ChannelEngine: competitor history

About this article

This article describes competitor history on ChannelEngine, how to read the competitor history graph and table, and how to use both to support your repricing strategy.

Table of contents

Introduction

Requirements

Competitor history graph

• View the history of a product
• How to read the graph
• Price zones

Competitor history table

FAQs

Introduction

Competitor history displays valuable data on merchants selling the same products as you. If you use ChannelEngine's repricer, reviewing competitor history helps you understand how your products perform on the marketplace compared to other merchants, and whether your price rules leave enough room to compete.

Access Competitor history on a marketplace that supports repricing at Pricing, Competitor history. 

Requirements

Pricing v2 is required to use this feature, and pricing v1 will be deprecated soon. If you currently use pricing v1, activate pricing v2 before you continue:

1. In the Pricing step of a channel, click Configuration mode to start configuring pricing v2. Pricing v1 stays active, so you can set up pricing v2 side by side.
2. To check the accuracy of your pricing v2 setup, refer to the ChannelEngine: pricing v2 migration guide and complete every step in the activation checklist.
3. When you are ready to fully switch to pricing v2, choose one the following options:
   • Click Request support activation and submit a request. Our Support team will verify your pricing v2 configuration before activating it.
   • Click Activate pricing v2 (self-service) and activate pricing v2 yourself on the selected channel. Pricing v1 will be removed, and pricing v2 will take over immediately.

Competitor history graph

View the history of a product

To view the competitor history for a specific product:

1. In the search bar, enter the product's name, GTIN, or Merchant product number.
2. Choose the tab of the price attribute for which you want to see price history, e.g.: Price or Price - LVB.
3. Use the left or right arrow buttons to select the desired time period. The snapshot covers the last ten records.
4. Click the Pull competitor data button to fetch the latest competitor history for this product. The task can take up to five minutes to execute.

How to read the graph

Price zones

The minimum and maximum prices that you define at Pricing, Price rules, split the graph into three shaded zones:

• Too expensive
• Competiton zone
• Too cheap

Data points

Hover over any data point on the graph to view the price value of the given, precise to two decimal places, at a given timestamp. 

The buy box winner at a given date and time is marked with a trophy icon. For buy box winners, additionally view the date and time of the related shipment when you hover over that data point.  

Line segments

The following line segments appear on your competitor history graph: 

• Your price on the marketplace - solid line, blue.
• Your competitors' prices on the marketplace, each in its own color. Use the legend above the graph to identify which line belongs to which seller - solid line, various colors.
• Your Min. price on the marketplace, as set up in Price rules - dashed line, red.
• Your Max. price on the marketplace, as set up in Price rules - dashed line, orange.

Competitor history table

The table below the graph shows the competitor history, including your prices, competitors' prices, and the current buy box winner. Each row corresponds to a seller, and each column represents a snapshot in time, matching the data points in the graph.

The buy box winner of a snapshot is highlighted in yellow and marked with a trophy icon. 

FAQs

How often does ChannelEngine retrieve competitor statistics from marketplaces?
ChannelEngine uses scheduled tasks to retrieve competitor statistics from marketplaces. The frequency of the task depends on the number of products included in the call and the API rate limits of the marketplaces. This ranges from every 30 minutes to every four hours.

Why are there multiple buy box winners for my product?
Amazon can show different buy box winners for the same product, depending on the customer segment. E.g.: regular buyers may see one offer in the buy box, while Amazon Prime members may see another. This results in multiple buy box winners displayed on the Competitor history tab.

Why do I not see a Max. price line?
The orange dashed line only appears if the Max. price is set for the product. Configure Max. price in the Price rules tab. For guidance, check out ChannelEngine: price rules v2.