Price Control: 7 Key Benefits of a Price Monitoring and MAP Control Service

 

How to stand out from hundreds of competitors in online retail? It all starts with pricing. Price Control automates online price monitoring, eliminating routine checks. Get up-to-date pricing data from partners and competitors quickly and easily.

For 10 years, Price Control has specialized in addressing a critical business challenge: price monitoring and MAP control prices on the internet.
The company has pioneered the development of an action algorithm to eliminate price dumping in online stores within the e-commerce market.

The primary credo of Price Control specialists and the main advantage of the service is the high quality of the services provided. This is confirmed by customer reviews on their website: https://www.pricecontrol.com.ua/.

Price Control offers services to brands and online stores, providing end-to-end solutions for clients’ problems.
An online store can not only take advantage of competitor price monitoring but also build its own pricing strategy.
Manufacturers or suppliers who purchase a comprehensive MAP compliance control package will see positive results within a month of using the service, without needing to invest their own effort.

The second advantage of service is the ability to deliver a fully resolved solution.

What services does Price Control offer, and what are its other benefits?

Price Control Recommends: Identify All Sellers of Your Brand

When manufacturers or suppliers of trademarks approach us for monitoring and controlling Minimum Advertised Prices (MAP) in online stores, our managers often ask:
“Do you know how many retailers are selling your brand?”
The typical response is something like, “50 or 70 stores.”

That might have been accurate five years ago, but over the past three years, the online retail market has grown exponentially, and the number of online stores has only increased.

To ensure effective monitoring and achieve desired outcomes, Price Control offers an automated search for brand representation across all domestic online platforms.
This automated search tool scans Google Search, marketplaces, classified ad boards, and price aggregators. The data is compiled into clear and informative reports in XLSX format.
As a result, clients gain complete information about every seller offering their products in the e-commerce market.

Additionally, the reports include details about product availability and the pricing listed on sellers’ websites.
Analyzing your brand’s online presence enables you to make informed decisions about which online stores to monitor and control pricing.

This service can be purchased separately or as the first step in a comprehensive anti-dumping solution.
According to our clients, no other service offers this as a standalone feature. This makes it the third advantage of Price Control.

Price Control also provides a discount on the “Trademark Search in Online Stores” service if clients opt for a full-service package. Bulk orders are more cost-effective!

Download Trademark Search in Online Stores report

How Does service Monitor Prices?

Different companies have different monitoring objectives. Price monitoring online is one of the most effective marketing tools for businesses and can address several needs:

1. Competitor Price Monitoring
   Without up-to-date pricing data, no company can set competitive prices for its products.
2. Monitoring Online Stores
   Daily automated monitoring allows manufacturers and distributors to identify which of their partners are violating the company's pricing policy.

The Price Control monitoring software offers flexible settings, enabling the collection of additional parameters and the creation of custom analytical reports.
Custom reports are a paid service, but they deliver tailored data formats that suit your specific analytics needs.

Custom development is the fourth advantage of Price Control, as most price monitoring services do not offer this level of personalization.

The price monitoring system includes advanced software tools that ensure data collection from websites with varying levels of anti-scraping protection.

 

Price Monitoring and MAP Control for Manufacturers

MAP Control through internet store price monitoring is one of the core services offered by Price Control. Daily data collection on online prices, followed by analysis, serves as the foundation for the tools “Anti-Dumping Measures” and the detection of smuggled or counterfeit goods.

Manufacturers and importers often face a situation where one or two online stores lower prices on their products, setting off a chain reaction among other sellers. The market then collapses like a house of cards. For manufacturers and suppliers, monitoring their trademarks must become a top priority. Otherwise, their brand's reputation can plummet, leading to lost profits and the erosion of partnerships.

For sellers unwilling to "play by the rules," the service offers an effective tool: “Intellectual Property Protection Online.”

Companies that commit to controlling the market through daily price monitoring in online stores gain a competitive edge: their profits grow, and customers remain interested in promoting their products.

The comprehensive MAP Compliance control can be confidently named Price Control's fifth advantage. However, information about dumping prices in online stores is ineffective unless it is appropriately utilized, and actions are taken. Some clients initially opted only for price monitoring, intending to manage prices in online stores themselves. Yet, after a few months, no tangible results were achieved.

Effective MAP control requires systematic efforts and extensive process automation. At Price Control, most MAP control processes are automated, significantly simplifying the task.

 

Price Monitoring Marketplace and Price Aggregator

Over the past three years, large online stores have rapidly transformed into marketplaces. Price aggregators and price comparison platforms have also seen active growth. For instance, platforms like Hotline are key reference points for pricing in many online retail sectors.

During lockdowns and quarantine restrictions, offline retailers shifted to online spaces, leading to hundreds of new sellers appearing on these platforms.

Marketplaces have become hotbeds for price dumping, counterfeit sales, and smuggled goods. Consequently, the demand for marketplace monitoring has increased three- to fourfold compared to the pre-lockdown period.

If there is suspicion that a seller’s product is not officially authorized, control purchases can confirm these suspicions. For those lacking experience in this area, it’s advisable to turn to a professional online control purchase service.

Price Control enables clients to track sellers and product information across all domestic online trading platforms. Marketplace and price aggregator monitoring can be integrated into the main service plan or purchased as an additional service.

Competitor Price Monitoring Services for Online Stores

Price Control has developed a tool for building a dynamic pricing strategy, accessible in the client's personal account. Using competitor price monitoring results, users can establish their own pricing rules, taking into account margins, purchase prices, and other parameters. Based on these rules, the system will suggest dynamic pricing strategies designed to maximize profitability.

If the proposed system-generated results are acceptable to the user, they can test the created strategy in practice.

Monitoring Frequency:

• Price monitoring is conducted according to the schedule set by the client.
• For control purposes, data collection can occur randomly, preventing online stores from anticipating the next round of monitoring and temporarily adjusting prices to avoid detection.

For Competitor Analysis:

• If the goal is to analyze competitor prices to develop a pricing system, data collection can range from once to 24 times per day.

All processed data is sent to the client via email in the form of analytical reports in Excel format or, upon request, directly integrated into their system.

For historical price trends, dumping dynamics, and other analytics, clients have access to their Personal Account.

 

How Price Control Solves the Task of Link Matching

For users who have worked with price monitoring services before, it’s well-known that to set up data collection, links to product pages in online stores must be gathered. This process, called matching, can be tedious and time-consuming.

Most services either pass this task onto the client or offer it as an additional paid service.

The sixth advantage of Price Control is that this task is handled for you completely free of charge. We offer three matching options:

• Automatic Matching
• Manual Matching
• Automatic Matching with Manual Verification

Automatic Matching

Automatic matching links your product assortment to identical products listed on online store websites.

With thousands of products in manufacturers’ and online retailers’ assortments, automatic matching is key for fast and accurate price monitoring in the e-commerce market.

Our system gathers information from relevant pages or entire websites and automatically identifies products identical to the client’s assortment. Processing thousands of SKUs now takes only a few hours. Additionally, database updates for monitoring can occur upon each client request.

Parameters Analyzed by the Automatic Matching System

• Search Criteria:

• • Product Name
  • Manufacturer SKU
  • Keywords, accounting for spelling variations and synonyms
  • Units of Measurement

• Verification Criteria:

• • Product Image
  • Product Price
  • Manufacturer SKU
  • Units of Measurement

Automatic matching doesn’t rely solely on manufacturer SKUs, as these are often missing from online stores. Instead, the system uses product descriptions and attributes, even if their names or formats differ.

For instance:
On the manufacturer’s website, a product might be listed as “Gree Bora Series Air Conditioner GWH07AAA-K3NNA2A,” while on the retailer’s site, it’s simply “Gree GWH07AAA-K3NNA2A.” The system recognizes these as the same product.

Accuracy of Matching

With real-world assortment training, automatic matching achieves up to 85-90% accuracy. The larger the data set and the more refined the algorithms, the higher the accuracy.

• For small-scale monitoring, manual matching is recommended.
• For monitoring tens of thousands of items, automatic matching or automatic matching with manual verification is preferred.

Monthly Updates to Maintain Accuracy

A common issue in online monitoring is that some stores periodically revamp their websites. This can disrupt price parsing and result in data collection errors. To prevent these issues, Price Control conducts monthly updates of online store data and matching.

Another challenge is the addition of new products to online store inventories. Without regular updates, these new products are excluded from analytics. Monthly updates ensure that the monitoring system stays accurate and up-to-date.

The seventh and undeniable advantage of Price Control is its free monthly matching updates.

Why Choose service Price Control?

We hope this demonstrates the professionalism of the Price Control team and the unique advantages of our price monitoring and control service.

Still unsure? Try our free trial period to experience our services firsthand. You can test every feature and verify our claims in practice.

By consistently using our tools, clients can achieve their goals:

• Manufacturers and suppliers will eliminate price dumping and unauthorized use of their trademarks while expanding their client base.
• Online stores will benefit from a tool that helps create competitive pricing strategies to optimize their profitability.

 

 

 

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Alexander Glygalo,
Senior Software Engineer of the “Price Control” Project

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