The same product doesn’t stay priced at the same cost forever, with retailers repricing either on a consistent schedule or using a software solution that does the job automatically. Sounds simple, right? Maybe not. Here are the top repricing mistakes retailers make, and the practices of successful ones.
Mistake 1: Sticking to Only One Kind of Repricing Method
Repricing occurs either manually—you—or automatically—the software. There are pros and cons to both, and smart Amazon retailers know not to rely on one method blindly. Say you favour repricing yourself every Monday because you know you’ve started off the week properly. It’s a good way to establish a schedule, but humans make mistakes and there’s a good chance you may be distracted one day and make a repricing error with your merchandise.
But simple automatic repricing isn’t perfect either, as software is only as good as its developer or user. Coding repricing software, even simple software, can be incredibly complex; even one wrong line can lead to disaster, like high-valued items suddenly transformed into penny listings.
Smarter Choice: Put Your Eggs in More Than One Basket
Cover your tracks by employing a mix of your brains and the software’s simplicity. Your software will do whatever you tell it to, but it doesn’t have the ability to intuitively sense market trends or make predictions based on gut feelings—but you do. Evaluate the past performance of your stock, taking into account how and why it sells when it does (e.g. sale of sweaters increases at Christmas). Use this knowledge to make your software work at maximum efficiency—and for you.
Mistake 2: Undersizing Your Inventory to Avoid Using Software
Rookie sellers on Amazon tend to make the classic mistake of thinking they don’t have enough SKUs to warrant the use of software, leading to the first mistake listed here. However, it’s important to add the proviso that this becomes a mistake only if you’re spending consistent time repricing your inventory, even if it’s as seldom as once a week.
Smarter Choice: Source Out Your Work
Why spend hours of your precious time manually repricing your inventory when the right software can put you miles ahead? It may take a bit of trial-and-error, but once you find the software that best suits your needs—which may not be the software that’s right for someone else—you can start making it work for you. And just imagine: once you hit on that right repricing software, your work will continue to make you money while you sleep and enjoy your life.
Mistake 3: Playing by Someone Else’s Rules
Who knows your inventory better than you? And how well do you know others’ inventory compared to your own? Using this concept, it’s a big mistake to reprice your stock to compete with others because you may not always have the whole picture. Some retailers may have huge inventories and can afford to put up penny listings, or they may do so to get good ratings quickly.
Smarter Choice: Be Consistent with Your Own Practices
The great thing about repricing automation is it’s your rules, your game. You can, of course, start with trying a known Amazon Buy Box formula and tweaking it from there in line with your own unique situation. Say your primary inventory consists of books and you sell to more than one market (i.e. students and Kindle readers). Set the min and max values accordingly for each demographic, like perhaps lower max values for Kindle books because it’s a highly competitive market and higher max values for textbooks because students have less choice.
Mistake 4: Not Being Ready When Using eBay Repricing
Repricing on eBay is different from Amazon repricing, in that you’ll be able to either base your eBay prices off Amazon or choose to compete with other sellers who have the same barcode as you (EAN, UPC, ISBN).
Smarter Choice: Be Ready When Starting eBay Repricing
Before starting using eBay repricing with RepricerExpress, remember:
- Your eBay products need to have custom labels to get imported into RepricerExpress. A custom label on eBay is the equivalent of an Amazon SKU. Note, if you want to use eBay repricing to base your eBay prices off your current prices on Amazon, please make sure that eBay custom label = Amazon SKU and ensure that your custom labels don’t contain commas and are unique for each product.
- If you wish to compete against other sellers in the eBay catalogue who have the same barcode as you, you need to make sure that your eBay products have UPCs, ISBNs or EANs assigned. If they don’t, then it wouldn’t be possible for us to identify your competitors and your products won’t reprice. Note, make sure that your barcodes are valid and are matching the barcode of your competitors. If you update the barcode after the product has been imported into RepricerExpress, you will need to delete/restore the product so it can be re-imported with the new barcode.
Mistake 5: Not Setting Your Min/Max Range Properly
Another common repricing mistake when starting is not setting your Minimum and Maximum prices correctly. You should set your Minimum and Maximum price at what you’re willing to sell at.
Smarter Choice: Set Realistic Min/Maxs
- If you set your Min and Max prices too close, you will have literally no ‘room’ to reprice and your pricing range will be very tight, and your price won’t be optimised.
- If you set your Min and Max prices too wide, you risk selling too low or being stuck too high to even make a sale.
Mistake 6: Setting Up a Rule That is Too Aggressive
When starting with repricing software like RepricerExpress, it can be tempting to use all the different features we offer right away within the same rule, but we wouldn’t recommend doing so, as this would create a very aggressive rule that won’t help your sales.
Smarter Choice: Start With The Basics
Instead, start your free trial with basic rules such as “Beat by 1p/1c – Compete with everyone” or “Match – Compete with everyone”. These rules are available in our templates and once you’re used to how the software works, feel free to get a bit more specific.
Be careful not to use any settings that could work against you in your rules.
For example, if you choose to reprice only against the seller in the Buy Box but choose to “Ignore” FBA sellers and Amazon, this means that you won’t compete with most sellers eligible and you will likely “go to Max” if one of these sellers is in the Buy Box (because there’s no competition possible).
Mistake 7: Discrepancies Between Your Min/Max Prices on Amazon and RepricerExpress
When using RepricerExpress, you will be asked to set up a Minimum and a Maximum price for all your products, to determine their repricing limits. Amazon also use their own Min/Max system, and both are not tied together and sometimes it can happen that you’ll notice SKUs deactivations in your account.
Smarter Choice: Avoid Deactivations
When do deactivations happen?
- If you do have Min and Max prices set directly on Amazon, then your products will automatically get deactivated if the Min/Maxs set on Amazon don’t include the ones you’ve set in RepricerExpress. So basically, your SKU will reprice between the Min/Maxs in RepricerExpress and if the price goes above or below the Min/Maxs in Amazon, then you’ll get deactivated.
Note: Min/Maxs on Amazon don’t include shipping costs, whilst the ones in RepricerExpress do. - If you don’t have Min and Max prices set directly on Amazon, then Amazon will automatically deactivate your product if they decide that it’s priced too high or too low. Therefore, the only way for you to not get deactivation anymore would be to set Min and Max prices directly on Amazon.
To avoid potential deactivations and any discrepancies between your Min/Max prices on Amazon and RepricerExpress, you can generate a Min/Max file to upload as your Amazon Min/Maxs. Please note, on paid accounts, the Support Team can help you with this process on a regular basis if required.
Final Thoughts
Keeping your own business and rules constantly in mind will not only help you unlock more Buy Boxes, but also speed up sales so you can establish a firmer foothold. And if you’re unsure as to whether you’re repricing your merchandise correctly, a solution like RepricerExpress will allow you to run repricing in ‘Safe Mode’ which lets you go on a test run to see how you’re performing before you go live.
Knowing the difference between smart practice and rookie mistakes can help you:
- Unlock more Buy Boxes
- Move inventory quickly and increase sales
- Gain more positive ratings
- Free up your personal life
