Category: Pricing Strategies

  • Top 7 strategies to sell effectively on Amazon

    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
    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
    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
    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
    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. 

  • eCommerce Performance Analytics for CPG Private Label

    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
    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
    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.

  • UK’s Biggest Sale Days: What we saw in 2021 and trends for 2022

    UK’s Biggest Sale Days: What we saw in 2021 and trends for 2022

    Customers love discounts, and promotions are the most effective tool to attract shoppers and increase sales during the holiday season and clearance sales. According to a survey, 76% of UK customers look for discounts before purchasing a product. Promotional discounts encourage customers to try new brands. And this is why brands often have a special coupon for first-time users. 

    According to Software Advice, discounting tops the pricing strategy for retailers across all industries. It is preferred by 97% of survey respondents over other promotional strategies

    Share of Respondents
    Share of Respondents

    Retail Trends in the UK for 2022

    The arrival of the Omicron variant in December 2021 slashed the shopping mood of UK customers and led to a 3.7% monthly drop in retail sales, but sales were still higher than February 2020 levels when Covid-19 first hit worldwide. Sales during the holiday season in 2021 took a hit due to a consistent decline in product availability and an increase in prices.  Inflation too started to rise in 2021 and is expected to increase by 7% by spring 2022. However, despite inflation, retail sales jumped back in January 2022. In fact, it is predicted that inflation will be a key driver of sales growth, with underlying demand across categories being uneven. Keeping that in mind, let’s look at sales growth across categories in 2021 and projected growth in 2022.

    Category Breakdown: Sales growth 2021/22
    Category Breakdown: Sales growth 2021/22

    Discounting Trends we saw in the UK in 2021

    Methodology

    • We tracked prices on the three biggest Sales Days in the UK
      – Amazon Prime Day, June 21st & 22nd 2021
      – Black Friday, Nov 26th, 2021
      – Cyber Monday, Nov 29th, 2021
    • Categories tracked: Beauty, Fashion, Electronics, Home Improvement, Furniture 
    • Websites tracked: Amazon UK, OnBuy, eBay UK, Etsy, Wayfair, Selfridges, John Lewis

    Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday are three of the biggest sales days with comparable discounts. However, according to new research, in 54% of cases, it depends on the category of product you’re after that determines the volume of discount you get. For example, tech items such as smartphones, laptops, games consoles, smartwatches, and wireless speakers were cheaper on Black Friday but may not necessarily have been cheaper on the other sale days. 

    We wanted to see which sale period had the most number of products on discount during the three big sale events. We also wanted to see which of those three sales would’ve been the best for consumers to get a higher section of products at a discount. 

    How Big were the Discounts?

    Discount across 3 key Sale Days
    Discount across 3 key Sale Days

    32% of products went on discount during Black Friday, 35% on Cyber Monday, and only 6.6% on Prime Day. One factor contributing to the low Prime Day percentage is the fact that not all retailers participate in discounting wars during Prime Day since it’s an exclusive Amazon-only sale. Customers looking for the best deals would’ve gotten them during the holiday season with a combination of the Black Friday & Cyber Monday sales. 

    Another interesting thing to note is the percentage discount – on Prime Day, only 0.2% of products had a discount of over 50% of all the discounted products. While on Black Friday & Cyber Monday that number was 1.7% & 1.3% respectively. 

    In conclusion, more products were offered at a discount on Black Friday & Cyber Monday; and the total percentage discount on those products was also higher.

    Which Categories had the Maximum Discount?

    Discounts by category
    Discounts by category

    On Black Friday, an estimated 47% of consumers in the UK planned to shop for electronics, whereas 40% of customers planned to shop for clothing and footwear during Black Friday to Cyber Monday.  The top-selling categories across the 48 hours of Amazon UK’s Black Friday 2021 sale included Home, Toys, Beauty, Books, and Health & Personal Care.

    Our data shows that Categories with the highest discounts were Beauty and Electronics with the highest discount on all 3 sale events. These 2 categories had discounts on over 40% products on Black Friday & Cyber Monday while categories like Home Improvement were in the 30 – 35% range, Furniture in the 27 – 32% range and Fashion has the least products on discounts at a little over 15%

    In the fashion category in the UK, Amazon UK offered the highest percentage of items with a price decrease (31.6%), whereas eBay offered the most significant magnitude of price decrease (14.3%). 

    Which UK Retailers gave the most discounts?

    OnBuy is an emerging marketplace in the UK that offers impressive discounted prices and is taking on top UK marketplaces like Amazon. It’s ranked Britain’s fastest-growing eCommerce platform in 2020 and also the fastest grower by traffic. The low listing fees starting at 5% allow sellers to competitively price their products, making them more accessible to a greater number of buyers with huge discounts. The most prominent deals and discounts are highlighted on the landing page and featured across OnBuy’s social pages to grab the audience’s attention. 

    Discounts by Retailer
    Discounts by Retailer

    This was clearly reflective in the data we gathered from the 3 big sales in 2021. Most retailers in the UK, including Amazon offered at best 20% of their products, in the categories we tracked, at discount. The only outlier was OnBuy – OnBuy offered close to 90% of their products at discount! 

    OnBuy was able to offer a comparatively high number of discounted products than their competition because the magnitude of the discount was much much lower. The platform offered minimal discounts; out of the 90% of discounted products, 80% of those products had discounts that were less than 10%. As opposed to other retailers who had under 7% of their products on discounts of less than 10%.

    OnBuy’s discounting strategy built a perception that they were the biggest discounters, even when the discounts were not as deep.

    Black Friday v/s Cyber Monday – which one was better for holiday shoppers?

    Discount by category- Black Friday VS Cyber Monday
    Discount by category- Black Friday VS Cyber Monday

    Black Friday kicks off the holiday shopping season and is synonymous with some of the most significant sales after Thanksgiving. But until recently, Cyber Monday has become a great way for eCommerce retailers to capitalize on holiday discounts and expand their most beneficial sales events of the year.

    In 2021, retailers pulled in $8.9 billion in Black Friday online sales and a total sales of $10.7 billion on Cyber Monday. In the YOY review, Black Friday saw a decline of 1.3% from 2020’s record of $9.03 billion, and Cyber Monday saw a drop of 1.4%, only $100 million shy of $10.8 billion in 2020. 

    Across Beauty, Home Improvement, Electronics & Furniture categories, we saw that more products were on discount on Cyber Monday v/s Black Friday. However, the opposite was true for the Fashion Category. In the Fashion Category, we saw a marginally higher number of products on Discount during Black Friday than Cyber Monday.

    Discount percentages across categories
    Discount percentages across categories

    Across both sales, the Electronics category offered the highest discounts at over 40% of products discounted compared to other categories on both Black Friday & Cyber Monday. However, a very small fraction of the products had a discount of over 50%, indicating the lack of ‘BIG blockbuster deals’ in this category. At the same time, the Fashion category offered the least number of deals with less than 20% products on discount, but the highest magnitude of discount across the board! On Black Friday, 3.8% of products had discounts higher than 50%, and 2.6% of products on Cyber Monday. In most other categories, between 1 – 1.5% of products had over 50% discount. However, Fashion brands offered more than 50% discount on 2x the average number of products on both sale days.

    Why did the Fashion Category offer such high discounts? Brands are now capitalizing on customers’ need for instant gratification in the age of see-now, buy-now fashion trends by offering their products at high discounts. It also allows them to quickly eliminate overstock. However, this has given rise to fast fashion, a trend that focuses on rapidly producing low-quality clothes in huge volume. Fast fashion focuses on replicating trendy pieces like streetwear and fashion week designs, not four times a year but every week, if not daily. Fast fashion promotes brands to manufacture and sell low-quality merchandise that goes out of trend as soon as buyers wear it once. There is little to no time for quality control, and pieces are thrown away after a few wears. In the UK alone, 300,000 tonnes of used clothes are buried or burned in landfills each year. However, every element of fast fashion from rapid production, competitive pricing, to trend replication has a detrimental impact on the planet.

    Conclusion  

    The effects of COVID-19 can be seen far and wide in the UK retail industry, especially with a steep rise in inflation. Fortunately, even though retail sales in the UK declined during the 2021 holiday season due to the Omicron variant, they increased during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Sales also jumped back in January 2022 and are further projected to grow by 5% in 2022. Additionally, brands can sustain the impact of disruptive factors throughout 2022 by ensuring their Digital Shelf is updated and flexible enough to react swiftly to both threats and opportunities in order to maximize the chances of success. 

    Reach out to the team at DataWeave if you’d like to make smarter pricing & discounting decisions with up-to-date competitive insights. 

  • Valentine’s Day eCommerce Insights

    Valentine’s Day eCommerce Insights

    Access to these types of real-time digital marketplace insights can enable retailers and brands to make strategic decisions and help drive profitable growth in an intensifying competitive environment. Be sure to reach out to our Retail Analytics experts for access to more details regarding the above analysis.         

  • What Historical Pricing Data can tell you & how to use it

    What Historical Pricing Data can tell you & how to use it

    For many brands, pricing strategy boils down to guesswork — shooting in the dark and hoping consumers are willing and happy to pay. However, the ‘throw it at the wall, and see what sticks’ pricing strategy leads to big pricing mistakes. Pinning down an optimal price for products requires a clear picture of ideal customers, understanding each customer segment’s behavior, a solid grasp of your product’s value, and an analysis of competitors. Pricing analytics can help brands track a wide range of pricing metrics with cutting-edge analytical tools and use insights to get ahead of their competition. This analysis uses historical data to understand how previous pricing and promotion activities affect brand, sales, and customer price perception. It often involves identifying opportunities and weaknesses in competitors’ pricing strategies and exploiting them to improve sales and revenue. 

    Pricing analytics helps brands understand how product pricing and promotions affect profitability and the steps they can take to optimize their pricing structures. Brands can leverage their pricing and consumer data to design appropriate pricing models for achieving their sales goals.

    Here is a brief overview of pricing analytics, its benefits, and ways to improve sales with historical pricing analytics.

    What is historical pricing data analytics?

    historical pricing data analytics
    Historical Pricing Data Analytics

    Pricing analytics uses historical pricing and demand data to understand how pricing activities have affected profitability and overall brand. It also helps to optimize a brands’ pricing strategy for maximum revenue. Manual tracking of pricing for brands with numerous product lines, multiple selling points, different customer tiers, and complex product bundles is a huge challenge. Brands from every sector and industry vertical, manufacturing and distribution to retail and eCommerce, can benefit from pricing analytics.

    There are three types of pricing analysis:

    Descriptive

    Descriptive pricing analytics involves analyzing historical data to evaluate how customers have perceived and reacted to pricing fluctuations in the past. It analyzes metrics such as month-on-month sales growth, average revenue per customer, year-on-year pricing changes, or changes to the number of registrations to a particular service over a specific period. 

    Predictive

    Although brands can’t accurately predict how pricing changes will reflect sales, they can use predictive pricing analytics to get insights into the best possible chance of doing so. Predictive pricing analyzes historical data with statistical algorithms and machine learning to predict the price and trends of products in the future. It also helps brands to optimize their prices with future goals.

    Prescriptive

    Prescriptive pricing analytics is the opposite of descriptive analytics. Unlike descriptive analytics that helps brands explore their historical data to understand customer response after an event, prescriptive analytics help brands design better and more informed strategies. With prescriptive analytics, brands can shape their growth strategies to achieve more sustainable results over the long term.

    Benefits of historical pricing data analytics

    Benefits of historical pricing data analytics
    Benefits of Historical Pricing Data Analytics

    Acquire insights into customers price perception

    While analyzing the metrics to understand pricing optimization, brands can also gather valuable insights into their customer’s price perception. Pricing analytics helps brands understand which customer segments are the most (and least) profitable and how each segment responds to specific pricing strategies. With historical pricing data analytics, brands can also intelligently link pricing and promotions by first determining customer price sensitivity then gauging the effectiveness of promotions

    Fully Optimized Pricing

    Historical pricing analytics means eliminating guesswork from deciding the optimal pricing for a given product. By analyzing historical pricing data, brands can discover how their past pricing and promotional decisions impact profitability. Based on this historical data, they can also test various pricing strategies like value-based and dynamic pricing. It also allows brands to learn which customer segments are most likely to respond positively to price change. These insights from pricing analytics will drive more effective (and profitable) pricing decisions.

    Recognize pricing tiers that work the best

    Many brands have gaps in their pricing strategy — underpriced or overpriced tiers, pricing leaks, markup errors, or neglected upsell opportunities. Tiered pricing models are prevalent in subscription-based brands where brands offer tiers to meet the needs of diverse customer segments. With historical pricing analytics, brands can improve their pricing tiers and get insight into the right number of tiers and optimal prices for each. Pricing analytics will comb a brand’s historical data to find tier pricing mistakes to improve sales and revenue.

    Planning Pricing Strategies and Promotions

    Promotional pricing decisions are critical for any brand, as pricing perception is directly linked to consumer demand and profits. Brands have to carefully plan promotions that include variables such as list prices, special offers, advertisements, and discounts while ensuring profit margins. With predictive analytics, brands can determine optimal discount levels, keep a close eye on the competition, and announce promotional offers when customers are likely to purchase. Historical pricing analysis also helps predict revenue and determine optimal locations and platforms for promotional ads.

    Discover profitable channels

    Not all sales channels bring equal revenue to your brand. Historical pricing analysis can help you determine the most effective quality, volume, and revenue channels. Brands must understand which marketing and sales channels bring quality leads that convert to paying customers. It also helps to determine which eCommerce channels are most profitable so you can optimize your budget and identify channels you should be investing in as a part of future customer acquisition strategies. 

    Metrics to track

    Metrics to track
    Metrics to Track

    Here are a few pricing analytics metrics that can help brands to understand customer behavior towards pricing:

    Willingness to Pay (WTP)

    WTP, also known as price sensitivity, is the maximum price your potential customers are willing to pay for your service or product. It is an essential part of pricing strategy since you have no other way of understanding whether your product can yield an augmented product value. Numerous factors are responsible for a customer’s willingness to pay, and it’s not static. Brands must track willingness to pay for all customer segments to ensure that the product is priced competitively and drives maximum profit while staying in line with current market conditions. 

    Feature Value Analysis

    Feature value analysis, also known as relative reference analysis, measures the most important features to customers in relation to other features of a product or service. Analyzing critical features to customer segments will help brands price products based on basic or premium components. It can also help to better bundle your services or products so you can drive the most revenue. 

    Average Revenue per User (ARPU)

    The average revenue per user is the revenue generated from the sum of active users divided by the total number of users in a monthly time frame. Delving deeper into ARPU can help brands compare numbers with rivals and check how all products or customer segments perform. 

    Lifetime Value (LTV)

    Lifetime Value offers a complete picture of a user’s journey and the average revenue that the user will generate throughout their engagement as a customer with your brand. It helps brands determine various economic decisions such as marketing budgets, profitability, forecasting, and resource allocation. 

    Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

    A successful and profitable brand needs to balance its customer acquisition cost or CAC. It is about spending the right amount of resources and time to drive new customers without jeopardizing their lifetime value and revenue. Correct calculation of CAC helps brands to quantify their sales funnel and determine the efficiency and profitability of their strategies.

    Conclusion

    Historical pricing analytics is a powerful tool, and it can make a huge difference to a brand’s potential by increasing sales and unlocking incredible profitability in a relatively short time. Historical analysis of pricing and promotions data will help brands get better marketing returns than relying on traditional pricing approaches. 

    Leveraging pricing analytics will prevent brands from blindly reacting to competitor price changes and support solutions for scaling up price transformation efforts. By using historical pricing data, brands can more effectively segment their customers for marketing and promotion strategies. Properly utilizing predictive analytics and past sales data can help cut costs and keep profit margins high by adjusting production and prices according to market trends.
    Need help tracking your competitor prices? Or want historic pricing insights for your own brand? Or need to track the efficacy of your online promotions?
    Sign up for a demo
    with our team to know how DataWeave can help!