The crisis and e-commerce, to sell at all costs or to protect the margin?

The share of consumer spending on needs is increasing as a result of the rising cost of living, leaving less money available for other types of expenditures. As a result, it motivates customers to explore shopping opportunities. The simplest strategy for boosting sales appears to be promotions.

But!

Rising energy and transportation costs also raise operating expenses, necessitating the maintenance of margins at a level sufficient for the operation and expansion of the business.

Is there a sweet spot for increasing sales while maintaining margins in such volatile circumstances??

The answer is the introduction of end-to-end margin monitoring. Controlling product purchase prices, costs associated with packaging, shipping, and storage, and finally maximizing the profit while retaining competitiveness. At this stage, tools for monitoring prices and marketing activities of competitors, but also your own distribution network in online sales come in handy.

First, the prices

By monitoring the pricing in our own distribution network, we can create the best distribution policies and processes to ensure that sellers work together to maximize profits rather than competing on price. Ongoing tracking of competitors’ prices and delivery costs, in conjunction with product availability monitoring, in turn, allows for dynamic price management. This enables you to respond swiftly to changes in competitor prices, both upward and downward, and to take advantage of the shortage of goods that the competition is experiencing to increase your own margin. Simply put, having up-to-date data protects us against:

• setting too high prices
• setting prices too low

As a result, it enables you to maximize your margin while maintaining your competitiveness during periods of inflation.

Visibility and attractiveness of products in your store

It goes without saying that in order for the customer to buy the product, he must see it and consider it worthy of interest. Several factors affect the visibility and attractiveness of a product:

1. product positioning on the search lists, so that the customer looking for a specific type of product sees what we want to offer on the first page (first-page share)
2. the quality of product descriptions – this is a crucial component of the so-called customer experience. The product card should clearly and attractively tell the buyer about the specifications, benefits, and characteristics of the product in order to meet his expectations. You can use graphics, videos, examples of use, etc., but you should also remember the correctness and completeness of the descriptions if only to minimize the number of product returns.
3. reviews and ratings – according to studies, one of the key elements affecting a buyer’s decision is the number of reviews and customer ratings.
4. promoting products – promotions are effective, particularly in this age of “bargain hunting”. Therefore, in addition to the fact that our product is excellent and clearly described, it is worthwhile to be included in the promotional offer even if it is not necessarily accompanied by a price drop. These can be extras that make the product more appealing or, for instance, enticing financing options.
5. advertising – a whole range of ways, both website banners or videos, as well as in the media, social media, etc. Of course, the advertisement’s visibility, audience, repeatability, and attractiveness of message are crucial factors in this.

Why measure visibility in e-commerce?

Like with prices, having a current, accurate information about other factors that affect sales enables us to act strategically, cut costs where possible, and respond to competitors’ moves.

Knowing the guidelines for listing products in a store allows us to control where the items we want to sell are placed. By supervising the content of descriptions, we can ensure their correctness, consistency in various sales channels, completeness, and attractiveness. In addition, We can emphasize the most desirable product features by keeping an eye on what customers are saying about them in reviews.

Monitoring of promotions and advertisements (banners), in turn, enables, among other things, to confirm their efficacy and profitability. By combining data on traffic changes on product sites we can determine where, what kind, when, and for which products promotions and advertising deliver us the anticipated return. On the other hand, keeping an eye on your rivals in this area enables you to respond to their marketing initiatives, play to your strengths, and cut costs where they won’t provide the desired outcomes.

How will I have time for all of this?

Is it feasible to gather all of the aforementioned information, analyze it, make judgments, and respond without becoming overwhelmed by the volume and variety of data? If you wish to track pricing manually, it can take many full-time jobs and is frequently simply impossible in a short amount of time given the dynamics of change. The answer is Brandly360, a tool that not only gathers data at intervals that are impossible for people and most other robots to reach but also analyzes it and generates reports that directly state the intended actions, in line with the user’s chosen approach.

Utilizing such a tool to retain one’s position and grow one’s online business is essential in the current market environment, which is characterized by inflation, uncertainty, and high dynamics. Manufacturers and major retail chains are well aware of this, having been monitoring some or all of the above elements for years. Many smaller, sector-specific online retailers have also recognized the significance of these analyses, frequently combining price monitoring with the automation of dynamic pricing in their own sales channels.

Watching the dynamics of the online sales market, growing competition, and ever-shrinking margin to compete, the use of this kind of technology gives a competitive advantage, and will soon become the so-called must-have to successfully manage your business.