Development of an Automated Competitive Pricing Monitoring and Intelligent Goods Comparison System

Manual monitoring of competitors' prices and product assortments is resource-intensive and may fail to detect short-term pricing strategies such as dumping, leading to potential revenue losses and ineffective market positioning. Businesses require a reliable automated system to gather real-time competitive data and swiftly adjust their pricing tactics accordingly.

A mid-sized online retailer seeking to optimize pricing strategies by automating market monitoring and competitor analysis.

• Implement an automated system to regularly collect and update competitors' pricing and product assortment data.
• Develop a goods comparison engine to analyze and match competitor products with the company’s offerings, despite discrepancies in product nomenclature.
• Enable real-time alerts to identify pricing violations such as short-term dumping below minimum retail prices.
• Reduce manual effort and response time in market analysis processes.
• Enhance strategic decision-making through timely and accurate market insights.

• Configurable web scrapers to monitor multiple online competitors at customizable frequencies.
• Automated data collection and storage in a structured database for analysis.
• Intelligent product matching algorithms to reconcile differences in product naming conventions between competitors and the retailer.
• Price and assortment comparison dashboards for quick visualization of market positions.
• Automated detection and alerts for price dumping or violations of minimum retail prices.
• Export functionality for data reports in formats such as XLSX for further analysis.

• Competitor online store platforms for data extraction
• Internal product database for product matching and comparison
• Notification systems for real-time alerts

• Scalable architecture capable of handling multiple competitors and high-frequency data collection
• Data accuracy and timely updates with minimal latency
• Secure data handling and user access management
• System uptime of at least 99.9%

The implementation of this automated price monitoring and goods comparison system is expected to significantly reduce operational time dedicated to manual market analysis, enabling faster strategic adjustments. It aims to help the retailer outperform competitors on pricing and product assortment, minimize revenue loss from price dumping, and attract more customers through optimized offers, ultimately leading to increased market share and profitability.