Think you know all the tips and tricks to successfully use Amazon repricing software? Well, RepricerExpress just may have a technique or two that can help set you apart from the competition!
Approach Repricing as a Long-Term Plan for Each Item
One of the biggest mistakes online merchants make in repricing is thinking too generally or too short-term. They look at how an item is behaving now and reprice accordingly. While that will admittedly help, it won’t get you very far. You’ll want to broaden your scope to how that product has performed over the last month, quarter, year and possibly longer. There are two main reasons for this:
- Sales rank history: Knowing how hot an item is, and at what points in history, can help you make decisions about when and what to reprice it. For example, if you’re about to reprice a product that isn’t stereotypically seasonal but behaves as though it is, then you’ll have better insight as to when you should increase or decrease your inventory of it and how to set repricing rules.
- Sales price history: This one is almost self-explanatory, as an item’s sales price history is sort of like a little guidebook that tells you to set min prices at X point in time and max prices at Y point in time. There are plenty of tools you can use, like Camelcamelcamel, Keepa, PriceZombie, MyAlerts, Dolla and more.
Related reading: How to Use Keepa and CamelCamelCamel for FBA
Repricing in 90 seconds
Map Your Inventory as Accurately as Possible
It’s not great if you have too many of one item, but it’s pretty bad if you run out of it. But if you manage to keep a near-perfect balance, then you’ll maximise your earning potential by keeping ahead of the supply-and-demand trends at the time.
One great way of doing this is to link your inventory to your repricer and writing specific rules that correspond with the stock. Say you’ve just run out of an item. You can tell your repricer that once you bring it back in stock, it should set prices that match the average market values. This way, you don’t have to worry about whether you’re too high or too low once you’ve replenished your inventory.
Be Selective About Who Your Competitors Are
If there’s one word that’s overused and not well-defined enough in repricing, it’s ‘competition’. It’s easy to advise sellers they should be doing better than Joe Blow, but who is Joe Blow? There are so many online merchants, you can’t possibly compete with all of them, efficiently, all the time. Instead, you’ll want to narrow your focus to competition to include some and exclude others, with these being some of the most common criteria:
- Seller rating, such as choosing a minimum number that cuts off all other sellers with a not-good-enough rating
- Seller feedback, so you don’t inadvertently have to compete with sellers like those first start out and marketing aggressively to get their names known
- Shipping country. If your selling strategy is premised on being able to reprice more aggressively because you don’t want to pay as much in the way of shipping costs, then it’s a good idea to exclude competition who ship from much further away and have different strategies in place.
Think of your competition as being very similar to yourself so you can capitalise on repricing strategies.
Related reading: Amazon Repricing Strategies Every Seller Needs to Know
Don’t Reprice Lower Without a Good Reason To
Say your pool of competitors has all lowered their prices to roughly the same point. It’s tempting to undercut them by just enough so you stand out, but don’t. It almost always ends up in a race to the bottom and only the buyer wins — and only for a short period of time. Plus, you may be repricing lower against sellers much bigger and more formidable than yourself who have the resources to outlast you in this repricing strategy.
At the same time, other sellers could be reacting nervously and dropping their prices unnecessarily. If you’ve done your homework by looking at the product’s sales rank and price history, then you’ll have a much better idea of whether to join suit or stand pat.
Final Thoughts
Repricing isn’t always a question of just setting min and max values, as there’s much more sophistication and complexity involved. By looking at it as a chess match instead of game of Go Fish, you’ll be much better equipped to come out ahead in the long run. And by having RepricerExpress by your side, it’s like firing a rifle when everyone else is armed with a bow and arrow. All you have to do is start your 15-day free trial by clicking here.
