The development of e-commerce: Maintaining competitiveness

In recent years, the booming e-commerce sector has once again experienced a significant boost. Above all, marketplaces have grown at an above-average rate. Many retailers are asking themselves what they can do to compete successfully on and with marketplaces as a brand or retailer.

The increased trend toward marketplaces can be seen in the sales figures. These have almost doubled in the last three years. Accordingly, users place great trust in marketplaces such as Amazon & Co. In contrast to conventional e-commerce, many similar products are grouped together here on a single website. Naturally, consumers are happy about product variety, affordable prices and clarity. It is no coincidence that companies have invested large sums in the development of their marketplaces to ensure simple and straightforward use for users.

Merchants who use marketplaces for their sales also have reason to rejoice. Above all, they benefit from the wide reach of these channels. No other sales channel allows them to reach so many new visitors in a comparatively short time. This and the better logistics and transport resources make marketplaces an interesting sales channel for more and more brand and retail merchants. Their biggest challenge is to set competitive prices with which they can attract the attention of consumers.

Marketplaces: The right pricing strategy is crucial

More and more online retailers are using marketplaces to expand their reach. Other retailers, on the other hand, no longer operate an online store of their own and rely exclusively on this channel. This is leading to much fiercer competition on the marketplaces. The pricing strategy is therefore of central importance. E-commerce operators are asking themselves how they should structure their prices on marketplaces. Many factors have to be taken into account here. On the one hand, prices must be attractive to consumers. On the other hand, attention must be paid to a positive cash flow to ensure the profitability of marketing. The manufacturer's MSRP is only a benchmark. In the marketplace, it is only an option if demand significantly exceeds supply or the brand image is exceptionally good.

Another important issue is visibility. This is influenced by the platform's search algorithm. Dealers with the most attractive prices are positioned best on the results pages. In this way, more visitors can be directed to one's own product page in the medium term and ultimately sales can be increased.

Last but not least, experience has shown that users look for the lowest prices, because they can quickly compare the prices of different suppliers on the portals. It is not enough to set the price for a product once, because competitors' prices can change rapidly. For example, when supply and demand change. On large marketplaces like Amazon, for example, this happens several times a day and around the clock! So what to do?

Long-term goals and their implementation

Staying competitive in the long term on marketplaces requires constant price monitoring. Without software support, however, effective price monitoring can hardly be accomplished by retailers.

With oraya's powerful technologies, you can keep an eye on your competitors at all times. The software not only monitors prices in e-commerce, but also price trends on marketplaces. Our SaaS solutions inform you promptly about all price changes of competitors and help you to make the right decisions day by day. No matter how many products you market or how many channels you are present on. Thanks to the scalability of our solutions, you will always be informed in a targeted manner.