By Izabella De Souza, Marketing Coordinator, Appeagle
“It’s the difference between making money and losing money,” said online seller David Rifkin. “It’s seriously insane not to use a repricer.”
Like many online sellers, Rifkin uses a repricing software to scour the internet for price comparisons on products like his and then automatically adjust his items’ prices so that he can compete effectively. And although Rifkin and others like him have seen great success with repricers, most online sellers are not even aware of the option of automated repricing. “I’ve spoken to sellers who spend hours each day manually repricing their listings,” said Koby Kasnett, Co-Founder and CEO of Appeagle — a leading repricing software. “Sellers need to know there’s a better solution for them.”
Still a relatively novel industry to most, repricing has come a long way in the last few years. In the summer of 2012, Amazon set limitations on the number of listings that can be repriced each hour. That year Amazon also released its Marketplace Web Services (MWS) API, which allowed for repricing developers to expand their service capabilities. The cry for more input from Amazon didn’t stop there, and in August of 2013 the retail giant released its Subscriptions API. The release of Amazon’s Subscriptions API allows for repricers to react to changes on the marketplace in a much faster and precise manner.
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Furthermore, major full-service e-Commerce companies have taken notice of the rising power of repricers and added repricing to their list of services. However, the primary focuses of these companies remain in their chief services — listing management, order management, fulfillment, and inventory organization — and therein the attention necessary to develop a cutting-edge repricer goes unfulfilled.
If you’re a seller looking to experiment with a repricer, taking the following points into account will be crucial when deciding which service to use.
- Repricing Doesn’t Always Mean Lowering Prices: “One of the main concerns our sellers have about repricing is having their prices drop in order to capture sales,” said Kasnett. “An effective repricer takes profit margin into account when adjusting prices, and therefore will only lower a listing’s price when it is profitable to do so.” The same way a listing may be lowered, it can also be raised when the outcome is deemed profitable.
- Not All Repricers Are The Same: Most people are surprised to discover that there isn’t just one kind of repricer. Algorithmic repricing denotes the automated calculations made to adjust prices. Strategic repricing — also known as dynamic repricing — represents the customization offered to take various factors into account when recalculating prices. These factors can include competition type, item condition and even how much a seller is willing to have their completion beat them by. “I customize my beat-by setting on products’ prices I have little room to play with by $0.01,” said Rifkin. “I find it holds my margins better.”
- Multi-Marketplace Enabled Repricers Have The Most To Offer: Despite the fact that Amazon holds the slot as the largest online marketplace, there are several other marketplaces where sellers conduct business. Sellers are constantly looking for additional exposure for their listings and the best way to gain their desired exposure is by selling on more than just one marketplace. Repricers that support numerous marketplaces can sync and manage sellers’ inventory, thereby creating an easier experience for the seller. Kasnett noted that “using a multi-marketplace tool supports the future of not just selling but also repricing.”
Izabella De Souza is the Marketing Manager at Appeagle where she oversees all campaigns and content curation. De Souza has published digital content in various industries for the last five years, and has taught undergraduate Communication at William Paterson University. In her free time she likes to travel around the world and indulge in interior design publications.
