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases per European retailer included:

• Amazon France: DCSk (59.0%), Amazon Basics (58.7%) and Qoosea (46.3%)
• Amazon Germany: Meister (53.5%), Rampow (51.4%) and Gewa (51.1%)
• Amazon Italy: Homscam (41.2%) and Gamurry (15.1)

Across the Middle East and Asia, Amazon Japan offered the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease for Prime Day (11.9%) among a total of 66 products.

The electronics subcategories with the greatest magnitude of price decrease per retailer were:

• Amazon Saudi Arabia: Video games (16.8%), electronics (12.8%) and cell phones & accessories (12.4%)
• Amazon UAE: Car electronics, headphones and tech accessories (all 13.1%)
• Amazon Japan: Headphones (25.4%), home audio & theater (23.6%) and cameras (14.9%)
• Amazon Singapore: Car electronics (9.4%), cell phones & accessories (8.6%) and electronics (8.3%)

Brands with the greatest magnitude of price decreases per retailer in the Middle East and Asia included:

• Amazon Saudi Arabia: Belkin (52.9%), Topoint (49.3%) and Promate (45.7%)
• Amazon UAE: Amazon Basics (56.3%), Bettyliss (52.1%) and Acreate (50.3%)
• Amazon Japan: タニタ(Tanita) (49.7%), Laza-Vally (47.8%) and Nebula (33.3%)
• Amazon Singapore: Pintech Percussion (55.0%), Pac (53.4%) and Goldwood Sound Inc. (52.9%)

Discounts before, during and after the event

The US retailer with the biggest overall electronics discount before Prime Day was Amazon US (26.6%). Amazon’s biggest discounts were on home audio & theater (30.5%), TV & video (29.1%) and cell phones & accessories (28.6%).

Walmart offered the biggest discounts during (32.1%) and after (31.5%) the event. During the event, Walmart’s biggest discounts were on cell phones & accessories (46.3%), home audio & theater (35.5%) and computers & office (31.0%). Similarly, after the event, Walmart’s biggest discounts were on cell phones & accessories (45.8%), home audio & theater (35.3%) and computers & office (30.8%).

OnBuy was the UK retailer with the biggest overall electronics discount before (65.3%), during (68.6%) and after (69.1%) Prime Day with a product count of 237. OnBuy’s biggest discounts were on cameras (69.5% before, during and after the sales event), cell phones & accessories (rising from 67.6% before the sales event to 71.6% during and 71.8% after the event) and wearables (65.2% before and after the event yet 35.5% during Prime Day).

In Europe, Amazon Germany offered the biggest overall electronics discount before (21.4%), during (25.6%) and after (20.2%) Prime Day. Amazon France and Amazon Italy also offered comparable overall discounts (21.1%) before Prime Day.

In the pre-sales event, Amazon Germany gave the most generous discounts on cameras (34.1%), wearables (24.7%) and headphones (24.3%). During Prime Day, Amazon Germany offered the biggest discounts on video games (30.7%), headphones (30.1%) and electronics (28.3%). After Prime Day, Amazon Germany offered the biggest discounts on headphones (24.2%) electronics (22.6%) and cell phones & accessories (22.1%).

Across retailers in the Middle East & Asia, Amazon UAE offered the biggest overall electronics discount before Prime Day (24.3%), whereas Amazon Japan offered the biggest discount during (32.0%) and after (32.3%) Prime Day.

In the pre-sales event, Amazon UAE offered the most generous discounts on TV & video (31.3%), musical instruments (31.0%) and headphones (25.4%). During and after Prime Day, Amazon Japan offered the biggest discounts on Bluetooth & wireless speakers and electronics (both 99.0%).

Popularity

In the US, among electronics with high popularity, Amazon US offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (27.8%) and Target offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (21.3%).

For electronics with moderate popularity, Amazon US offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (24.7%) and Best Buy offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (15.4%).

Among electronics with low popularity, Amazon US offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (25.2%) and Best Buy offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (13.4%), closely followed by Amazon US (13.3%).

In the UK, among electronics with high popularity, OnBuy offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (44.0%) among 84 products and Etsy offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (28.5%) among 150 products.

For electronics with moderate popularity, Amazon UK offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (29.3%) and OnBuy offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (26.7%).

Electronics with low popularity, Amazon UK offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (23.9%) and OnBuy offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (26.3%).

In Europe, among electronics with high popularity, Amazon Germany offered the highest overall percentage of items with a price decrease (30.1%) and the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease (20.2%).

For electronics with moderate popularity, Amazon Germany offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (29.7%) and Amazon Italy offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (41.2%) among 12 products.

Among electronics with low popularity, Amazon Germany offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (26.7%) and the greatest magnitude of price decrease (17.2%).

In Middle East & Asia, among electronics with high popularity, Amazon Singapore offered the highest overall percentage of items with a price decrease (32.2%) and Amazon Saudi Arabia had the greatest overall magnitude of price decrease (10.4%).

For electronics with moderate popularity, Amazon UAE offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (48.8%) and Amazon Japan offered the greatest magnitude of price decrease (11.5%).

Similarly, among electronics with low popularity, Amazon UAE offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (36.9%) and Amazon Japan the greatest magnitude of price decrease (13.3%).

Consumers won big on Prime Day 2021

Overall, Prime Day 2021 offered a wide range of deals across the competitive electronics category in each region. Almost all of the retailers we studied (except for Ebay) showed up in the analysis for offering notable discounts and pricing strategies this year. Amazon US, OnBuy, Amazon Germany, Amazon Japan and Amazon UAE appeared in the results most often among their respective regions. Stay tuned for Prime Day 2021 pricing insights across other categories, including home, health & beauty and fashion.

July 20, 2021
Amazon’s losing its pricing advantage this holiday season

Amazon’s pricing advantage has declined in key categories, compared to last year as we enter 2020’s holiday season.

The holidays are here and the retail industry is gearing up for the yearly stampede. In a report published by Bain & Company, in partnership with DataWeave, it was observed that, “When it comes to pricing, Amazon’s historical advantage is also deteriorating. The research shows that in October and November 2019, Amazon matched or beat competitors’ prices 81% of the time in the categories studied. By November of 2020, that rate dropped to 74%”. This was based on the four key categories where we had pricing data for Amazon and at least one other competitor.

Amazon’s pricing advantage has declined in key categories

Aggressive pricing, which was once Amazon’s forte, seems to be on a downward trend this year. All but one category saw an increase in the percentage of products where they beat the lowest price, ‘movies, music, video games’ – by a small margin of one percentage point.

What could this shift be attributed to? The obvious would be the repercussions of COVID but there perhaps is more at work here. As observed last year, the behemoth that Amazon is, does not deter its competitors from constantly biting at the heels, with a steely determination to rope in market share. Everything from increased and specific customer demands, to government legislation, there are a lot of moving parts.

One thing is for sure, this is surely just the beginning of the great e-commerce battle. For access to the full article that was published in the Retail Holiday Newsletter by Bain & Company and powered by DataWeave, click here.

November 19, 2020
Amazon Great Indian Festival Vs Big Billion Day- Who offered better discounts?

The Great Indian Festival finally arrived and it coincided with Flipkart’s Big Billion Day Sale. The pandemic has pushed consumers to shop online and both, the Great Indian Festival and the Big Billion Day sales had been eagerly anticipated. Flipkart’s sale lasted between 16-21 October, while Amazon’s (in India) took started on 17th October.

It is claimed that Amazon and Flipkart have hit $3.5 billion in sales in just four days. On the last day of its Sale, Flipkart claimed to have achieved 10 times growth as compared to last year’s Big Billion Day sale. Clearly, the sales have surpassed all the forecasts made for this year’s sale. We at DataWeave took a closer look to analyze the discounts that were offered across popular categories, to see if customers really had access to better deals and discounts.

Our Methodology:

We looked at the top 500 products across categories like Fashion – men and women, electronics, Amazon devices, baby products, grocery and personal care. The pricing offered on these products across the sale period was compared with the pre-sale price, to understand the trend in discounts across the popular categories and brands.

The Verdict:

We segmented the products we were tracking into the following:

Type 1: Products were either priced the same or were discounted over the sale compared to pre-sale

Type 2: Products were either priced the same or witnessed price increase during the sale compared to pre-sale

Type 3: Products which saw both price increase and decrease during sale compared to pre-sale

Type 4: Products whose price continued to be the same even during the sale

Flipkart clearly provided the better deals to customers for the categories we looked at during their Big Billion Day sale compared to Amazon. Flipkart discounted 54% of its products during the sale period compared to Amazon, and 26% of the products were discounted.

It is also interesting to note that in addition to offering more discounted products, Flipkart also offered additional discounts than Amazon.

Amazon offered 13.2% additional discount and most of this average discounting can be attributed to a 33.8% discount on Amazon devices. It also ended up increasing the pricing for 16% of the products during the sale period, while Flipkart hiked the pricing for 6% products. 56% of products on Amazon continued being sold at the same price even during the sale.

Additional discounts across product premiumness levels

Premiumness was based on the actual price of a product before the sale event. This was divided into low, medium and high premiumness levels, with high indicating higher selling prices.

In Amazon devices, baby products, electronics and grocery-cooking essentials, Amazon showed a direct relationship between its additional discounts and the level of premiumness. While Flipkart did not seem to follow a particular pattern with respect to product premiumness.

Flipkart offered the highest discounts for premium products in the Fashion category (for both men and women) compared to the rest.

Top brands by additional discounts:

We looked at popular brands across categories to arrive at brands that were being sold at the maximum discount. These brands appeared at least twenty times in the top 500 ranks we considered.

Acer, Philips, Samsung, Lenovo, Bajaj, Asus which were common brands across both Flipkart and Amazon in the electronics category, were being sold at much deeper discounts on Flipkart (almost double), compared to that on Amazon.

Avita was extremely popular under the laptop sub-category on Flipkart and was observed to be discounted the highest during the sale.

In Fashion, Titan was the most discounted brand with 53.9% additional discount but only 4% and 2% of the products offered discounting in mens’ and womens’ fashion respectively. Reebok in mens’ fashion and Fastrack, Sonata and Puma in womens’ wear on Flipkart, had discounts across almost all the products.

In the baby care category, Hasbro gaming on Flipkart had the highest additional discount followed by Funskool. Both the brands had more than 85% of their products discounted.

Johnson’s, which was common on both Amazon and Flipkart, was offered at higher discounts on Amazon compared to Flipkart. However, only 31% products were discounted vs 72% on Flipkart.

Most Visible Brands

We looked at the top 200 ranks across each sub-category to narrow down on the most visible brands across the sale period.

Across all categories and their sub-categories, the sub-category laptop had distinct brands that hold the majority of the products. This is observed both in Amazon and Flipkart where brands like Lenovo, HP, Asus hold more than 33% share of the first 200 products.

“Mobile” category was dominated by brands like Redmi and Boat on Amazon, and Realme and OPPO on Flipkart. These brands occur at least 24% of the time in the top 200 ranks.

Who Won?

There are many ways to look at this. To begin with, the combined sales of Flipkart and Amazon during the festive season in India accounted for more than 90% of the e-commerce industry’s gross sales. That amounts to a 55% year-on-year growth. Delving further, we see that Flipkart was far more aggressive with their offerings.

They discounted 56.8% additional products at an overall discount of 15%. On the other hand, Amazon retained their typical cautious approach to discounting, with only 28.4% of the products, at an overall discount of 12.8%.

If we adopt a more macro view of the sales, we have to take into account that this year is somewhat of an anomaly. Given the social distancing norms and other SOPs governing the common man, more people have been ushered into the world of online shopping. The penetration extended far into the Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities as well, thus potentially benefiting Flipkart, owing to their interior reach.

Going by the numbers, Flipkart seems to have taken this round without a doubt. As we observed though, there are many ways to look at this and what seems to stand out from these two giants, is the consumer. At the end of the day, it’s the consumer that in spite of these strange times, has shopped more than before, indicating that the situation is getting back to a semblance of normalcy.

So Flipkart’s got the sales numbers but the consumer got deeper discounts on more products. As the old adage goes, ‘consumer is king’.

November 4, 2020
Prime Day 2020: Home categories fuel retail rivalry & desirable discounts

According to our preliminary analysis of Prime Day 2020, Amazon’s rivals offered more generous discounts within Home categories to stay competitive as more consumers invest in their homes this year.

This year the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed consumers into homebodies who increasingly work, learn and shop from home. This year also marks the first time Prime Day took place in the Fall, jumpstarting the holiday sales season.

At DataWeave, we wanted to know whether Prime Day 2020 lived up to the hype and how Amazon’s deals compared to other retailers’ discounts. Our analysis examines products across four popular Home categories: Bed & Bath, Furniture, Kitchen and Pet Care.

Our Methodology

We tracked the pricing of several leading retailers (Home Depot, Target, Walmart and Amazon) selling the Home categories of Bed & Bath, Furniture, Kitchen and Pet Care to assess their pricing and assortment strategies during this annual sales event. Our analysis focused on additional discounts offered during the sale to estimate the true value that the sale represented to consumers. Our calculations compared product prices on Prime Day versus the prices prior to the sale. The sample consisted of up to the top 750 ranked products across 16 popular product types for the home.

The Verdict

Overall, Amazon reported the lowest price reduction in all Home categories (12.4%), compared to Target (22.1%), Home Depot (16.5%), and Walmart (15.1%). Yet Amazon reported the second-highest percentage of additionally discounted products (9.6% vs. 11.0% for Target).

After Prime Day ended, certain retailers’ Home assortments saw more significant price increases than others. For instance, 88% of Target’s 760 products in Bed & Bath, Furniture, Kitchen and Pet Care received a price increase during the post-sale period, compared to 47% of Walmart’s 1005 products. Walmart’s everyday low price strategy helps to explain the difference between the two big box retailers.

These results suggest that Prime Day 2020 may boost Amazon’s marketing and PR engagement yet its rivals offered the most generous deals in Home categories. As home-related categories’ sales soared during the pandemic, Amazon’s competitors offered deep discounts to stand out online and grow their market share. As such, consumers may want to embrace the habit of comparing multiple retailers’ websites to discover the best Prime Day deals in Home categories.

Top product types by additional discount

In Bed & Bath, Target offered the biggest average additional discount (27.4%) and Amazon offered the lowest (13.3%). Bed sheets and pillowcases were a popular product category for additional discounts across all four retailers, with Target offering the best average additional discount at 31.3%. Other popular product types among rival retailers included blankets, comforters and bathroom furniture.

In Furniture, Home Depot (20.5%) offered the biggest overall additional discount, closely followed by and Target (19.2%). Living room furniture was a popular subcategory for all four retailers, with Home Depot offering the highest additional discount (29.1%). Other popular product types included furniture for the bedroom, home office, kitchen and dining room.

In the Kitchen category, Target offered the biggest average additional discount for small appliances (21.8%), a subcategory in which all four retailers offered discounts. Within the large appliance subcategory, Walmart’s additional discounts were nearly triple Amazon’s (15.7% vs. 5.6%).

Within the Pet Care category, Target offered the biggest average additional discount (18.5%). Cat food was a popular product category, with Target offering the best average additional discount (50.0%). Other popular product types across all four retailers included dog collars, leashes and dry dog food.

Additional discounts across product “premiumness” levels

Premiumness was calculated as the average selling price before the sale event. This was divided into low, medium and high premiumness levels, with high indicating higher selling prices.

In Bed & Bath, most retailers showed an inverse relationship between their additional discounts and the products’ level of premiumness. Target offered the biggest additional discounts across all levels of premiumness, more than double Amazon’s discounts (27.2% vs. 12.3%). Target’s bold discounting strategy shows a commitment to protecting its competitive position across the entire Bed & Bath category.

By far, Amazon offered the greatest percentage of additional discounts in Bed & Bath compared to its rivals across all levels of premiumness. Comparatively pervasive discounts help the e-commerce giant offer a greater variety of appealing deals within this category.

In Furniture, most retailers showed a direct relationship between their additional discounts and the level of premiumness. Notably, Home Depot offered massive additional discounts at the high premium level, nearly triple Amazon and Walmart (34.5% vs. 12.7%). This move suggests Home Depot is serious about winning the business of upscale consumers in the Furniture category.

Target differentiated its assortment by discounting by far the greatest portion of its Furniture at all premiumness levels (22.4%) and Home Depot discounted the least (4.4%). Amazon and Walmart distributed the greatest portion of their additional discounts to the moderate level of premiumness. Target’s strategy tries to attract all Furniture shoppers while Amazon and Walmart try to make their mid-market offerings affordable to more consumers.

Across all levels of premiumness for Kitchen products, Target offered the biggest additional discounts, including almost double Amazon’s discounts at the medium level (22.5% vs. 13.4%). Target’s aggressive discounting shows a desire to be more competitive by attracting consumers at all levels of the Kitchen category.

In the Kitchen category, most retailers offered a direct relationship between the proportion of additional discounts and the level of premiumness, yet Home Depot showed an inverse relationship. Amazon’s proportion of additional discounts across all levels of premiumness nearly tripled Home Depot’s (10.1% vs. 3.7%). This discount strategy shows Amazon’s willingness to offer shoppers deals across a broader variety of Kitchen items.

In Pet Care, Walmart offered the highest overall additional discounts (16.2%), which could fortify its low-cost leadership position for pet lovers at all price points.

While Target offered the greatest overall percentage of additional discounts in Pet Care, Amazon applied more discounts to the higher end of the premium spectrum and Target focused on the lower end.

Additional discounts across visibility levels

In Bed & Bath, Target offered the highest overall additional discounts across all levels of visibility (27.3%) and Amazon offered the lowest (12.4%). Amazon focused its additional discounts on the most visible Bed & Bath products to help online shoppers discover those items with ease and make them appealing enough to add to their cart.

Amazon offered the lowest additional discounts in the Furniture category across all levels of product visibility. Yet, among the Furniture category’s most visible items, Amazon offered its highest additional discounts. Home Depot’s additional discounts approach was the most aggressive except among the lowest product visibility levels. Home Depot’s discount strategy shows a desire to compete for Furniture’s most visible items.

In the Kitchen category, Home Depot consistently offered the lowest additional discounts among products at the higher visibility levels. Conversely, Target was the most aggressive in this category, offering additional discounts of up to 43.2% at moderate levels of visibility and double Home Depot’s discounts (26.3% vs. 13.4%) among the most visible items. Amazon may feel confident that men already choose Amazon for their apparel needs.

In Pet Care, the retailers generally offered the most additional discounts for items in the middle of the visibility spectrum. Walmart offered the most aggressive additional discounts among the most visible Pet Care items, more than double Target’s discounts (13.5% vs. 6.5%).

Overall, Prime Day 2020 offered an ideal time for Amazon to attract homebound consumers to invest in domestic products, yet its rivals offer much higher additional discounts in Bed & Bath, Furniture, Kitchen and Pet Care. How about other categories? Watch this space for more insights!

October 27, 2020
How Prime Day 2020 Deals Influenced Retail Pricing Strategies

Our preliminary analysis reveals that Prime Day 2020 motivated Amazon’s rivals to offer deeper discounts in key categories to try to make their merchandise more magnetic and lure consumers away from the e-commerce giant.

This year’s Prime Day is momentous, as the COVID-19 pandemic has encouraged more consumers to make online shopping a more regular habit. It also marks the first time Prime Day took place in the strategically significant final quarter of the year, kicking off the holiday sales season.

At DataWeave, we wanted to know whether Prime Day 2020 lived up to the hype and how Amazon’s deals compared to other retailers’ discounts. Our analysis examines products across three popular categories: electronics, beauty and fashion.

Our Methodology

We tracked the pricing of several leading retailers (Best Buy, Target, Walmart and Amazon) selling consumer electronics, beauty and fashion to assess their pricing and assortment strategies during this annual sales event.

Our analysis focused on additional discounts offered during the sale to estimate the true value that the sale represented to consumers. Our calculations compared product prices on Prime Day versus the prices prior to the sale. The sample consisted of up to the top 750 ranked products across 21 popular product types in consumer electronics, beauty and fashion.

The Verdict

Overall, Amazon reported the lowest price reduction in the Electronics, Beauty and Fashion categories (13.4%), compared to Best Buy (22.5%), Target (21.7%) and Walmart (16.3%). Yet Amazon reported the second-highest percentage of additionally discounted products (12.0% vs. 15.7% for Target).

After Prime Day ended, certain assortments reflected more significant price increases than others. For instance, 97% of Target’s 158 products in Electronics, Beauty and Fashion had a price increase during the post-sale period, compared to 49% of Walmart’s 986 products. This discrepancy makes sense given Walmart’s everyday low price strategy.

These results suggest that although Prime Day generates tremendous media buzz for Amazon, the most generous deals come from its rivals. To stand out and lure shoppers away from Amazon, competitors offered comparatively deeper discounts, especially in categories in which they want to grow their market share. This means online shoppers would be wise to compare prices across retailers’ websites to find the best cross-category deals on Prime Day.

Top product types by additional discount

In Electronics, Best Buy offered the biggest average additional discount (22.4%) and Amazon offered the lowest (9.4%). Tablets were a popular product category among Amazon, Best Buy and Walmart, with Best Buy offering the best average additional discount at 19.1%. Other popular product types among rival retailers included TVs, desktops and laptops.

In Beauty, Target (13.2%) and Walmart (13.1%) almost tied for the biggest overall additional discount. Makeup was a popular beauty subcategory, with Walmart offering the highest additional discount at 19.7%. Other popular product types included hair care, skin care and fragrance.

In Men’s Fashion, Target offered the biggest average additional discount of 28.1%. Suits and blazers were a popular fashion subcategory, in which Target offered the highest average additional discount at 50.0%. Other popular product types included T-shirts and tank tops, shirts and jeans.

Within the Women’s Fashion category, Walmart offered the biggest average additional discount of 20.5%. Tops and tees were a popular product category across all three fashion rivals, with Walmart offering the best average additional discount at 23.6%. Other popular product types included dresses, jumpsuits and jeans.

Additional discounts across product “premiumness” levels

Premiumness was calculated as the average selling price before the sale event. This was divided into low, medium and high premiumness levels, with high indicating higher selling prices.

In Electronics, Amazon showed a direct relationship between its additional discounts and the level of premiumness; Best Buy and Walmart showed an inverse relationship. Best Buy offered the biggest additional discounts across all levels of premiumness, nearly triple Amazon’s discounts (20.7% vs. 7.0% ) at the low end of the premium spectrum, and more than double Amazon’s discounts (18.5% vs. 7.3%) at the moderate level. Best Buy’s discounting strategy show it’s serious about protecting its competitive position in electronics.

Best Buy and Walmart offered the most additional discounts at the high end of the premiumness spectrum, making both retailers more competitive in the high-ticket electronics category. By contrast, Amazon offered nearly double the additional discounts of its rivals within the low segment, which helps to protect its margins while making products even more affordable and appealing.

In Beauty, Amazon and Walmart offered their biggest additional discounts at the low premium level, possibly to position those products as loss leaders. Meanwhile Target nearly doubled and tripled its rivals’ additional discounts at the high premium level (30.0% vs. 16.0% for Walmart and 11.0% for Amazon) to stand out in this intensely competitive category.

Amazon stood out by discounting the greatest portion of its Beauty offerings at all premiumness levels and Target discounted the least. Amazon and Walmart showed a direct relationship between their distribution of additional discounts and the beauty products’ premiumness level.

Across all levels of premiumness for Men’s Fashion, Target offered the biggest additional discounts, including more than triple Amazon’s discounts at the high end (38.4% vs. 12.4%). Target’s aggressive discounting shows a desire to be more competitive within the most premium segment of Men’s Fashion.

Amazon’s additional discounts accounted for the greatest percentage of its Men’s Fashions across all levels of premiumness, nearly triple Target’s overall average (15.4% vs. 5.3%). This approach shows Amazon’s willingness to give shoppers deals across a broader variety of Men’s Fashion items.

In Women’s Fashion, Target’s and Walmart’s overall additional discounts were comparable, and Amazon’s discounts were consistently the lowest among all levels of premiumness. Walmart offered its most generous discounts at the low and medium level of premiumness, which could reinforce its low-cost leadership image.

While Amazon and Target offered a comparable overall percentage of additional discounts in Women’s Fashions, Amazon applied more discounts to the higher end of the premium spectrum and Target focused on the lower end.

Additional discounts across visibility levels

In Electronics, Amazon offered the lowest average additional discounts across all levels of visibility. Among the most visible electronics, Amazon and Best Buy gave the most visible electronics higher additional discounts to make those items more alluring to help consumers find the items fast and add them to their online baskets.

Among the Beauty category’s most visible items, Amazon and Target offered their highest additional discounts. Yet Target was most aggressive in beauty, offering a 30% additional discount at the most visible end of the spectrum as well as at the least visible. This discount strategy shows Target wants to compete in Beauty, spreading its generosity beyond an exclusive focus on highly visible items.

In Men’s Fashion, Amazon consistently offered the lowest additional discounts at all visibility levels. Target was the most aggressive in this category, offering additional discounts of 50% at moderate levels of visibility and 34.5% among the most visible items. Amazon may feel confident that men already choose Amazon for their apparel needs.

In Women’s Fashion, the retailers generally offered the most additional discounts for items at the higher end of the visibility spectrum. Walmart offered the most aggressive additional discounts among the most visible items in Women’s Fashion to try to boost its market share in this category.

Overall, while Prime Day is an effective way for Amazon to boost brand engagement, its rivals overwhelmingly offer higher additional discounts in Electronics, Beauty and Fashion. How about other categories like the booming Home space? Watch this space for more insights!

October 22, 2020
Amazon Triples Down on its Private-label Product Portfolio
Among Amazon’s most prominent and decisive steps in achieving retail dominance over the last few years has been its focus on expanding its private label portfolio.

The most recent collaborative report between DataWeave and Coresight Research determines that Amazon’s private label assortment in early 2020 has grown three-fold over the previous two years, most of which is in categories outside of apparel and accessories.

In addition, the report covers various facets of Amazon’s private label penetration and strategy. These include the size of Amazon’s private label portfolio, the distribution of private label products by category, the product ratings and number of reviews, the average price points across products and brands, and more.

Our detailed and proprietary Amazon private label dataset includes information on over 20,000 products and 111 brands.

Some of our key findings are:
- Amazon’s private-label offering spans 22,617 products across 111 identified private labels.
- Around half of the private-label products are in clothing, footwear and accessories, which is lower than the three-quarters found in our similar research from June 2018, indicating Amazon’s push into a broader range of categories.
- The average Amazon private-label product generates a customer rating of 4.3 out of 5, representing positive customer feedback overall.
Amazon’s Private-Label Offering Spans 22,617 Products across 111 Identified Private Labels

The number of private-label products—22,617—is more than triple the total of 6,825 from June 2018 (see our previous report). The number of private-label brands also increased substantially (up 50% versus June 2018), indicating that the e-commerce giant has stepped up its private-label strategy.

Around Half of Private-Label Products Are in Clothing, Footwear and Accessories

Just over half of Amazon’s private-label products are in “clothing, footwear and accessories,” versus almost three-quarters when we undertook similar research in June 2018, indicating Amazon’s push into a broader range of categories. Other categories that feature more than 1,000 private-label products include “home and kitchen,” “grocery and gourmet food” and “tools and home improvement.”

Source: DataWeave/Coresight

The Average Amazon Private-Label Product Generates a Customer Rating of 4.3 out of 5

We examined feedback provided by Amazon’s private-label customers: Customer satisfaction can be measured by the average star rating that customers have left in reviews. We chart both average star rating and average number of customer reviews per product in the graph below.

The average Amazon private-label product generates a customer rating of 4.3 stars out of 5, suggesting overall solid customer satisfaction levels.

Source: DataWeave/Coresight

The full report is available for Coresight’s premium subscribers. It includes further details of categories and subcategories that suggest longer-term implications—including how Amazon targets a niche customer base through specific category labels but appeals to broader consumer needs by offering multicategory labels.

To access DataWeave’s proprietary database on Amazon’s private label brands and products, reach out to us today!
May 29, 2020
Coronavirus Outbreak: Impact on E-Commerce Retailers and Consumer Brands

The Coronavirus, otherwise known as COVID-19, has made landfall on U.S. shores. At the time of writing this article, there are over 230 confirmed cases in the country and 12 deaths. The growing unease about the virus, which has quickly accumulated 95,000+ confirmed cases globally, has, among other things, adversely affected businesses and stock markets the world over.

In the wake of this outbreak, U.S. based retailers and brands would be prudent to brace themselves and plan ahead to minimize disruptions as much as possible.

Businesses and consumers in China, the global epicenter of the epidemic, have been dealing with these challenges over the last couple of months. It’s likely that some of the trends observed in China would be mimicked in the U.S. as well, something that domestic retailers and brands would do well to study and prepare for.

The Inadvertent E-commerce Wave

When the outbreak happened in China, it caused an uptick in e-commerce adoption as shoppers were reluctant to step out of their homes and instead, opted to shop for their goods online.

Reports indicate that Chinese online retailer JD.com’s online grocery sales grew 215% YoY over a 10-day period between late January and early February. Similarly, Carrefour’s vegetable deliveries grew by 600% YoY during the Lunar New Year period. Online sales of Dettol, a disinfectant produced by Reckitt Benckiser, rose 643% YoY between 10 February and 13 February on China’s Suning.com.

In Singapore, another region affected by the virus more recently than in China, Lazada’s grocery arm, RedMart, and Supermarket chain, NTUC FairPrice, both reported an unprecedented surge in demand, which tested their delivery capabilities to the limit.

This bump in online sales isn’t just restricted to grocery, but other categories as well. Jean-Paul Agon, CEO of L’Oréal, recently said that online sales of the brand’s beauty products increased in China in February.

Given such a consistent shift in shopping behavior across coronavirus-affected regions, it’s logical to expect that a similar trend would be followed in the U.S. – in fact, it might already be underway.

A recent survey by Coresight Research indicated that 27.5% of U.S. respondents are avoiding public areas at least to some extent, and 58% plan to if the outbreak worsens. Of those who have altered their routines, more than 40% say they are “avoiding or limiting visits to shopping centers/ malls” and more than 30% are avoiding stores in general. The survey also found consumers will likely begin to avoid restaurants, movie theaters, sporting events and other entertainment venues.

Therefore, it’s essential for U.S. retailers and brands to swiftly energize their e-commerce readiness and be fully prepared to cater to the circumstances-induced shift in shopping behavior, inclined toward online.

A Logistical Nightmare

The most obvious area of impact for retailers and brands is in their supply chain and order fulfilment operations.

A large portion of consumer product manufacturers rely to some extent on China, and the potential impact of the virus on supply chain processes is inescapable. Chinese factories have been operating at partial capacity, impacting supply chains globally. This has largely affected highly popular e-commerce categories like consumer electronics, fashion and furniture.

Shares in the U.S. of furniture e-commerce retailer, Wayfair, fell as much as 26% toward the end of February, according to a Bloomberg report. The is particularly revealing, as the online retailer reportedly relies on China for half of its merchandise.

Retailers struggling to cope with this stress in their supply chain systems would do well to warn their customers beforehand about delays in deliveries, like AliExpress has just done.

For categories like CPG, as consumers increasingly shop online, retailers that offer Buy Online Pick Up In Store (BOPIS), should expect a surge in its adoption, and reinforce their online infrastructure and in-store operations to cater to the rising demand.

In addition to disruptions in the supply chain, several other mission-critical areas are likely to get affected too.

Keeping Up With The Online Surge

As with any event of this magnitude, the business implications reach far and wide. The following are a few areas that we’ve identified as critical, based on our experience working with retailers and brands. Being aware of and focusing on these issues are likely to alleviate some of the issues faced by consumers today.

Fair pricing: There have been several reports of price gouging on e-commerce platforms. Examples include 2-ounce Purell bottles being sold for $400 and face masks for up to $20. While these prices have mostly been set by third party merchants, brands are likely to face the flak from consumers. A recent Bloomberg article reported that online retailers still rely partly on employees to manually monitor these items. This approach has obvious limitations, such as products quickly reappearing on the website after being de-listed. Brands and e-commerce platforms will need to explore automated ways of controlling their online pricing practices at large scale.

3P merchant and counterfeit management: Often, unauthorized third-party merchants selling an original manufacturer’s goods are the ones who unreasonably inflate prices. These merchants tend to test the markets on online marketplaces with their pricing, which adversely affects the brand image of the manufacturer. Further still, they sometimes list counterfeit or fake goods that make incorrect or extravagant claims. Brands will need to swiftly identify and de-list these merchants from online marketplaces.

Ensuring stock availability: During times like these, it’s a common sight to see empty aisles at supermarkets selling items like canned food, water, paper products and personal care products. Consumers will benefit from brands monitoring their stock availability at stores, which will help them better align their supply chain operations to the rapidly changing demand patterns across the U.S. map. This way, efforts can be more targeted at regions with severe shortages.

Content compliance: Helium 10, a technology provider for Amazon sellers, reported that since 26 February, 90% of searches on Amazon are coronavirus related, and searches for hand sanitizers spiked to 1.5 million searches in February compared to 90,000 in November. As a result, to arrest exploitative practices, some online marketplaces have announced policy guidelines on product content claiming health benefits. Words like ‘Coronavirus‘, ‘COVID-19‘, ‘Virus‘ and ‘epidemic’ are, in fact, prohibited. Amazon has already de-listed several merchants claiming fraudulent cures. Ebay has gone as far as to ban all new listings for face masks, hand sanitizers, and disinfecting wipes, due to regulatory restrictions. In this context, retailers and brands will benefit from deploying tracking mechanisms that quickly identify offenders.

The areas of business presented above are by no means a comprehensive list for retailers and brands to rely on during this time. Still, these are critical impact areas for them to address, even as huge efforts are made toward managing highly stressed supply chains.

DataWeave Offers Support

The coronavirus outbreak is likely to get worse before it gets better. As we enter unchartered territories, DataWeave is offering to contribute in small ways, pro bono, by leveraging our expert talent and competitive intelligence technology platform, to address some of the challenges faced by retailers and brands.

We’re announcing a limited-time, no-cost offer to detect and report on price gouging, the presence of unauthorized third-party merchants, as well as stock availability across U.S. ZIP-codes. This offer will be valid for 4-6 weeks (timeline will be flexible based on how the outbreak develops) and limited to monitoring the top 10 U.S. online marketplaces, as well as critical product categories such as medicinal and hygiene-related products, emergency food items, survival-related products, fuel, etc.

Reach out to us for further details.

March 6, 2020
Black Friday 2019 Pricing for Online Furniture

For today’s shoppers, instant gratification is the need of the hour. It’s, therefore, no surprise that furniture e-retail has been picking up steam over the last decade. What was once a norm to physically touch and feel before making a purchase, is now just a few clicks away. Retailers have bridged the gap by making the purchase process as seamless as possible – easy finance options, hassle-free returns and variety.

While several factors play a role in driving consumers to shop furniture goods online, price is the primary motivator, as is the case with most popular product categories sold online.

During Black Friday 2019, DataWeave performed an analysis on a sample of 23,000+ products across six of the top furniture retailers – Amazon, Home Depot, JCPenney, Target, Walmart and Wayfair. Ten product types were covered in the furniture category (such as Beds, Bookcases, Mattresses, Sofas, etc.) and the analysis focused on the top 500 ranked products of each product type.

To get an accurate depiction of the additional markdowns during the sale, we took the mode of the prices for the preceding week and compared them with that during the sale.

Additional markdowns

Target (25%) and Home Depot (21%) marked down their prices most aggressively during the sale. JCPenney and Wayfair stood out for offering additional markdowns on the highest portions of their ranges (67% and 46% respectively), even though the average markdown percentage was fairly conservative. Amazon and Walmart were steady as usual, with additional markdowns of 8% and 10% on 15% and 17% of their assortment, respectively.

Premiumness

To further understand the furniture pricing strategies of these retailers, we categorized their products into buckets of how expensive or cheap the product is (High, Medium, and Low in terms of price), relative to the rest of the products hosted by the retailer, and studied how the additional markdowns varied across these buckets. Where the MRP was not displayed, the most expensive price of the product during the holiday period prior to Black Friday was considered to define the “premiumness” of the product.

Two patterns clearly stand out from this analysis. Most of the retailers remained relatively equitable between their premium categories with nothing significant to report in terms of varying markdowns. Home Depot and and JCPenney are the only exceptions here, but not by much. The other interesting insight is that the percentage of marked-down products had a near unanimous pattern of the high level being the most covered, followed by the medium and then low.

Therefore, while there wasn’t a significant variation in the average markdown across premiumness levels, a larger portion of the high-premium goods were consistently offered at a discount across all retailers.

Popularity

Much like our premiumness categorization, we investigated products based on their popularity levels as well. We’ve defined popularity using a combination of the average review rating and the number of reviews for each product, condensed to a scale of low, medium and high.

We observe slightly different furniture pricing strategies adopted by retailers across popularity levels. While Home Depot, Amazon, and Wayfair chose to provide higher markdowns on their more popular products, Target, JCPenney, Walmart chose to provide higher markdowns on their least popular products. In addition, a larger portion of the least popular products were consistently offered on discount by almost all retailers.

In combination with our findings across premiumness levels, we can surmise that part of the strategy of most retailers was to liquidate their stock of expensive and unpopular products during the sale.

Price Change Activity

As part of our analysis, we also tracked the level of pricing activity across retailers over the last week of November, in terms of the number of price changes made as well as the average price variation for each retailer.

In general, we can see that Amazon and Walmart consistently made several price changes through the week, though the average magnitudes of these price changes were relatively low. This echoes the pattern we’ve observed through our analysis of other product categories during the sale event, as well.

Also, we see an almost coordinated increase in the number of price changes and the average magnitude across the 27th and 28th of November. This is likely an attempt by the retailers to get a head start on Black Friday deals.

An unusual and interesting pattern was observed with Wayfair, which started out the week with the most changes at 2500. It then tanked the next day and hovered around 500 till the 28th, only to spike to 2500 again. All these changes though, had their variation in and around 5%.

In summary, its interesting to observe how different retailers approached the much-anticipated holiday season sale events differently. As one might expect, there are significant variations among retailers in the aggressiveness of discounting activity as they approached Black Friday, and on Black Friday itself. Contrasting pricing strategies for popular and premium goods were also observed.

If you would like to learn more about the pricing of top U.S. retailers across other product categories like consumer electronics, fashion, and beauty & health, check out our series of articles on Black Friday 2019.

January 8, 2020
Health & Beauty on Black Friday: Analyzing Pricing Strategies of Top U.S. Retailers

We’ve come a long way from face paint and medicinal herbs to multi-billion dollar industries revolving around health and beauty. Customers are getting increasingly bombarded with variety that promises something for everyone. In fact, a recent DataWeave study identified Health & Beauty as one of the most popular CPG categories in the U.S., both in terms of assortment strength and brand concentration. As with most other categories, pricing activity around Health & Beauty is especially abuzz when Thanksgiving weekend comes around.

As part of our series of articles analyzing the pricing of leading retailers across categories on Black Friday, the DataWeave team performed an analysis on a sample of 14,000+ products across six top retailers – Amazon, JC Penney, Macy’s, Nordstrom, Target and Walmart. Seven product types were covered across the category, such as Fragrance, Hair Care, Makeup, etc. and the analysis focused on the top 500 ranked products of each product type.

Additional markdowns

For this analysis, we considered the mode of the prices for the week before and compared it with that during the sale. This painted a picture of the additional markdowns for the duration of the sale.

Similar to our prior coverage of the Fashion category during Black Friday, Macy’s had the broadest reach in terms of the marked down products at 25.6%. The average percentage of the markdowns was 22% and was only eclipsed by JC Penney with an average of 34.7%, though this was only offered on 3% of its range. At the other end of the spectrum, Amazon and Walmart had the lowest markdowns at 8.9% and 8.4% respectively but were among the top three in products covered (18% & 12%). Target and Nordstrom offered mid-range markdowns across the board but on a rather conservative selection of products of 5% and 3%, respectively.

Additional markdowns by product types

When we delved further into the product types, we noticed that a majority of the retailers heavily marked down makeup, shampoo & conditioner and men’s hair care products. The table illustrates the top three discounted categories for each retailer we analyzed.

Premiumness

We categorized the products across retailers into buckets of how expensive or cheap a product is, relative to the rest of the products hosted by the retailer in the respective product type. Where the MRP was not displayed, the most expensive price of the product during the holiday period prior to Black Friday was considered for this categorization. We then tagged products as High, Medium and Low in terms of product premiumness, with High referring to the more expensive products.

In line with previous trends, Macy’s had the highest markdown on its high level products at 32.8%. It also had the widest coverage for the category at 20%. Amazon, Macy’s, Target, Walmart followed the expected approach of providing higher markdowns on the more premium products, and also on a higher portion of these products. This would be consistent with their goal of providing attractive offers on premium goods while also protecting their margins.

JC Penney and Nordstrom were exceptions here, with JC Penney providing higher markdowns on its cheaper goods, while Nordstrom focused its markdowns on the medium bucket. That being said, it should be reiterated that the portion of products with markdowns for both thee retailers was relatively small.

Popularity

Similar to categorizing the products at levels of product premiumness, we categorized them into levels of popularity as well. Here, popularity is defined using a combination of the average review rating and number of reviews obtained for each product.

Interestingly, no consistent pattern has emerged that indicates a strategic focus on factoring product popularity into their pricing strategies for Black Friday.

Macy’s, JC Penney, and Nordstrom chose to provide higher markdowns on their highly popular products, of which only JC Penney and Macy’s chose to also markdown a higher portion of their highly popular products. It was just as common though to see retailers (including Amazon) marking down the prices of their least popular products. This is likely an attempt by the retailers to liquidate their excessive stock of less popular products during the sale.

Price Change Activity

As documented quite often in recent years, the Black Friday sale is no longer limited only to a single day, but attractive offers are often seen right through November, especially over the last week of the month. We tracked the level of pricing activity across retailers over the last week of November, in terms of number of price changes as well as the average price variation for each retailer.

In typical fashion, we observed that Amazon had the most number of pricing changes by a large margin, peaking at 2500 for the set of products tracked. The next in line was Walmart a long way down at 618 changes on the 27th. Even after the multiple changes, their average price change variation remained at the lower end of the scale – in and around 10%.

The rest of the retailers exercised fewer price changes, with the slight exception of Macy’s in the days leading up to Black Friday. However, the changes almost ceased from the day before only to marginally rise on the 29th.

While all the retailers tended to follow a predictable pattern of decreasing variation on the 28th and sharply increasing it the next day, Nordstrom and Walmart did the exact opposite, having likely chosen to jump the gun in offering discounts during Black Friday.

Conclusion

To conclude, we deduced that Macy’s had relatively higher markdowns on more of its products than the rest. JC Penney, Nordstrom and Target offered high markdowns on the face of it but on a very small section of products. Unsurprisingly, Amazon and Walmart stayed true to their past patterns and remained conservative in their additional markdowns during the sale but generous in their reach.

Have a look here at our other observations regarding the Black Friday sale and stay tuned for more insights from our analysis of other product categories!

December 19, 2019
Fashion on Black Friday: Decoding Pricing Strategies of Top U.S. Retailers

Over the last few Thanksgiving Weekend sales, fashion, what was a category once typically reserved for offline purchases, has evolved into a regularly marked down and popular category as shoppers get more comfortable making these purchases online. This can be credited to the ease of purchase that retailers offer – trials, returns, etc. combined with the desire for shoppers to refresh their wardrobe for the new year ahead.

At DataWeave, we performed an analysis on a sample of 40,000+ products across six of the top fashion retailers – Amazon, Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, Nordstrom, Target and Walmart. . Twenty product types were covered across both men’s and women’s fashion and the analysis focused on the top 500 ranked products of each product type.

Additional Markdowns

For the sake of this analysis, we compared the prices during the sale with the mode of the prices the week before. This gave us a clear picture of the additional markdowns during the sale period and therefore, the additional value to shoppers.

Dominating the fashion space, Nordstrom and Macy’s came in hot with the most aggressive discounts on the largest share of their product range, 36% and 27% respectively, on more than a quarter of their range. In the women’s lineup, Target offered a 36% markdown, compared to ~22% for its men’s lineup. Across both categories though, this was only on 1% of Target’s range. In what seems to be an expected trend, Amazon and Walmart remained relatively conservative with their additional markdowns, as they tend to be competitively priced even during non-sale periods.

Drilling down into the product types, we noticed that very aggressive markdowns were being offered on t-shirts and skirts (over 40%). Swimwear, hosiery, handbags, and sunglasses were other product types that were featured with attractive prices across websites.

Product Premiumness

We categorized the products across retailers into buckets of how expensive or cheap the product is, relative to the rest of the products hosted by the retailer. Where the MRP was not displayed, the most expensive price of the product during the holiday period prior to Black Friday was considered. We then bucketed products in categories of High, Medium and Low of product premiumness, with High containing the more expensive products by price.

Amazon, Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s and Nordstrom chose to markdown the more expensive products in their range higher than the rest of their assortment. This aligns well with what one would expect retailers to do as shoppers tend to expect attractive offers on the more expensive range of products. Also, with the more expensive products, retailers and brands likely have more room to be flexible with margins. Amazon shows a consistent strategy here, having provided higher markdowns on a relatively higher portion of its most premium products and vice versa. This trend can only otherwise partially be seen with Macy’s.

Walmart though, chose to go the other route and provided higher markdowns on its least premium products. This might have been a targeted effort to maintain their perception among shoppers as a destination for affordable goods. Though it’s important to note here that these markdowns were seen only on a small set of cheap goods – just over 5%.

Price Change Activity

Walmart, Nordstrom and to an extent, Bloomingdale’s, had an almost consistent number of price changes throughout the week. Nordstrom recorded the most significant dip in the magnitude of the markdowns over time.

Amazon and to a smaller degree, Macy’s, had more price changes during the week. However, Amazon’s average price variation remained among the lowest whereas Macy’s clocked in the highest by Black Friday at just under 40%.

Across the board, the price changes dipped on the 28th and then rose again on the 29th. This can be seen as a conscious effort to have more aggressive activity on Black Friday.

In summary, fashion-first retailers like Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s went all-in during the sale, while Nordstrom, a multi-category retailer, stood out for its aggressive focus on fashion.

Amazon and Walmart continued to operate within the competitive space that they’ve carved out for themselves as the leading retailers in the US. We observed a similar trend even in the other product categories we’ve analyzed for the sale. Check out our analysis of the Electronics category during Black Friday here.

December 11, 2019
Black Friday Sale: Breaking Down Pricing Strategies in Consumer Electronics

Online holiday shopping (Nov-Dec) in the US for 2019 is projected to be $143.7B, a 14.1% increase from 2018. This sets a rather exciting stage for retail giants in the battle to claim market share. Interesting patterns emerge as each one tries to out-smart the other. Black Friday, in particular, is when most of the activity was expected to be concentrated.

Inevitably, consumer electronics had strong representation, according to research by Coresight. As traffic steers more towards online shopping, there’s an increased sense of comfort in purchasing big ticket items on an ecommerce platform. There are multiple reasons why electronics lead the race during the holiday season – easy to gift, personal indulgence, comparatively shorter shelf life and well, because who among us can really resist a gadget on sale.

In line with expectations during the season, there’s been a slew of generous discounts across the board. According to prior trends, Amazon was on course to be the lowest priced. In order to assess this, we decided to study a sample of 1000 products on Amazon and match them against its competitors like Walmart, Target, Best Buy and New Egg. Doing this gave us an accurate picture of the comparative pricing across retailers during this season, right up to Black Friday.

Competitive Pricing Analysis

There is a commonly held assumption that Amazon is the lowest priced retailer in most cases. How true is that? Here are our findings:

We tracked the split across three scenarios during the holiday period – Amazon being exclusively the lowest priced, Amazon sharing the lowest priced spot and Amazon not being the lowest priced.

Clearly, Amazon monopolized the share of lowest priced products during the entire period – with its share of lowest priced products ranging between 86% and 60%. The dip from 86% to 60% was immediate on the 27th, as Amazon’s competitors caught up. In general, Amazon’s share of lowest priced products fell from 76% to 62% on Black Friday, as its competitors launched their most aggressive promotional campaigns for the holiday season. As shown in the next chart below, a large portion of this can be attributed to Target’s pricing activity.

Relative Price Index

From 21 November until Black Friday, we calculated the price index across retailers, which indicates the relative pricing levels each day for the set of matched products – the lower the price index, the lower the average relative price.

Unsurprisingly, Amazon has been consistently the lowest priced by a fair margin. A few rungs down, New Egg and Fry’s have been going head-to-head with their price positions. Target on the other hand, underwent a spike in relative pricing from 26-28 November. To sum up, in order of lowest pricing, it’s Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, New Egg, Fry’s and Target.

Additional Markdowns

While the insights above were unearthed by comparing the products of retailers against a sample of 1000 Amazon products, we went further and performed a separate analysis on a different sample of 15,000+ products across retailers, which focussed on the top 500 ranked products of each product type for Amazon, Best Buy, Target and Walmart. The product types considered include Digital Cameras, DSLRs, Headphones, Laptops, Mobile Phones, Refrigerators, Tablets, Televisions, USB Flash Drives and Wearables.

Here, we compared the prices during the sale with the mode of the prices of the same retailer the week before. This put into perspective the level of additional markdowns during the sale period, enabling us to better understand the additional value to shoppers during the sale period (since discounts are often offered during non-sale periods too).

Looking at opposite ends of the spectrum, we find Amazon with the least drastic markdowns during the sale as it tends to consistently have lower prices across the board. At the other end, there’s Best Buy and Target with the most aggressive markdowns; Target taking the lead, 25.5% on 35% of its products, which is also consistent with the activity we observed in the previous sample of matched products.

Going further, we’ve broken down the markdown activity by the top product types for each retailer. Across the board, we observe attractive discounts on Headphones, USB Flash Drives and Mobile Phones.

Price Change Activity

With the proliferation of pricing intelligence tools (often driven by algorithms), dynamic pricing is a commonly observed behavior among retailers. We analyzed this trend during the holiday period to identify the retailers that are most aggressive in their price change activity. The following charts reveal the number of price changes performed by retailers in our sample as well as the average price variation during this holiday period.

Amazon made several price changes during the week but with a relatively low magnitude, since it was the lowest priced anyway through the week. The only other player with similar activity was Walmart. Target and Best Buy had significantly fewer price changes but when they did make the changes, the magnitude was much larger. Their focus was solely on a smaller, select set of products where they went all in.

In conclusion

As the years advance, the duration of holiday sales is no longer restricted to the actual holiday, but the days preceding and following them as well. With more and more people getting increasingly comfortable with online shopping (14.1% increase from 2018), buying habits are evolving too. Big retailers are cashing in on this and driving their pricing strategies to keep up with the evolution.

One of the clear cut findings from our research is that there are two primary paths they take: smaller additional markdowns over a longer period and larger additional markdowns over a shorter period. Whichever path they choose, retailers need to be on top of the game with valuable insights, that give them a competitive edge. For accurate and large scale competitive intelligence, reach out to us.

December 5, 2019
Amazon on course for an aggressive Black Friday

The holidays are around the corner and that much awaited holiday cheer, has now become directly proportional to the arrival of an Amazon package. According to a new report, in partnership with Bain & Company, DataWeave has observed that early in November, Amazon had the lowest price 30%-50% of the time and matched the lowest price 35%-60% of the remaining cases, based on an analysis performed on a sample of over 16,000 products across 10 websites and 5 product categories.

Aggressive pricing strategies have been Amazon’s modus operandi for a while now and it’s not about to change this season. In the build up to the Black Friday promotions this year, they even slashed their prices of the rarely discounted Apple products, such as the iPad Pro. This sets the tone for what shoppers can expect as the holiday season comes upon us.

Results of a recent survey, published as part of the Bain report, revealed that ‘value for money’ was the primary concern that influence purchasing decisions, across categories. In the same breath, the respondents went on to say that they perceive Amazon as a ‘value leader’, sans womens’ clothing and pet supplies.

Although this season might continue to see Amazon rake in the most market share, competitors are not far behind. There’s heavy investment from the likes of Walmart and others in order to negate the effects of the undercut. If these competitive responses become louder, the dent on customer perception could begin to tilt to more neutral ground.

Stay tuned as we follow this pattern during the season and release our findings over the next few weeks.

For access to the full article that was published in the Retail Holiday Newsletter by Bain & Company and powered by DataWeave, click here.

November 27, 2019
Prime Day 2019 Fashion: Were the Deals as Attractive as the Merchandise?

Target and Walmart offered more appealing discounts than Amazon during Prime Day 2019.

Statista estimates that e-commerce fashion accounted for approximately 20.4% of overall fashion retail sales in the United States in 2018, which amounted to about $103 billion in absolute terms. According to Internet Retailer, apparel is the largest and among the most competitive retail categories in e-commerce. Moreover, as a share of total apparel and accessories sales, online apparel sales is growing at a faster rate than US e-commerce as a whole.

Given the high-growth and competitive nature of the category, we at DataWeave were interested to find out how high the stakes got during the fifth annual Prime Day earlier this month.

Our Methodology

Since Prime Day is no longer necessarily an Amazon event (since competing websites often offer attractive discounts as well), we tracked the pricing of several leading retailers selling fashion apparel, footwear, and accessories to assess their pricing and product strategies during the sale event. Our analysis was focused on additional discounts offered during the sale to estimate the true value that the sale represented to its customers. We calculated this by comparing product prices on Prime Day versus the same prices prior to the sale.

Our sample consisted of 20 product types across women’s as well as men’s fashion categories. While we did monitor exclusive fashion retailers Macy’s, Bloomingdales, Nordstrom, and Neiman Marcus, we did not find them offering any additional discounts – an interesting insight all on its own since they’ve clearly chosen not to compete with Amazon during the two days of the Prime Day sale. We therefore restricted the rest of our study to Amazon, Target, and Walmart – the latter two of which interestingly offered immensely aggressive discounts in their apparel categories.

The Verdict

Despite owning the day at least in name, Amazon was found to offer the lowest additional discounts among the retailers studied. Target and Walmart, on the other hand, ensured that they didn’t lose out on market share this Prime Day by offering substantially high discounts of their own. While Target was the most aggressive with a steep average markdown of 26.5%, Amazon closed out the bottom at 8.4%.

Walmart and Target didn’t seem particularly focused on compensating their sharp discounts with price increases in other products – their focus seems to have been solely only on offering timely discounts during the sale. Amazon, on the other hand, marked up just about as many products as it marked down, with the markup margin being close to double that of the markdown in an effort to protect margins during the sale.

Top product types by additional discount

Target and Walmart both offered aggressive discounts across their top product categories. Walmart ended up with a marginally higher overall average additional discounts on product types like Shirts, T-shirts, and Tops.

Interestingly, though Amazon offered moderate discounts across its top categories (Lingerie, Swimwear, and Underwear), the volume of marked down products was very limited.

Additional discounts across popularity levels

We determined popularity using a combination of average review rating and number of reviews, and the resulting scores were categorized as low, moderate, and high.

When it came to discounting popular products, there were clear differences in strategy among all the three retailers. Amazon, which interestingly had close to 60% of its products in the low popularity bucket, chose to offer the highest discounts in the same category – indicating an effort to clear its stock of unpopular products. Target and Walmart, on the other hand, focused their discounts on moderate rated products.

Additional discounts across product “premiumness” levels

Premiumness was calculated as the average selling price before the sale event. This was divided into four percentile blocks, with higher percentile blocks indicating higher selling prices.

As found in the electronics and furniture categories that were analyzed previously, most of the discounting activity was focused on the lower end of the premium spectrum with a view to protect margin – despite a largely equitable distribution of discounted products across percentile ranges (with the exception of Target, which had a discounted assortment heavily dominated by its least premium products).

This indicates a clear strategy to protect margins, while still maintaining the perception of promoting attractive offers to draw traffic. Target and Walmart both offered substantial additional discounts of close to 30% on their least premium products, while at 12%, Amazon offered less than half that discount.

Additional discounts across visibility levels

Given the fairly large number of SKUs across the fashion category in general, the discounts across visibility levels understandably didn’t vary much when compared to the more pronounced fluctuations observed in the electronics and furniture categories. This is also largely because consumers tend to explore lower ranked products more so in the fashion category than in other categories.

Across product categories, we’re seeing lower-than-expected additional discounts on Amazon this Prime Day, coupled with more aggressive pricing activity by Amazon’s competitors. While this puts more pressure on Amazon, this also is a strong validation of Prime Day as a key annual sale event on the US shopper’s calendar.

Curious to know how Amazon and its competitors performed in other product categories this Prime Day? Watch this space for more!

July 29, 2019
Online Furniture Pricing Strategies on 2019 Prime Day

Just as with electronics, other retailers actually offered far better discounts than Amazon during Prime Day 2019.

Online furniture sales have risen significantly since the 2000s, driven largely by a growing array of products, and even more so by the convenience of avoiding travel and crowded stores. According to Statista, online furniture and homeware sales were estimated to reach approximately $190 billion in 2018, with China and the United States accounting for over $60 billion in revenue each.

Thus, furniture has quickly become a key product category during sale events globally – and Prime Day was no different. At DataWeave, we got down to figuring out exactly how plum those deals were this year.

Our Methodology

We tracked the pricing of several leading retailers selling home and furniture products to assess their pricing and product strategies during the sale events. Our analysis was focused on additional discounts offered during the sale to estimate the true value that the sale represented to its customers. We calculated this by comparing product prices on Prime Day versus the same prices prior to the sale. Our sample consisted of the top 1,000 ranked products across 10 popular product types, including beds, dining table sets, sofas, entertainment units, and coffee tables – analyzed for five retailers (Amazon, Home Depot, Target, Walmart, and Wayfair).

The Verdict

As we found in the electronics category, there were surprising price spikes in this category too – with Target reporting an average increase as high as 14.7%, and Amazon clocking a still moderately high 9.4%. Target also reported the highest distribution of products with price markups. Home Depot indicated the lowest price increase at 4.6%.

When it came to additional discounts, Amazon fell short of expectations – at 4.7%, it offered the lowest average among its competitors. Target, on the other hand, was extremely aggressive both in terms of additional discounts and volume of discounted products.

To conclude, all the retailers observed seemed to be keeping a close watch on their margins by countering price reductions with nearly equivalent surges elsewhere in their assortment.

While there was no single product type that was found to be popular across all five retailers, it was clear that Target was again the most aggressive at offering discounts. It also had among the largest product ranges on discount.

Amazon chose to follow a very moderate route both in terms of average discount and discounted product volume.

Additional discounts across popularity levels

We determined popularity using a combination of average review rating and number of reviews, and the resulting scores were categorized as low, moderate, and high.

There doesn’t seem to have been much of a focus on low-popularity products in terms of additional discounts. Most of the attention was focused on products with moderate popularity, since there isn’t much of a need to be aggressive on price for highly popular products, and products with lower popularity aren’t really worth promoting.

The only retailer that offered a higher discount on its most popular products was Home Depot. Walmart, too, seemed reluctant to let go of the opportunity to capitalize on popularity – it chose to offer the same discount on moderately as well as highly popular products.

Interestingly, Walmart seems to have a disproportionately large share of products in its low popularity category – something it should possibly evaluate in the future in terms of brand quality, products, and service.

The percentage distribution of products mostly indicated a linear relationship, with the highest distribution usually being offered for highly popular products. The exception was Wayfair, which offered a much larger array in its moderately popular category.

Additional discounts across product “premiumness” levels

Premiumness was calculated as the average selling price before the sale event. This was divided into four percentile blocks, with higher percentile blocks indicating higher selling prices.

Most of the discounting activity seems to have occurred in the lower end of the premium spectrum, with a view to protect margin – despite a largely healthy distribution of products across percentile ranges. This indicates a clear strategy to protect margins, while also promoting attractive offers to draw traffic.

However, there are a couple of exceptions – Target was consistent throughout the “premiumness” spectrum, resulting in the highest overall discounting activity. Home Depot too was aggressive, but selectively so – it chose attractive pricing for the lower and higher ends of its assortment.

As expected, many retailers showed higher discounting activity in the higher ranks of their listing pages. As usual, though, there are a few exceptions here too. Home Depot and Wayfair indicated unusual patterns – perhaps relying on search results as opposed to organic listing page results. On the other hand, Target again indicated a consistent pattern, with mostly similar discounts across visibility levels.

Overall, across all parameters analyzed, both the Electronics and Furniture categories have been treated quite similarly in terms of pricing activity by most retailers. Is Prime Day really all about its marketing hype, or will it live up to its promise in at least one segment? Stay with us to find out as we follow through with our series of articles analyzing various product categories on this year’s Prime Day.

July 24, 2019
A Study of Deals on Amazon Prime Day 2019 | DataWeave

Our preliminary analysis reveals that Prime Day 2019 had other retailers offering better deals than Amazon in many cases.

As Prime Day extended into an additional day this year, Amazon seems to be hitting the right note with its customers, going by the revenue it’s raking in. This year, the longest Prime Day event ever witnessed a sales increase of 72% – overtaking Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.

At DataWeave, we were curious to find out how prime these deals were, and if in fact other retailers were offering better discounts. We started with the electronics category, which remains among the most popular categories year on year.

Our Methodology

We tracked the pricing of several leading retailers selling consumer electronics to assess their pricing and product strategies during the sale event. Our analysis was focused on additional discounts offered during the sale to estimate the true value that the sale represented to its customers. We calculated this by comparing product prices on Prime Day versus the prices prior to the sale. Our sample consisted of up to the top 1,000 ranked products across 10 popular product types in consumer electronics on Amazon, Best Buy, Target, and Walmart.

The Verdict

What we found most surprising was that across retailers, some portions of the assortment underwent price increases as well. While Amazon indicated the lowest increase at 9.1%, Best Buy indicated an increase as high as 27.1%. However, Amazon reported the highest percentage of products (6.9%) that showed a price increase.

Equally surprising was that Amazon reported the lowest price reduction at 6.3% – Walmart, Target, and Best Buy in fact reduced their prices by much larger margins than Amazon did. A point to note here, however, is that Amazon did report the highest percentage of additionally discounted products – with Best Buy coming in at a close second.

This goes to show that Prime Day, for all its hype, does not in truth offer the best deals to Amazon shoppers. This, of course, is expected based on the competitors’ perspective of wanting to avoid losing market share. As a result, shoppers would be well advised to compare prices across websites to find the best deal.

Top product types by additional discount

USB flash drives were a popular product category across all four retailers analyzed, with Best Buy offering the best average additional discount at 40.7%. Other popular product types ranged from the usual personal devices such as mobile phones, tablets, and smartwatches to home appliances such as refrigerators and TVs.

Additional discounts across popularity levels

We determined popularity using a combination of average review rating and number of reviews, and the resulting scores were categorized as low, moderate, and high.

Interestingly, discounts were not found to be directly proportional to popularity. Except Walmart, all the retailers tended to offer the best discounts on products that enjoyed moderate popularity. This makes sense, since there isn’t a strong need to be aggressive on price for highly popular products in any case. On the other hand, products with lower popularity aren’t really worth promoting. Walmart, which was the exception, reported a higher discount on low- and high-popularity products than it did on moderately popular products.

The percentage distribution of products did mostly show a directly proportional relationship, with the highest distribution usually being offered for highly popular products. The exception in this case was Best Buy, which evidenced a much higher distribution in its moderately popular goods.

Additional discounts across product “premiumness” levels

Premiumness was calculated as the average selling price before the sale event. This was divided into four percentile blocks, with higher percentile blocks indicating higher selling prices.

In general, all retailers were found to have slightly higher additional discounts in the lower end of the “premiumness” spectrum. This is still a smart move, as it enables sellers to save on margin while still promoting attractive discount percentages. Interestingly, Amazon offered the lowest additional discount – a flat 5% – across all categories, despite offering more or less competitive product distributions compared to other retailers.

Additional discounts across visibility levels

Here, too, the lower end of the spectrum mostly witnessed higher additional discounts. This tactic actually offers double benefits – one, the most attractive discounts are offered in the higher realms of visibility, thus effectively enticing consumers to buy these products, and two, it helps build a low price perception (despite this not holding good as one delves deeper into the higher ranks). Again, it’s interesting to note that Amazon didn’t offer the highest discounts here either – in fact, it mostly offered the lowest additional discounts.

All in all, it seems that Prime Day isn’t all it’s hyped up to be, at least not in the Electronics segment. How about other categories? Watch this space for more insights!

July 22, 2019
Thanksgiving Weekend Sale: How Top US Consumer Brands Fared

Online retailers in the US have enjoyed an impressive turnover during 2018’s Thanksgiving weekend sale. Over the last few weeks, DataWeave has published deep-dive reports on the performance of top US retailers in fashion and consumer electronics during this period, detailing their discounting and product strategies across several product types.

In continuation of our series of articles on the Thanksgiving weekend sale, this article focuses specifically on the top brands across all retailers analyzed.

Read Also:

A Study of Fashion Retail Pricing Across Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2018

How Consumer Electronics Was Priced Across Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2018

While a lot of attention from the media and analysts during these sale events is often focused on the strategies and performance of retailers, the festive sale period is equally vital for consumer brands. Both established brands and new entrants across all categories compete aggressively to gain market share during a period that accounts for a substantial portion of annual sales turnover.

For brands, the two primary drivers of conversion specific to sale events are competitive pricing and prominent brand visibility. At DataWeave, we went about analyzing which brands came out on top across retailers and categories during the Thanksgiving weekend sale, based on these two factors.

Our Methodology

We tracked the pricing of 6 leading fashion retailers and 5 major consumer electronics retailers to study the pricing strategies of brands during the sale events. Our analysis focused on additional discounts offered during the sale period to evaluate the true value of the sale event to customers. To calculate this effect, we compared the pricing of products on Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday to the pricing of products prior to the sale commencing. We considered the Top 500 ranked products on 11 product types across Men’s and Women’s Fashion and 11 popular consumer electronics products for this analysis.

Consumer Electronics Brands

In digital cameras, Canon’s traditional role as a discount leader was on show, featuring on both Best Buy (14%) and Target (20%), the two most aggressive price discounters in consumer electronics. Nikon took Canon’s place in DSLR cameras, for Best Buy (13%), New Egg (10%) and Walmart (4%), albeit at a comparatively low additional discount point.

Razor benefited from Amazon’s strategy of promoting its lower-priced products, promoting a modest 9% additional discount but across its entire range of laptop products. The competitiveness of this category between brands is shown by Samsung’s decision to give an additional 53% discount across 36% of its product line at Best Buy.

The strategic approach brands take with different retailers was illustrated by HP’s 30% additional discount on 31% of its products at Target while over at Walmart, HP had a dire a 4% additional discount on a mere 13% of its products. A similar strategy was employed by LG with its televisions. On Amazon, its TVs had a 10% additional discount applied to 46% of its products, while at New Egg that translated to 25% and 8% respectively.

Among the fast emerging wearables category, under-pressure Chinese firm Huawei dropped an aggressive 46% additional discount on 100% of its product range at Best Buy. By comparison, the next highest in this category was Marc Jacobs at Target with 33% and 40% respectively.

Most Visible Brands Across Product Types

In our analysis, brand visibility is represented in terms of both the number of products for each brand, as well as the average rank of all its products (“lower” the rank value, higher is the visibility).

The influence an online retailer exerted on a brand’s average ranking is illustrated by Canon’s digital cameras. On Amazon, its 296 products had an average ranking of 272, while on Best Buy it was 30 and 48, 73 and 212 on New Egg and 20 and 69 on Walmart. For all these retailers, Canon was the most visible brand in digital cameras, despite such variation.

It was a similar story on laptops, with HP’s Amazon ranking of 298 based on 166 products, contrasting with a Target ranking of 14 on 18 products and Walmart ranking of 21 on 20 products.

These patterns appear to play out in TVs too, with Samsung’s Amazon average ranking of 292 based on 150 products contrasting with Walmart average ranking of 10 across 7 products.

Unsurprisingly, across our analysis of additional discounts and brand visibility, the top brands are well known and recognizable brands in each product type, with very few new entrants breaking out from the pack. This story, though, takes a turn in the following analysis on visibility growth.

Brands With Highest Growth in Visibility

To perform this analysis, we developed an index for the visibility of a brand based on the number of products available per brand as well as the average rank of those products. We then compared this score for each brand between before and during the sale period, and subsequently calculated the percentage growth.

The list of brands that showed the highest growth in visibility for each product type is an interesting mix of well established and newer brands. The usual suspects included the likes of Philips, Fitbit, Sony, Kodak, Nikon, etc. The presence of brands like Apple, Google, and Bose is surprising as they would be expected to command strong visibility even before the sale. Some of the newer brands include Rha, Westinghouse, Garmin, Lanruo, and more.

Some brands showed a dramatic increase in visibility. Examples include Bose on Walmart (698%), HTC on New Egg (657%), Galanz on Amazon (657%), and Jlab on Target (608%).

Kodak’s digital cameras (2% growth) on Best Buy took the honors for the lowest increase in visibility, just ahead of HP laptops (3%) on Walmart, Nostalgia Electrics refrigerators (4%) and Belkin Tablets (7%) both on sale at Target. These numbers indicate a relatively static assortment for the respective retailers and product types.

Fashion Brands

Moving over to the Fashion category, we observed significantly more aggressive discounting activity, as expected. Parent’s Choice T-shirts recorded the highest additional discount (80%) applied to the widest product range (Walmart 91%). Similarly, Fruit of the Loom saw Amazon promote a 78% additional discount applied across 20% of its products.

In shoes, Macy’s promoted a 60% additional discount on 50% of Kenneth Cole’s product range. In watches, Amazon featured a 57% additional discount on 50% of Kate Spade New Year branded products. Meanwhile, in sunglasses, Ray Ban in Bloomingdale’s enjoyed a 20% additional discount spread across a whopping 95% of its products, compared to just a 14% additional discount applied to a mere 10% of Ray Ban products in New Egg.

In stark contrast to what was observed in Electronics, the Fashion category saw fewer large brands dominate the discounting landscape across categories. This isn’t surprising given how the Fashion category tends to be cluttered with a plethora of brands, while the Electronics category usually consists of a leaner set of popular brands in each product type.

Most Visible Brands Across Product Types

In casual shoes, Nike’s ranking of 264 on 93 and Converse’s ranking of 239 on 89 products contrasted with Vision Street Wear’s ranking of 8 on 9 products and Time And Tru’s 15 ranking on 14 products.

Another point of contrast was Micheal Kors (Handbags) cross-retailer platform performance - its average ranking of 184 on 102 products on Macy’s while its average ranking on New Egg was 20 across 12 products. Still, it appears the brand discounted heavily in New Egg to compensate for its relatively low visibility on the website.

Ray Ban recorded a category high ranking of 209 based on 321 products on Macy’s. By comparison, Ray Ban had a ranking of 17 on 34 products at New Egg. Over at Amazon, Ray Ban managed a creditable 189 ranking on 124 products and a 163 ranking on 120 products at Bloomingdale’s.

Brands With Highest Growth in Visibility

Compared to the Electronics category, Fashion consists of certain brands that skyrocketed in their visibility. Examples include Next Level T-shirts (Amazon 2,000%), Michael Kors Watches (Walmart 1,424%), Dakota Watches (Target 751%) and Adidas sports shoes (Amazon 516%).

Bloomingdale’s delivered amazing visibility growth for key brands, with Burberry (527%), Reiss (500%), The Kooples (%00%), Tory Burch (500%), J Brand (475%), and Adidas (300%) all enjoying strong visibility growth.

At the other end of the visibility growth spectrum, the growth rates of Lucky shirts (New Egg, 11%), Micheal Kors (New Egg, 20%) Dickies jeans (Target, 22%), Tasso Elba shirts (Macy’s, 23%), and Puma Casual Shoes (Target, 25%) indicate a relatively more static assortment in their respective product types.

Depth Of Product Range And Discounting Strategy Matters

Across the three sales, DataWeave identified several different additional discounting and product assortment strategies by both the retailers and the brands.

While retailers are increasingly discounting the lower priced products to shape price perceptions among shoppers (take a bow Amazon), what are the implications for brands? Firstly, a thin product range is going to make achieving visibility more challenging. Secondly, brand strategies across online retailing platforms will need to be more clearly defined and executed. Thirdly, those brands that treated Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday as discrete events are going to have to rethink their approach as these lines increasingly blur with time.

If you’re interested to learn more about how DataWeave aggregates and analyzes data from online sources as massive scale, as well as how we provide competitive intelligence to retailers and consumer brands, visit our website!

January 10, 2019
Evolution of Amazon’s US Product Assortment

As with many other product categories, Amazon has made a significant incursion in Apparel — a key battleground category in retail today. Recently, DataWeave once more collaborated with Coresight Research, a retail-focused research firm to publish an in-depth report revealing insights on Amazon’s approach to its US fashion offerings.

Since our initial collaborative report in February this year, we have witnessed some seismic shifts in the category at both the brand and the product-type level.

Research Methodology

We aggregated our analytical data on more than 1 million women’s and men’s clothing products listed on Amazon.com in two stages:

Firstly, we identified all brands included in the Top 500 featured product listings for each product subcategory in both the Women’s Clothing and Men’s Clothing sections featured on Amazon Fashion (e.g., the top 500 product listings for women’s tops and tees, the top 500 product listings for men’s activewear, etc.). We believe these Top 500 products reflect around 95 percent of all Amazon.com’s clothing sales. This represents 2,782 unique brands.

We then aggregated the data on all product listings within the Women’s Clothing and Men’s Clothing sections for each of those 2,782 brands. This generated a total of 1.12 million individually listed products. This expansive list forms the basis for our highlights of the report.

Third-Party Seller Listings Are Rising Sharply

We identified a total of 1.12 million products across men’s and women’s clothing — a significant increase of 27.3 percent in the seven months between February and September 2018. The drivers of this sharp spike are third-party seller listings. In contrast, the report indicates only a 2.2 percent rise in first-party listings over the same period, compared to a 30.5 percent jump in third-party listings.

In addition, Amazon has listed just 11.1 percent of all clothing products for sale, with third-party sellers offering the remaining 88.9 percent — an indication of the strength of Amazon’s open marketplace platform.

A Major Brand Shift On Amazon Fashion Is Underway

In just over six short months, major brand shifts on Amazon Fashion have taken place. The number of Nike listings has plummeted by 46 percent, driven by a slump in third-party listings following Amazon’s new partnership with Nike — a story recently covered by Quartz. Limited growth in Nike clothing first-party listings failed to compensate for this decline.

Gildan’s spike in total product listings appears to be fueled by increased first-party listings off a low base. Calvin Klein’s 2017 agreement to supply Amazon with products appears to be driving the Calvin Klein brand’s double-digit uptick in first-party listings on Amazon Fashion.

Aéropostale’s decline appears to be entirely driven by a drop in its third-party listings. The brand itself is not listed as a seller on Amazon.com.

Amazon Is Rebalancing Its Apparel Portfolio and Switching Its Focus from Sportswear To Suits

As its Fashion footprint rapidly matures, Amazon now appears to be rebalancing its portfolio with strong growth being shown in listings for formal categories such as suits and away from sportswear. We recorded a 98.6 percent increase in listings of women’s suits and blazers complemented by a 52.2 percent rise in men’s suit and sports coat listings between February and September 2018.

Generic “Non-Brands” Are Surging On Top 25 Brands List

Over the past six months, low-price generic brands have made major inroads into Amazon’s listings. Four unknown “brands” captured the top positions on the list of brands offered on Amazon Fashion. The WSPLYSPJY, Cruiize and Comfy brands appear to be shipped directly to customers from China.

Source: Coresight/DataWeave (Amazon Fashion: Top 25 Brands’ Number of Listings, February 2018 vs. September 2018)

Source: Coresight/DataWeave (Amazon Fashion: Top 25 Brands’ Number of Listings, February 2018 vs. September 2018)

WSPLYSPJY alone accounts for fully 8.6 percent of Amazon men’s and women’s clothing listings. Cruiize accounts for a further 3.2 percent of listings while Comfy chips in another 3.1 percent.

Amazon Appears To be Executing A Strategic Pivot

Amazon’s fashion offering is fast maturing. We saw substantial growth in the number of listings for more formal categories. The realignment in third-party listings by Nike together with increased first-party listings for Calvin Klein and Gildan appear to be driven by alliances with Amazon.

Simultaneously, ultralow-price generic clothing items delivered on order from China have inundated the “Most-Listed Products” rankings. Third parties now represent nearly 90 percent of Amazon Fashion’s offering.

While Amazon Fashion shoppers enjoy a wider choice than they did even six months ago, we believe a stronger emphasis on first-party listings would grow the products eligible for Prime delivery. This tactic could strengthen Amazon Fashion’s long-term appeal as a shopping destination.

If you’re interested in DataWeave’s technology, and how we aggregate data from online sources to provide unique and comprehensive insights on eCommerce products and pricing, check us out on our website!

November 21, 2018
Inside India’s eCommerce Battle: Attractive Offers Usher In The Festive Season

It’s festival season in India again and shoppers took advantage of aggressive cutthroat competition between Indian online retailers to drive sales to unprecedented highs.

All the major Indian eCommerce websites including, Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, and Shopclues opted to go head to head by holding their first sale event this season over 4 to 5 days starting on the 10th of October. Still, as industry reports indicate, one retailer came out on top during this event — an insight supported by our analysis as well.

A New Battleground

The highlight this year was seeing how the announcement of global retail colossus Walmart’s acquisition of Flipkart would impact the sale events. The acquisition was the most influential development in India’s eCommerce sector, and it has transported a decades-long U.S. rivalry between Amazon and Walmart to Indian soil. As a result, this year’s sale event held out the promise of more attractive pricing and vast product selection for India’s consumers than ever before.

Industry analysts estimate that the sale generated a cumulative Rs 15,000 crore in sales over the spread of the five sale days, a whopping outcome. In 2018, this translated into around a 64 per cent year-on-year growth outcome compared to the USD 1.4 billion (around Rs 10,325 crore) generated by the 2017 sales.

The DataWeave Analysis

At DataWeave, we analyzed the performance of each of the major eCommerce platforms including Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Paytm, and Shopclues. For each eCommerce website, we aggregated data on the Top 500 ranked products for over 40 product types spread across 6 product categories (Electronics, Men’s & Women’s Fashion, Furniture, Haircare, Skincare).

We focused our analysis on only the additional discounts offered during the sale and compared them to prices prior to the sale, to reflect the true value of the sale to India’s shoppers.

The battle of the discounts was led primarily by Flipkart and Amazon. Flipkart’s average additional discounts by category actually exceeded Amazon’s in three out of six categories, and it discounted more products that Amazon across all categories.

Clearly, the focus for all e-tailers was skewed towards the main battlegrounds of Electronics and Fashion, compared to mainstream FMCG categories such as Hair and Skin Care. However, this is not surprising given FMCG functions on rather skinny margins.

Across retailers, the Men’s and Women’s Fashion categories were the most aggressively discounted, attracting both the highest additional discounts and the highest percentage of products with additional discounts.

The Furniture category too was an interesting battleground between Amazon and Flipkart, attracting attractive discounts on a wide range of products, particularly in Flipkart’s case.

Prospective shoppers in search of relatively more expensive clothing products on discount during the sale would have established Myntra as their ideal destination, as it carried more premium products on discount during the sale, relative to all its competitors. For shoppers in search of an electronics bargain though, they would have done well to opt for Flipkart.

Shoppers may have found some interesting deals on Paytm Mall too, especially in Men’s Fashion, while Shopclues largely held itself back from any dramatic price reductions.

While Myntra capitalized on its niche though aggressive discounting in the Fashion category, most of the discounting action revolved unsurprisingly around Amazon and Flipkart. To drill down for a more complete understanding of just how the Amazon and Flipkart discounted their products, we conducted a more detailed follow-on analysis.

We normalized additional discounts and popularity using a scale of 1 to 10 and plotted each product on a chart to analyze its distribution characteristics. Popularity was calculated as a combination of the average review rating and the number of reviews posted. Products with a popularity score of zero, as well as zero additional discounts were excluded from this analysis.

The most obvious insight yield through this analysis is how Flipkart elected to distribute its additional discounts across a larger range of discount percentages. By contrast, Amazon went all in on the more limited range of products it decided to provide additional discounts on. This is a strategy we have seen Amazon adopt previously.

One other intriguing insight is Flipkart’s decision to go for a much higher distribution of products falling below a popularity score of 0.5 compared to Amazon. Amazon’s strategy resulted in more of its discounted products having a higher popularity score, relative to Flipkart, albeit only by a comparatively minor amount. However, a shopper’s chances of buying a popular, positively reviewed product at a lower price were higher on Amazon than Flipkart during this sale.

Achieving a Consistent Competitive Edge

Flipkart claims to have recorded a 70 per cent plus share of entire Indian e-commerce market in the 4 day-BBD’18 sales. Flipkart further claimed to have cornered an 85 per cent share in the online Fashion category together with a 75 per cent share in the Electrical category’s large appliances during the sale. This includes a contribution by Flipkart’s subsidiary Myntra.

As these numbers reflect, Amazon still has some way to go to entrench itself in the Fashion category of the Indian market. However, Amazon appears content to continue its surgical discounting philosophy.

Overall, this year witnessed an impressive participation by Tier II and Tier III Indian city consumers — a sign of things to come in Indian online retail.

With increasing competitive pressure, retailers simply cannot adopt discounting and product selection strategies in isolation and be successful. Having access to up to date insights on competitors’ products dynamically during the day is emerging as key to ensuring they’re able to sustain their lowest priced strategy for appropriate products. These insights are also proving critical in identifying gaps in their product assortment, which can hamper customer conversion and retention.

During sale events, modern retailers need to rely on highly granular competitive insights on an hourly basis (or even more frequently) to inform their pricing and product strategies to ensure they consistently maintain a competitive edge for the consumer’s wallet. And while access to reliable competitive intelligence is critical, true value can only be derived when it gets integrated with a retailer’s core business and decision-making processes, such as assortment management, promotions planning, pricing strategies, etc.

DataWeave’s Competitive Intelligence as a Service helps global retailers do just this by providing timely, accurate, and actionable competitive pricing and product insights, at massive scale. Check out our website to find out more!

November 13, 2018
Prime Day Sale: Unraveling the Highs and Lows of Amazon’s Flagship Event
Another year, another round of media frenzy, and another set of records broken.

In only three years, Amazon’s Prime Day has evolved into one of the landmark sale events of the shopper’s calendar. Reports indicate that this year’s sale made a major splash, raking in over $4.2 billion in sales — a 33% increase compared to last year. Also, the retail behemoth shipped over 100 million products during the 36-hour sale. Amazon stated that they “welcomed more new Prime members on July 16 than on any other previous day in Prime history.”

The much talked about website outage added some spice and drama to the proceedings during the first hour. However, this was fixed quickly.

This year is also the first Prime Day with Whole Foods, Amazon’s most expensive acquisition, giving US shoppers unprecedented incentives to shop at the physical stores of the grocery retailer.

However, Prime Day is not just about the US, but a truly global event. In India, as part of its promotions for Prime Day, Amazon leveraged VR to have people experience the products in their true form factor at select malls.

At DataWeave, our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform enabled us to keep an eye on the pricing and discounts of products during the sale. We tracked Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, and Amazon.in before (14th July) and during the sale (16th July) and monitored several product types in Electronics, Men’s Fashion, Women’s Fashion and Furniture categories. We captured information on the price, brand, rank on the category page, whether Prime was offered or not, etc. and analyzed the top 200 ranks in each product type listing page. To best indicate the additional value to shoppers during the sale, we focused our analysis only on additional discounts on products between the 14th and 16th of July.

Scrutinizing the data yielded some rather interesting insights:

Amazon UK was more aggressive with its discounts than the US and India across most categories, with Furniture being the only exception (highest discounts in the US).

In the US, Women’s Fashion observed the steepest discounts (12%), though there were discounts available on a larger number of Men’s Fashion products (5% additional discount on 20% of products).

While disparity between discounts on Prime products vs non-Prime was quite evident, it was surprisingly low for many categories. In fact, the Electronics category in the UK and the Furniture category in India witnessed sharper discounts for non-Prime products than Prime.

Top categories by additional discount include Women’s Handbags, Sports Shoes, and Pendrives in the US, Sunglasses and Tablets in the UK, and Women’s Tops, Men’s Jeans, Women’s Sunglasses, and Refrigerators in India. Top brands include Nike, Amazon Essentials, Sandisk, and 1home in the US, Oakley, Toshiba, Belledorm, and rfiver in the UK, and Adidas, Sony, UCB, and Red Tape in India.

As indicated in the following infographic, some of the most discoverable brands during the sale include Canon, Apple, Nike and Casio in the US, Sandisk, Amazon, Levi’s, and Ray Ban in the UK, and Nikon, UCB, Whirlpool, and HP in India. Discoverability here is measured as a combination of the number of the brand’s products in the top 100 ranks and the average rank of all products of the brand. Also in the infographic, is a set of products with high additional discounts during the sale.

Amazon’s competitors though aren’t ones that simply roll with the punches.

Flipkart, Amazon’s largest competitor in India (recently acquired by Walmart), announced its own Big Shopping Days sale between July 16 and July 19. On Prime Day, the company joined in with some attractive offers:
- 8%, 10%, and 7% additional discounts on 11%, 29%, and 16% of Electronics, Men’s Fashion, and Women’s Fashion categories, respectively.
- 35% off on Perfect Homes 3-seater Sofa
- 27% additional discount on Acer Predator Helios Gaming Laptop
- 25% additional discount on Sandisk 16GB Pen Drive
Propelling the Amazon Flywheel

While Amazon clearly benefits in the short-term with this sale, the long-term effect of feeding its famous flywheel is evident as well.

Amazon’s flywheel is a framework through which the company looks to build a self-feeding platform that accelerates growth over time. Attractive discounts and a broad selection of products improves customer experience, which increases traffic to the website, which attracts more merchants on its platform, who in turn broaden the selection of available products.

Sale events like Prime Day create the sort of hype needed to draw a lot of traffic to Amazon’s website, generating momentum that has a compounding effect on Amazon’s growth. Not surprisingly, more than half of the people surveyed in the US by Cowen last December said they lived in a household with at least one Prime subscription.

As Amazon’s stock traded at an all time high following Prime Day, it’s only a matter of time before the company becomes the world’s first trillion dollar company.

Check us out, if you’re interested in learning more about our technology and how we provide Competitive Intelligence as a Service to retailers and consumer brands.
July 30, 2018
How to Win the Coveted Amazon Buy Box | DataWeave
Did you know that over 80% of purchases on Amazon.com is via the buy box?

While Amazon is all the rage today, raking in 43% of all eCommerce dollars, thousands of merchants on the online marketplace look to seize every opportunity to attract shoppers and drive sales each day. And for these merchants, getting on the buy box is more than half the battle won.

Recently, Forbes.com published our study of how online merchants can plot their strategy to win the buy box. In this article, we’ll explore some of the key takeaways from this study.

What is the Amazon buy box?

The buy box is the section on the right side of Amazon’s product page, where shoppers can add items for purchase to their cart. Since multiple merchants often offer the same product, they compete to win the buy box spot on the product page, which is where customers typically begin the purchasing process — a huge competitive advantage.

How can merchants win the buy box spot?

At DataWeave, we aggregate and analyze billions of data points from the Web to deliver Competitive Intelligence as a Service to retailers and consumer brands. Using our proprietary technology platform, we aggregated data for a large sample of products in the mobile phones, clothing, shoes and jewelry categories on Amazon and collected information on all merchants (over 700 in number) selling these product over a period of 10 days.

We looked closely at several factors that could possibly impact the choice for the buy box:
- Was Amazon a merchant or not?
- The effective price (list price + shipping charges — offer/cashback amount) — after all, a common assumption is that the lowest priced merchant has the best chance of winning.
- Were Prime benefits offered?
- The quality of review ratings
- The stock status
- The number of products offered by a merchant
We parsed through the data to unearth some interesting insights and found that some factors influenced the move to the buy box spot more than others.

We see that when Amazon is a merchant, it’s twice as likely to win the buy box compared to other merchants. Further analysis revealed that for around 95% of instances where Amazon was a merchant but was NOT the in the buy box, Amazon was selling at a price 20% greater than the minimum price.

When the effective price is the lowest, relative to other merchants, the chances of the merchant winning the buy box increased 2.5-fold. Essentially, for the set of merchants who were the lowest priced for each product, only 26% of them won the buy box.

Merchants who provided Prime benefits to shoppers were 3.5 times more likely to win compared to other merchants. And lastly, if the percentage of positive reviews for a merchant are decreasing over time, the merchant is 5X less likely to win. All other factors analyzed failed to yield statistically significant results.

Interestingly, no single factor played an overwhelming role in influencing the buy box criteria. So, with the help of statistical modelling, which considers and weighs all factors, we better understood the relationship between all factors, and traced a path for merchants to win the buy box.

The Cheat Sheet

While it isn’t quite possible to develop a fool proof framework, the following flowchart can act as a fairly useful guide.

Clearly, the path to the buy box is not a straightforward one.

If Amazon itself is a merchant for a product, chances of other merchants winning the buy box are low (35%). However, if a merchant is looking to compete with Amazon for the buy box spot, offering Prime benefits is key (82% probability). Without offering Prime, chances of winning the buy box are almost negligible, even if the merchant is the lowest priced. It’s interesting to note that when Amazon does occupy the buy box spot, it’s the lowest priced in 79% of the cases.

When Amazon is not a merchant for a product, and competition is only between third-party merchants, offering Prime benefits is still the most influential factor (78%). When Prime isn’t offered, the price is the primary determinant of the buy box merchant (86%).

Evidently, reducing the price is not always the best course of action. It appears that offering Prime benefits has the biggest impact on a merchant’s chances of winning the buy box, across various scenarios.

However, it’s important to keep in mind that moving up the “merchant ladder” is a gradual process, based on how merchants perform consistently over time.

If you’re interested to learn more about DataWeave’s technology, and how we help retailers and consumer brands optimize their online strategies, visit our website!
May 14, 2018
Amazon’s Fashion & Apparel Product Assortment | DataWeave

Apparel remains one of the key battleground categories in retail today, and like in most other product categories, Amazon has made significant in-roads here. Beyond expanding the range of product offerings and brands in its marketplace, Amazon has also launched several private label brands in this vertical and looked to drive more sales as a first-party seller.

Recently, DataWeave collaborated with Coresight Research, formerly known as Fung Global Retail & Technology, a retail-focused research arm of Li & Fung Group, to publish an in-depth report revealing Amazon’s strategic approach to product assortment in its fashion and apparel category.

In this blog post, we’ll summarize some interesting insights into Amazon’s strategy from the report. For an in-depth and detailed view, check out the original article at — “Amazon Apparel: Who Is Selling What? An Exclusive Analysis of Nearly 1 Million Clothing Listings on Amazon Fashion”

Research Methodology

Our analysis focused on several critical areas, including the presence of Amazon’s private label, the demarcation between Amazon as a seller and its third-party sellers and the top brands and categories in women and men’s apparel.

We aggregated data from Amazon.com in two stages:

Firstly, we identified brands with a meaningful presence in Amazon’s clothing offering by identifying all brands included in the top 500 ranks of featured product listings for each product type in the Women’s Clothing and Men’s Clothing sections on Amazon (e.g., the Top 500 product listings for women’s tops and tees, the Top 500 product listings for men’s activewear, and so on.). This generated a total of 2,798 unique brands.

Secondly, we aggregated our data on all product listings within the Women’s Clothing and Men’s Clothing sections for each of the 2,798 brands identified previously. This returned a total of 881,269 individually listed products. This extensive list forms the basis for the highlights in Coresight’s report.

Coresight’s Analysis — Some Interesting Insights

Strategically, Amazon remains heavily reliant on its third-party sellers in the clothing category. In total, just 13.7 percent of women’s and men’s clothing products featured on Amazon Fashion are listed for sale by Amazon itself (first-party sales), while third-party sellers account for 86.3 percent of listings.

In womenswear, third-party sellers account for 85.7 percent of listings, while in menswear, they account for 87.1 percent of listings. Moreover, Amazon appears to be focusing its first-party clothing inventory on the higher-value categories. Clearly, the retailer’s reliance on third-party sellers underscores its opportunity to grow its sales of apparel volumes by bringing more of its current inventory in-house.

The analysis found 834 Amazon private-label products on Amazon website, equivalent to 0.1 percent of all clothing available through Amazon Fashion. The company’s private labels appear to be clustered tightly in specific clothing categories.

Womenswear brand Lark & Ro is by far the biggest of Amazon’s apparel private labels, as measured by the number of items.

Nike is the most-listed brand on Amazon Fashion, with 16,764 listed products spanning womenswear and menswear. Lower-price brands such as Gildan and Hanes also rank very highly in terms of the number of products listed.

Value-positioned brands that have traditionally focused on wholesaling to retailers, such as Gildan and Hanes, also rank very highly in terms of the number of products listed.

What is clear is that currently, Amazon’s clothing listings are highly diluted, with no one major brand dominating the listings.

Interestingly, casualwear and activewear clearly lead Amazon’s category rankings. Women’s tops and tees are the most heavily listed clothing category on Amazon Fashion, with 138,001 products listed.

Men’s shirts, which includes a large number of casual shirts together with polo shirts and some T-shirts, comes in second, with 109,043 products listed. Echoing the prominence of the global Nike and Adidas brands on the Amazon website, activewear has achieved a centre of gravity status as a category, accounting for 76,930 men’s activewear products and 51,992 women’s activewear products listed on the site.

Several Opportunities for Growth

Amazon Fashion remains heavily dependent on third-party sellers. It’s a fair assumption that more first-party listings would attract greater numbers of shoppers, especially Amazon Prime members. Amazon’s private-label ranges represent another potential lever for growth.

Also, the 30 most-listed brands on Amazon Fashion comprise 30 percent of all clothing products listed on the website, while just 189 brands have more than 1,000 products each listed on the website.

This data indicates the presence of major growth opportunities across the board, be it Amazon private label brands, Amazon as a seller, and for several mid-range clothing brands.

If you’re interested in DataWeave’s technology, and how we aggregate data from the Web to provide unique and comprehensive insights on eCommerce products and pricing, check us out on our website!

March 21, 2018
Consumer Packaged Goods Join The Black Friday Blitz

While the Thanksgiving weekend sale, which includes Black Friday and Cyber Monday, is famous for attractive offers across all consumer categories, it remains better known for its discounts on Electronics and Fashion. Consumer goods, traditionally, have evaded much the hype.

This year, notwithstanding notoriously slim margins, consumer goods and grocery retailers and brands joined Electronics and Fashion in offering sharp discounts on select products in an attempt to carve out increased market share.

In the past, discounts on consumer packed products have been to drive increased store traffic during the holiday season. Increasingly, however, Thanksgiving has emerged as a viable opportunity for grocers to recruit online shoppers as well and build out their franchise.

Online Grocers Make Their Move

Faced with the holiday rush, large numbers of shoppers are proving to be relaxed about trusting the retailer to bag up and deliver their holiday feasts and treats. Grocers themselves have taken the strategic decision to boost their online shopping presence this year.

They geared up to support their new holiday presence with aggressive price cuts designed to cut through the holiday sales clutter and make direct appeals to a newly-in-play online shopper pool. So transparent was this commercial decision, that many retailers experienced sharp drops in their share prices as industry analysts anticipated the retailers’ new discount-driven strategy.

Tracking The Numbers

At DataWeave, using our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform, we have been tracking, through November, pricing and product information of the Top 1,000 ranked consumer goods products in over 10 product types featured on Amazon Prime, Walmart, Target, Costco, Kroger, Safeway, and Whole Foods, across up to six zip codes each, distributed across the country.

DataWeave’s major focus was to compare the three main days of the Thanksgiving weekend; Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. We performed an in-depth analysis of discounts offered across product types and brands, together with how aggressively dynamic retailers were in both their pricing strategy and in the products they displayed.

In analyzing this major sale event, we observed an extensive range of products enjoying high absolute discounts, but with no additional discounts during the sale, i.e. prices remained unchanged between the period prior to the sale and during each day of the sale, even though high discounts were advertised. The following infographic highlights some of the products where this phenomenon was observed.

As a result, we focused our analysis only on the additional discounts offered on each day of the sale, compared to the period prior to the sale (we considered 11.21), in order to accurately illustrate the true value shoppers enjoyed during these sale days.

The following infographic reveals some interesting highlights from our analysis, including the level of additional discounts offered to shoppers, the top brands featured, and the number of dynamic price changes implemented during the sale. All prices analysed are in USD, and all discount percentages represent average values across all zip codes, analyzed for individual retailers.

In contrast to Amazon Prime, Costco, and Kroger who opted to run with deep discounts on a limited range of products, retailers such as Target and Walmart chose to offer only marginally higher additional discounts but across a large number of products. Others like Safeway adopted a safer approach, combining low discounts on a modest range of products.

Overall, our analysis discovered little variation in discounts offered across each of the three sale days, with the only enduring trend being a marginally higher discount percentage implemented on Cyber Monday across all retailers.

Categories significantly discounted across retailers included Personal Care, Deli, Dairy & Eggs, and Babycare products. Stove Top, Martinelli, Colgate, Dove and Hillshire Farm emerged as the leading brands to adopt a more aggressive discount approach.

While most of the products offered across each of the three peak holiday sale days were comparatively constant (few new products featured amongst the Top 500 ranks), there were a number of conspicuous exceptions. Amazon Prime (19 percent on Cyber Monday), Whole Foods (15 percent on Thanksgiving), and Kroger (12 percent and 11 percent on the first two days of sale respectively), elected to refresh a significant portion of their Top 500 ranked product assortment.

Across the entire Thanksgiving week, we saw Target, Amazon Prime, and Kroger all highly active in changing prices to stay competitive. Our analysis of these retailers showed more than 1.6 price changes for each price-changed product. While these were implemented on roughly 20 percent of their assortment, itself a significant proportion, the average price variation for each of these retailers was also on the higher side of expectations. In contrast, the other retailers adopted a far more conservative approach to dynamic pricing.

Consumer Goods Walk The Discount Talk

In a year when Amazon acquired Whole Foods to forever merge the dynamics of offline and online grocery retail, aggressive discounting by several retailers in specific product categories, combined with high visibility brands, has carved out a new profile for CPG retail.

Grocers are eyeing a future where online shopping becomes a prime feature of their retail franchise. Amazon for its part demonstrated its prowess in discounting strategy, and its ability to implement a dynamic pricing strategy in tandem with a refreshed Top 500 product assortment.

Other retailers are not far behind, as the use of market and competitive intelligence technologies pick up steam across the board. In today’s digital economy, data can be the biggest competitive advantage for a retailer, and retail technology providers like DataWeave have upped their game to deliver highly unique and sophisticated data and insights to meet this demand.

Visit our website, if you’re interested in DataWeave and how we provide zip-code level Competitive Intelligence as a Service to retailers and consumer brands.

December 12, 2017
Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday Parade Discounts in Fashion

Fashion has always been one of the great engines of retail, and two of its iconic sale events are Thanksgiving and Black Friday. While Black Friday was traditionally an in-store shopping event, a large number of shoppers have migrated online taking much of the sales action with them.

Despite shoppers typically liking to be able to touch and feel fashion and apparel products prior to purchasing them, the convenience of online shopping combined with time-poor shoppers returning to work after their Thanksgiving break has triggered changes to consumer behavior. Today, the retail narrative has shifted to focus on online, with this year’s Thanksgiving weekend turnover up 6.8 percent from last year.

At DataWeave, using our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform, we have been tracking the pricing and product information of the Top 500 ranked Fashion products across 15 product types on Amazon, Walmart, Target, Bloomingdales, JC Penney, Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, and Nordstrom.

Our primary focus was to compare the three key days of the Thanksgiving weekend: Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. We performed an in-depth analysis of discounts offered across product types and brands, together with how dynamic retailers were in both their pricing strategy and products displayed.

(Read also: Thanksgiving vs Black Friday vs Cyber Monday: The Electronics Price War Heats Up)

In analyzing these monster sale events, we observed a range of products sneaking through to enjoy high absolute discounts, but offer no additional discounts during the sale, i.e. prices remained unchanged between before the sale and during each day of the sale, even though high discounts were advertised. The following infographic highlights some of the products where this phenomenon was observed.

Having identified the aggressive use of high but unchanged absolute discounts among the retailers during the sale, we focused our analysis on the additional discounts offered on each of the days of the sale, compared to before the sale (we considered 11.21), in order to more accurately reflect the true value these sale events deliver to American shoppers.

The following infographic provides some interesting insights from our analysis along several perspectives, including additional discounts offered, top brands, quality of product assortment, number of price changes, and more. All indicated prices are in USD.

Our analysis illustrated how aggressive Target was in its strategy for discounting fashion, compared to most other retailers, especially on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Interestingly, while Macy’s offered reasonably attractive discounts across all product types, it chose to offer them on a much larger product set than any other retailer.

Overall, the level of discounts, together with the number of products they were offered on, shows no dramatic change for each retailer over the three-day sale period.

With Neiman Marcus however, we observed a unique pattern. Sharp discounts were offered on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, which were subsequently rolled back completely on Cyber Monday. This represents a clear holiday pricing and discount strategy, albeit conducted on a comparatively compact and highly targeted set of products.

Other sales discounting phenomena we observed include major discounts on Sunglasses, Shoes, Skirts, and T-shirts across all retailers, clearly representing battleground categories, while some of the top brands offering attractive discounts include Ray Ban, Oakley, Levi’s and Nike.

Another relatively constant factor across each of the sale days was the average selling price of respective retailers. This parameter indicates how premium each retailer’s product mix is, providing another perspective on each retailer’s customer segment targeting strategy.

As expected, Target, Walmart and JC Penney housed the more affordable set of products (average selling prices of $25, $31, and $45 respectively). At the other end of the premium spectrum, Neiman Marcus — home to luxury brands and products — adopted a more premium product assortment (average selling price between $820 and $914).

In fashion, presenting a fresh assortment consistently is key to customer retention, and Amazon leads the pack in this regard, with a product churn rate of 50% in the top 100 ranks each day. Contrast that with Walmart and Target, who follow a more traditional approach, with a largely static set of options to choose from in its top ranks.

Most of the retailers we analysed implemented several price changes to large percentages of their product sets. Macy’s and Walmart were at the forefront of this dynamic pricing activity. While Bloomingdales too made over 1,300 price changes, the average magnitude of these changes proved to be very high, at 206 percent.

Fashion Fast-Forwards Its Online Sales

While the memories of frantic shoppers tussling over fashion and apparel items on Black Friday still linger, they are fast receding as online fashion sales turnover goes from strength to strength. Shoppers are firmly placing long, winding queues in their rearview mirror and embracing the digital shopping cart more with each passing year, as spotlighted this Thanksgiving sale weekend.

Sunglasses, Shoes, Skirts, and T-shirts emerged as key battleground categories for retailers over the weekend, while individual retailers displayed diverse approaches to capturing and retaining market share with their target demographic — quite assuredly while using modern retail technologies that help develop and execute on competitive strategies.

As retailers move into the Christmas sales phase it will be fascinating to discover how they are evolving their ability to dynamically change pricing, refresh product categories and focus their shopper promotions.

Visit our website, if you’re interested in DataWeave’s technology and how we provide Competitive Intelligence as a Service to retailers and consumer brands.

December 2, 2017
[INFOGRAPHIC] Thanksgiving vs Black Friday vs Cyber Monday: The Electronics Price War Heats Up
Alibaba may have raked in some $25 billion on Singles’ Day in the largest one-day sales turnover ever. In the Western world, however, Black Friday remains an economic force.

This Black Friday, American shoppers spent a record $5 billion online in just 24 hours, representing a 16.9 percent increase in dollars spent online compared with last year.

The sale period, though, comprises of Thanksgiving Day and Cyber Monday as well — each generating over a billion and half dollars in online sales this year.

Cyber Monday has especially been a popular day for buying online, as people head back to work after the long weekend, making a physical visit to the stores to pick up deals less manageable during the day.

However, the idea of the Thanksgiving weekend as a single shopping event was laid to rest this year.

It’s Now Black November

Online sales from November 1st through the 22nd totalled almost $30.4 billion this year, driven by deals available throughout the month on eCommerce platforms. In fact, every single day in November so far saw over $1 billion in online sales, creating a new paradigm for both shoppers and retailers, in stark contrast to the brick-and-mortal retail driven Black Friday sale events of the past.

Several online retailers began offering attractive discounts from the beginning of November, specifically on “Black Friday Deals” pages of their websites.

At DataWeave, using our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform, we have been tracking, through November, pricing and product information of the Top 500 ranked Electronics products across 10 products types on Amazon, Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and New Egg.

(Read also: Black Friday Sales Season: How US Retailers Are Gearing Up)

We also took a few snapshots of the products and discounts offered on the “Black Friday Deals” pages of Amazon and Walmart. We saw both websites offering deep absolute discounts in Electronics (40.1 percent on Amazon, 30.4 percent on Walmart) on over 400 products each day.

Moreover, these discounts weren’t restricted to static product sets. 73.2 percent (Amazon) and 30.6 percent (Walmart) churn of products was observed on these pages each day, providing shoppers with a steady stream of attractive discounts on new products every day.

Our major focus, though, was to compare the three main sale days of the Thanksgiving weekend. We performed an in-depth analysis of discounts offered across product types and brands, as well as how dynamic retailers were in both the pricing and products displayed — all of these, across Thanksgiving (11.23), Black Friday (11.24) and Cyber Monday (11.27).

We looked specifically only at additional discounts offered on each of the days of the sale, compared to before the sale (represented by products and its prices on 11.21).

Overall, we discovered that the level of discounts, together with the number of products they were offered on, does not change dramatically across all 3 days. Some exceptions include –
- Higher number of additionally discounted products on Amazon and Walmart on Cyber Monday
- Lower additional discounts offered by Best Buy on Cyber Monday
- Lower number of products additionally discounted on New Egg on Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
Discounting strategies across most retailers converged on significant discounts on Pendrives, Smartwatches, DSLR Cameras, and Mobile Phones, while some of the top brands that offered attractive discounts include Apple, Fossil, Canon, Nikon, Sandisk, and HP — across a range of product types.

While the average selling price (indicative of how premium the product mix is) for each retailer did not change significantly across each of the featured sale days, there was some variation at a product type level, with Laptops and Digital Cameras displaying some variation in average assortment value across Target, Walmart, and New Egg.

Perhaps the most interesting insight provided by the analysis is just how different each retailer is in its approach to changing its prices. Over the entire week (11.21 to 11.27), Amazon made over 3,600 price changes on over 50 percent of its consistently-top-ranked products. Compare that to Target’s 289 price changes on 30 percent of its products.

While the average magnitude of price change on Amazon is 27 percent, Best Buy has been far more aggressive with the magnitude of its price adjustments (47 percent), even if it has implemented fewer price changes. Amazon clearly leads the industry here, with its continual focus on employing advanced retail technologies that enable automated, optimized price changes designed to ensure its products are competitively priced.

How Strategic Is Retail Pricing?

Another aspect DataWeave explored was whether e-retailers sometimes increase their prices in the lead-up to a sale, only to reduce them during the sale, enabling them to advertise larger discounts. We did observe that all e-retailers effectively increased their prices on a discrete and small set of products prior to their sale. For the purposes of our analysis, price increases before the sale was calculated as an increase in price between 11.14 and 11.21.

Highlights of our analysis include the discovery that Best Buy increased its prices in Electronics significantly on a small selection (3.5 percent) of its product range prior to the sale, only to reduce those prices immediately during the Thanksgiving weekend sale.

While Amazon proved not to be as aggressive in the magnitude of this activity as Best Buy, this phenomenon was observed across a larger portion of Amazon’s assortment (6.7 percent)

Online is Now More Important Than Ever

While the legend and aura of past Black Friday sale events, complete with long overnight queues and highly publicized stampedes, is ebbing away, in lock-step with the dwindling numbers of store footfall this year (down 2 percent), the Thanksgiving sale season is set for a new transformation, following the growing number of shoppers preferring to shop online.

A survey by the National Retail Federation found that 59 percent of shoppers plan to shop online this year, marking the first time that online has emerged as the most popular choice for America’s shoppers.

With an extended sales season to offer discounts, and moving into Christmas, it has become increasingly important for retailers to monitor and react dynamically to their competitors’ pricing, product and promotional activities. Without the ability to track, react, and tweak in real time, retailers risk having their competitive position eroded, dramatically impacting both sales and retail margins.

Leading eCommerce retailers such as Amazon, and evolving retailers like Walmart have embedded these systems into their overarching strategy and operations, while others are condemned to play catch up.

As this fascinating cycle of the sale season ends, and retailers crunch their numbers to assess their comparative performance, sights are now set on Christmas to extend this sale extravaganza.

Visit our website, if you’re interested in DataWeave’s technology and how we provide Competitive Intelligence as a Service to retailers and consumer brands.
November 29, 2017
Under the Microscope: Lazada’s 11.11 Online Revolution Sale

Lazada’s signature event, Online Revolution, is a month-long sale extravaganza that commenced with a Mega Sale on 11 November, and culminates in an End-Of-Year sale on 12 December. The shopping event is held across six southeast Asian countries — Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam — making it the region’s biggest retail event.

Lazada Group’s chief executive officer Maximilian Bittner observed, “We aim to provide Southeast Asia’s rapidly growing middle-class the access to a wide range of products with deals and discounts that were previously available only abroad or in the capital cities.”

On 11.11, the first Mega Sale, shoppers took advantage of great deals, ordering 6.5 million items (nearly doubling last year’s tally), resulting in sales of US$123m, annihilating last year’s takings by a whopping 191 percent.

At DataWeave, our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform enabled us to seamlessly analyze and compare Lazada’s discounts during 11.11 with those of its competitors. We focussed specifically on two markets — Singapore and Indonesia. While the sale itself is Lazada’s, we looked at its immediate competitors as well, to study how competitively they position themselves during Lazada’s sale.

For our analysis, we aggregated pricing information on the Top 500 ranked products of over 20 product types on each website, spread across Electronics and Fashion, covering over 120,000 products in total.

11.11 — Singapore

In our analysis, we scrutinized the additional discounts offered by Lazada, ListQoo10, and Zalora during the sale period, compared to prices leading up to the sale. As today’s shoppers often encounter deep discounts on several products even on normal days, our analysis of additional discounts offered during the sale more accurately reflects the true value of the sale event to shoppers.

In the following infographic, all prices are in Singapore Dollars, and additional discounts are the percentage reduction in price on 11.11 compared to 10.11.

Lazada’s discounting strategy was more focused on Fashion rather than Electronics. However, Lazada didn’t have it all its own way with Zalora providing comparably high discounts, enabling it to compete effectively, especially in Women’s Fashion (16.2 percent on 406 products).

Zalora actually exceeded Lazada in the number of additionally discounted products on offer (Zalora 406, Lazada 347). ListQoo10 did not match either Lazada or Zalora’s level of discounting.

While Lazada held a more premium, high-value product mix in Electronics compared to ListQoo10, it chose to target the more affordable segment in Fashion, with both ListQoo10 and Zalora displaying a higher average selling price in each category.

Interestingly, Lazada refreshed very few of its Top 500 products during the sale, limiting new options to choose from for its shoppers. On the other hand, Zalora refreshed 22.5 and 22.8 percent of its products in men’s and women’s fashion respectively.

11.11 — Indonesia

Using a similar methodology to our Singapore analysis, we analyzed Lazada’s promotions against Blibli and Zalora, three of the top eCommerce websites in the region. In the following infographic, all currencies are in Indonesian Rupiah.

As with its Singapore strategy, Lazada targeted Fashion as the lead category for discounts in Indonesia. It offered steep discounts in both Men’s and Women’s Fashion (around 18 percent in each) across a large number of products (550 and 776 respectively). While Zalora matched and occasionally exceeded the discounts offered by Lazada, it did so across a significantly smaller range of additionally discounted products.

Surprisingly, Electronics were de-emphasised in Indonesia (4.1 percent compared to 9 percent in Singapore).

Compared to the market leaders Lazada and Zalora, Blibli struggled to be competitive from both an absolute discount level and a product assortment perspective.

Like in Singapore, Lazada looked to be targeting the affordable value end of the product mix spectrum across all categories, and introduced very few new products in its Top 500 ranks.

Zalora had a healthier churn rate of 14.6 percent and 18.1 percent in Men’s and Women’s Fashion, compared to Lazada’s 9.1 percent (Electronics), 10.7 percent (Men’s Fashion) and 10.8 percent (Women’s Fashion).

It’s Not Just About Discounts

Lazada’s ‘Fashion First’ targeting strategy creates an effective tie-in to its broader model of surfing the convergence wave between entertainment and eCommerce, something unique to southeast Asia.

Together with sumptuously attractive discounts, major sale events in South East Asia are fast becoming characterized by entertainment. By launching Southeast Asia’s first star-studded eCommerce TV show, Lazada continues to be the region’s eCommerce innovator, following in the footsteps of its pioneering parent company, Alibaba.

While time will tell how effective Lazada’s strategy ultimately proves to be, together with Alibaba, it has set up a fascinating and uniquely Asian retail sale model. No doubt another milestone will be set on 12.12 when the Online Revolution Mega Sale returns with even greater deals. At DataWeave, we’ll be sure to analyze that sale as well and bring you all its highlights.

November 23, 2017
Black Friday Sales Season: How US Retailers Are Gearing Up

In today’s rapidly evolving online and mobile worlds, few things encapsulate the competitive nature of the online retail battlefield like the Black Friday sales season. With this year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale events just around the corner, 2017 promises another titanic tussle between contenders.

The holiday shopping season commences on Black Friday, November 24, and continues through much of December. Anticipating the sales season, many retailers are already offering discounts on several key categories and anchor products, providing a sneak peek into what we can expect towards the end of the month.

While traditionally, Black Friday sales were dominated by brick and mortar retail stores, with the odd shopper stampede not unheard of, retail dynamics have changed in the recent past. Online sales now consume a larger proportion of Black Friday spending, and for the first time, consumers are expected to spend more online in the 2017 holiday season than in-store.

In anticipation of this mammoth sale event, we at DataWeave trained our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform on several major US retailers to understand the competitive market environment before the sales kick off.

Between the 15th and 29th of October, we tracked the prices of the top 200 ranked products each day in the Electronics and Fashion categories across several major retailers. For Electronics, we analyzed Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, and New Egg, while Amazon, Walmart, Bloomingdales, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, New Egg, and JC Penney provided our insights into the pivotal Fashion category. Product types analyzed include mobile phones, tablets, televisions, wearables techs, digital cameras, DSLRs, irons, USB drives, and refrigerators in Electronics, and T-shirts, shirts, shoes, jeans, sunglasses, watches, skirts, and handbags in Fashion.

Automated Competitive Pricing Is the New Norm

With the accelerated evolution of online commerce, retailers have increasingly harnessed the power of competitive data to drive changes on the go to their pricing, product assortment, and promotional strategy. During sale events, however, these numbers spike significantly. Amazon famously made 80 million price changes each day during 2014’s Christmas Season sale. Similarly, even on normal days some retailers have adopted the tactics of changing their product pricing more frequently than others, in their quest to stay competitive and build their desired price perception amongst shoppers.

In our analysis of price changes, we considered the set of products that ranked consistently in the Top 200 from the 20th to the 25th of October. We identified the number of price changes together with the number of products affected by price changes that were implemented by the retailers.

As anticipated, Amazon led the way with 508 price changes on 236 products in the Electronics category during the period compared to Walmart’s 413. By comparison, New Egg’s 95 price changes trailed the field by a significant margin and illustrate the tactical advantage Amazon’s dynamic pricing technology confers. However, the price variation (8.0%) of Amazon’s was also the lowest of the four retailers included in the study, showing that Amazon makes short, sharp tweaks to its pricing at a higher frequency than its competitors.

By comparison, the Fashion category demonstrated a much lower level of price changes than Electronics, albeit with significantly higher price variations. Walmart leads the pack, adopting an order of magnitude greater number of price changes across a significantly larger number of products compared to the majority of its competitors.

Product Mix Suited to Target Market Segments

While competitive pricing is one strategy for attracting new customers and retaining existing ones, the selection of products featured in a retailer’s inventory is just as important. Ensuring a disciplined product assortment, which caters exclusively to a retailer’s target market segments is key. While some retailers such as Walmart choose to house a more affordable range of products, Neiman Marcus and Bloomingdales target the more premium segment of shoppers.

It is clear from the data that Walmart has aligned its pricing strategy to support its affordability pitch to its shopper base, while Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom use pricing to juggle the demands of a more premium inventory with perceptions of price competitiveness.

Product Movement In The Top 200

Much of a retailer’s sales performance comes down to how effectively it maintains the optimal mix of reassuring bestsellers complemented by attractive new arrivals. Sound product assortment clearly provides shoppers with a variety of options each time they visit the retailer’s website. To achieve this balance, retailers typically employ their own, unique algorithm that ranks products in their listings based on several factors, including price range, discount offered, review ratings, popularity and promotions by brands.

To study this, we evaluated the average percentage of products that were replaced in the Top 200 ranks for each product type of each website.

Amazon has clearly adopted a strategy of offering new options to its shoppers each day, with an average of 60% new products in the Top 200 ranks of the Fashion category. Contrast that with Walmart which appears to be more conservative in its approach to churning its Top 200 products. In the case of Neiman Marcus however, the reason for the lower volume of product pricing movements in its Top 200 ranks may be due to the relatively high value of its premium product assortment, which imposes the internal constraints of having a smaller pool of new products to choose from.

Online-First, This Black Friday Sale Season

Amazon continues to demonstrate its dominance as a pacesetter in US retail, largely due to its progressive online pricing and merchandising strategies. These embrace the power of big data in its approach to online retail.

Research shows online is consistently outperforming in-store along critical customer satisfaction dimensions spanning: product quality, selection and/or variety, availability of hard-to-find and unique products, ease of searching and delivery options.

According to global consultancy Deloitte, for the first time ever, American shoppers will purchase more online than they buy offline in the 2017 holiday shopping season — 51 percent, up from 47 percent in 2016. With Black Friday looming in the next few weeks, it will be interesting to see how US retailers push to seize a larger piece of this growing pie.

Check out our website to learn more about how DataWeave provides Competitive Intelligence as a Service to retailers and consumer brands globally.

November 14, 2017
Our Analysis of Diwali Season Sales

As the battle of the Indian eCommerce heavyweights continues to accelerate, we have witnessed three separate sale events compressed into the last four weeks of this festive season. Flipkart has come out with all guns blazing following its multi-billion-dollar funding round, leaving Amazon with little choice but to follow suit with its own aggressive promotions. At this stage of a highly competitive eCommerce cycle, market share is a prize worth its weight in gold and neither Flipkart nor Amazon are prepared to blink first.

At DataWeave, our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform enables us to seamlessly analyze these sale events, focusing on multiple dimensions, including website, category, sub-category, brand, prices, discounts, and more. Over the past six weeks, we have been consistently monitoring the prices of the top 200 ranked products spread over sub-categories spanning electronics, fashion, and furniture. In total, we amassed data on over 65,000 products during this period.

The first of these pivotal sale events was held between the 20th and 24th September, which we earlier analyzed in detail. Another major sale soon followed, contested by Amazon, Flipkart and Myntra for varying periods between the 4th and 9th of October. Lastly, was the Diwali season sale held by Amazon, Flipkart, and Myntra between the 14th and 18th of October, joined by Jabong between the 12th and 15th of October.

In analyzing these significant sale events for all eCommerce websites, we observed an extensive range of products enjoying high absolute discounts, but with no additional discounts during the sale, i.e. prices remained unchanged between the day before the sale and the first day of the sale. The following infographic highlights some of the sub-categories and products where this phenomenon was more pronounced during the recently concluded Diwali season sale. Here, discount percentages are average absolute discounts of products with unchanged discounts during the sale.

Having identified the aggressive use of high but unchanged absolute discounts amongst eCommerce heavyweights during the sale, we focused our analysis on the additional discounts offered during the sale, to more accurately reflect the value these sale events deliver to Indian consumers.

Several categories, sub-categories and brands emerged as enjoying substantial additional discounts. The following infographic details our analysis:

Amazon and Flipkart continue to stand toe to toe on discounts in Electronics, although Amazon offered discounts across a greater number of products. Flipkart adopted a more premium brand assortment in the Electronics category with an average MRP of INR 30,442 for additionally discounted products.

What stands out in our analysis is Amazon’s consistently aggressive discounting in fashion compared to Flipkart. As anticipated, Jabong and Myntra continued to offer attractive discounts in a large number of fashion products, seeking to maintain their grip in their niche. Furniture, too, is a category where Amazon out-discounted Flipkart, albeit through a less premium assortment mix (average MRP of INR 23,580 compared to Flipkart’s INR 34,304).

Several big brands elected to dig deep into their pockets during the sales to offer very high discounts. These included attractive discounts from Redmi, Asus, and Acer in Electronics, and W, Wrangler, Levi’s, Puma, Fossil, and Ray Ban in Fashion.

Which Sale Delivered Greater Value For Consumers?

Since DataWeave has extensive data on both the pre-Diwali sale (held between 4th and 9th of October), and the Diwali season sale (held between 12th and 18th October), we compared prices to identify which of the sale events offered more attractive discounts across categories, sub-categories and products.

While the discount levels were generally consistent across most sub-categories, only varying by a few percentage points, we identified several sub-categories and products that displayed a large variation in the absolute level of discount offered.

As the infographic above shows, Amazon identified women’s formal shoes as a key category in its discounting strategy, which saw its level of discounting triple during the Diwali sale. By comparison, Flipkart doubled its discount in men’s jeans, and Myntra tripled its discounts on Men’s shirts and sunglasses.

Similarly, during the Diwali sale Amazon, Flipkart and Myntra all offered selected products with an aggressive 40% to 50% discount level.

Interestingly, Amazon, Flipkart and Myntra all elected to reduce the level of discounts offered on specific products as well. One of the biggest discount moves was Amazon’s reduction on iPhone 6s from 34% to only 4%. Flipkart recorded a similar price move on Adidas originals Stan Smith sneakers (30% to 5%) and Canon EOS 200D DSLR cameras (20% to 8%).

Market Share Reigns Supreme

Based on our analysis of the festive season sales, Flipkart’s aggressive approach powered by its multi-billion-dollar funding round enabled it to stave off Amazon’s discounting strategy in the annual eCommerce festive season sales this year, increasing its lead over Amazon India in a market where the total sales is believed to have surged by up to 40 percent over 2016’s sales.

Based on several reports, Flipkart’s share of total festive season sales appears to have increased from 45 percent in 2016 to 50 percent this year, capturing much of the market up for grabs from a now relegated Snapdeal. Amazon’s market share during a festive sales period that stretched over a month is estimated to have remained steady at 35 percent, though the company reported it saw a 50 percent share in other metrics such as order volume and active customers.

The key question for both industry analysts and consumers alike is, how much deeper are retailers willing to go in their quest to capture market share at the expense of operating margins?

If you’re interested in DataWeave’s data aggregation and analysis platform, and how we provide Competitive Intelligence as a Service to retailers and brands, visit our website!

October 25, 2017
Festive Season Sale: Who’s Winning the Great Indian eCommerce Battle?

In the lead up to October’s Diwali celebrations, almost all major Indian e-retailers had announced mammoth sale events for last week. Resuming the epic battle of India’s online shopping carts during festival seasons, Flipkart, together with Jabong and Myntra, kicked off their five-day-long “Big Billion Days” sales on September 20, while Amazon India‘s “Great Indian Festival” launched the next day.

The stakes were high as Amazon and Flipkart are more evenly matched this year than ever before, making predicting an eventual winner of these dueling discounters a lot tougher than in previous years.

At DataWeave, our proprietary data aggregation and analysis platform enabled us to easily assess which e-retailer offered better deals and discounts. Over the last two weeks, we have been consistently monitoring the prices of the top 200 ranked products in Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, and Jabong, across several sub-categories of Electronics, Men’s Fashion, and Women’s Fashion, encompassing over 35,000 products in total.

Divergent Discount Strategies

In our analysis, we bring focus to the additional discounts offered by competing e-retailers during the sale, compared to prices before the sale. This is key, as today’s shoppers often encounter deep discounts on several products even on normal days, which could potentially dampen the value suggested by the large discounts advertised during the sale.

Based on our analysis, Flipkart clearly adopted a more aggressive pricing strategy this year, establishing a lead over Amazon in average discount percentage for Electronics and Women’s Fashion. Moreover, Flipkart launched additional discounts on a larger number of products across categories. Amazon, though, offered 6.9 percent additional discounts on smartphones compared to Flipkart (6.2 percent), led by 10.7 percent discount on Apple and 7.7 percent discount on Redmi smartphones.

Flipkart has already reported a doubling of revenue from the sale (which includes sales volumes of Myntra and Jabong) compared to last year, and claimed it accounted for 70 percent of eCommerce sales during these five days — beating Amazon by a considerable margin. Amazon, for its part, reported a “2.5X growth in smartphone sales, 4X increase in large appliances and 7X in fashion sales.”

The difference in discounting strategies between Amazon and Flipkart is starkly illustrated by their respective highest discounts. Flipkart led the way with a 65.5 percent discount on Vero Moda skirts, a 65 percent discount on Tommy Hilfiger skirts, and 50 percent off Calvin Klein sunglasses.

By contrast, Amazon’s greatest discounts were an 83.4 percent discount on Redfoot formal shoes, 45.5 percent on Motorola Tablets, a 40 percent on US Polo T-shirts, and a 25.1 percent discount on Puma sports shoes.

Also, Flipkart hosted a more premium range of products in its assortment compared to Amazon, evidenced by a higher average MRP for its discounted products. Surprisingly, Amazon’s spread of discounted products has the least average MRP in Electronics and Women’s Fashion, compared to all other competitors.

New Products Break Through the Top 200

What’s fascinating in this battle of the e-retail giants is the correlation we uncovered between prices and rank. During the sale, as prices dropped on hundreds of products across the board, newer products successfully broke through into the Top 200 ranks for each sub-category. New products in the top 200 ranks had higher discount levels than the ones they replaced.

This trend was especially pronounced in fashion, where we observed an almost complete overhaul of products filling the Top 200 during the sale period, led by sports shoes in Amazon, Men’s shirts in Flipkart, and Men’s formal shirts in Jabong.

What About Pre-Sale Prices?

Another angle we explored was whether (like most of us suspect) e-retailers increase their prices before a sale, only to reduce them during the sale, so they can advertise higher discounts. We observed that all e-retailers did increase their prices for an albeit small set of products before the sale.

While the number of products where the prices increased for each website prior to the sales is small, it is interesting to observe that certain brands choose to perform the oldest trick in the retail book even today — raising prices to accentuate the degree of discount during the sale period, something shoppers need to keep an eye out for.

A Sign of Things to Come?

Based on our analysis, Flipkart has recognized the threat from Amazon and has approached this year’s “Big Billion Days” sale aggressively. It has dug deep into its freshly funded pockets, and offered better discounts for a larger set of products across most categories, in its attempt to lock down a greater market share in the burgeoning Indian eCommerce space.

Amazon, though, has continued to maintain a firm grip on the Indian consumer, having achieved tremendous growth in specific categories during the sale.

What’ll be interesting now is to see how these pricing strategies impact company revenues and margins, and how this will shape the soon-to-follow Diwali sales in mid-October.

If you’re intrigued by DataWeave’s data aggregation and analysis technology, and would like to learn more about how we help retailers and brands build and maintain a competitive edge, please visit our website.

September 27, 2017
Was Amazon’s Prime Day Sale Really That Big a Deal?

Hint: Only in some product categories

Amazon’s Prime Day sale, the first-of-its-kind in India, made a conspicuous splash across the media a couple of weeks ago, with several stories of the sale’s dramatic success doing the rounds. For 30 hours spread over 10th and 11th of July, the online retail giant rolled out deals as frequently as every five minutes, exclusively for Amazon Prime subscribers. And online shoppers lapped it up.

According to Amazon India, more customers signed up for Prime on the day of the sale and in the week leading up to it, than on any other month since Prime’s launch in India last year. To boot, Prime subscribers shopped three-times more during the sale compared to other days.

The discounts offered on several products were quite frequently in the range of 60–70% and beyond, with some products reaching absurd discount levels of up to 85%. However, for a retailer as competitively priced as Amazon, what’s interesting to explore is how much additional discount was offered during the sale. After all, even on normal days, Amazon discounts aggressively on its top 20% selling SKUs, in order to reinforce the commonly held perception that the company is the lowest priced retailer around.

More Than Meets the Eye

At DataWeave, our AI-based technology platform aggregates and analyzes publicly accessible data on the Web, at large scale, to deliver insights on competitors to retailers and consumer brands. We collected pricing and discount information for the Electronics and Fashion categories on Amazon during the sale, and compared it to numbers from before the sale. Thus, we evaluated just how much additional value Prime subscribers could’ve potentially drawn from this sale.

We performed a similar analysis on Flipkart as well, to examine how competing e-commerce websites react to big-ticket sale events.

The infographic below lists out some of the more interesting bits of our analysis.

Unsurprisingly, Amazon strengthened its grip in the electronics category by offering, on average, 3.9% higher discount than Flipkart, even with a higher-value assortment mix. Subsequently, Amazon reported a 5X increase in sales of smartphones and an 8X increase in sales of televisions during Prime Day.

While Apple discounted its phones by 8.5% during the sale, Sanyo was among the top discounting brands (10%) in Televisions, with the company reporting a 4X jump in television sales. TCL offered 20% additional discount, the highest for televisions.

What stands out from this analysis, though, is that Flipkart beat Amazon on price definitively in the fashion for women category, by extending 6.8% more discount than Amazon on a significantly higher-value assortment mix.

It’s not uncommon to see e-commerce companies lowering their prices across the board to take advantage of the hype surrounding a competing e-commerce website’s promotional activity. Clearly, it’s a good idea for shoppers to always compare prices across websites before buying any product online.

The New Age of Retail

That shoppers today can easily compare products and prices across different e-commerce websites has brought about greater competition among online retailers. With the consequent margin pressure, comes the need for retailers to be able to react to price changes by their competitors in near-real-time.

And it’s no mean task. Amazon has been found to effect over 80 million price changes a day during holiday season, and retailer-driven sale events like the Prime Day Sale are here to stay. Consequently, retailers look to Competitive Intelligence providers like DataWeave for easily consumable competitive information that enables them to react effectively and compete profitably.

DataWeave’s AI-powered technology platform aggregates, compiles, and presents millions of data points to provide e-commerce companies with actionable competitive insights. With our solutions, retailers can effect profitable price changes, implement high-value assortment expansion, and proactively monitor and respond to promotional campaigns by competitors.

Find what we do interesting? Visit our website to find out more about how modern retailers benefit from using DataWeave’s Competitive Intelligence as a Service.

August 1, 2017
Introducing the new PriceWeave
PriceWeave provides Competive Intelligence for eRetailers, brands, and manufacturers. Competitive Intelligence helps businesses understand their competition better, take timely decisions, and increase sales. Our retail pricing intelligence tool serves the following major purposes:

Compare: PriceWeave lets you access products from across any number of sources and organize them for a straightforward apples-to-apples comparison.

Monitor: Our intuitive dashboards help you monitor prices, assortments, products, brands, and deals across competition on a daily basis.

Discover: Discover gaps in your product catalog. Discover products that are unique to you. Discover new brands and categories your competitors have introduced. Find new competitors.

Analyze: Get customized alerts and reports on anything that you want to track. Access historical pricing data to understand pricing strategies. Visualize data across facets at different levels of granularity.

If you are an eRetailer, PriceWeave powers your sales, marketing, and analytics team with actionable data–for both day to day operations, as well as long term strategy. With retail pricing intelligence, an eRetailer can:
- understand pricing opportunitiesand implement an effective pricing strategy
- get pricing variation for the products you are tracking across competition
- get apples-to-apples product comparison and historical pricing data
- optimize assortment planningthrough assortment intelligence
- continuously monitor product assortment width and depth
- understand gaps in your (and your competition’s) product catalog
- manage featured products and promotions
- develop overall sales and marketing strategy
- big picture as well multi-dimensional faceted views: price bands, discount bands, categories, brands, and features
If you are a brand or a manufacturer who sell your products through retailers, PriceWeave helps you as well. A Brand (or a Manufacturer) can:
- ensure brand equity
- monitor MOP violations and discover unauthorized resellers
- increase market penetration
- track retailer assortment across competing brand products.
- discover new retailers — new distribution channels
- increase engagement with retailers as well as customers
- get regular reports on availability, pricing, offers, and discounts
In short, PriceWeave is a product that gives you all the data and tools to help you gain and sustain an edge over your competition.

For a demo of the product do reach out to us at (contact@dataweave.com). You can sign up for a free evaluation at dataweave.com.
May 31, 2016