Results:
- Automated monitoring of over 1 million products: The client tracks prices and availability of hundreds of thousands of SKUs across catalogs of more than 80 competitors. They also monitor best offer conditions, stock levels, popular products, top-selling items, seasonal goods, and the overall market situation.
- More frequent data updates: For dynamic categories, competitor prices are updated several times a day, enabling faster response to market changes.
- Easier identification of prices requiring additional review: Category managers can quickly find positions whose prices differ from the market and promptly adjust them.
- Improved assortment expansion process: Managers can see which products are missing from their own catalog and which positions are available from competitors.
Client story
Epicentr is one of the top three Ukrainian retailers by revenue and positions itself as a marketplace with one of the widest assortments on the Ukrainian market, as well as competitive prices and services. The company is also a leader in the DIY segment.
Epicentr operates in an omnichannel format, combining online and offline sales channels. The company has an extensive network of 72 shopping centers (with 2.2 million square meters of retail space) across Ukraine as well as a wide network of pickup points and parcel lockers, and they are actively developing their online store and marketplace. Departments in Epicentr shopping centers follow a shop-in-shop concept, enabling efficient presentation of different product categories. Epicentr provides favorable delivery conditions to thousands locations across the country, often covering delivery costs itself.
The Epicentr Group is building a large-scale omnichannel ecosystem that includes the Epicentr and Nova Liniya shopping centers, the epicentrk.ua online store and marketplace, the Intersport Ukraine network of multi-brand sports stores, the Epicentr Agro agricultural holding, two manufacturing enterprises — the Epicentr Ceramic Corporation (ceramic tiles) and the Osmoloda woodworking plant — as well as its own logistics infrastructure. The group employs 34,000 people.
Continuous network development, opening of new stores and pickup points, and expansion of product assortment and services enable the company to maintain its position as one of the strongest leaders in the Ukrainian retail market.
Background of cooperation
Before starting cooperation with Pricer24, the Epicentr team already had experience monitoring competitor prices. However, the previous contractor did not fully meet the company’s expectations, and Epicentr chose Pricer24 as their new partner.
This previous experience helped the Epicentr team define precise requirements for integration and setup in order to obtain results aligned with the company’s internal processes.
At the launch stage, the Epicentr team provided a list of functional requirements and discussed them with Pricer24. Based on these requirements, part of the Pricer24 platform’s out-of-the-box functionality was customized specifically to meet Epicentr’s needs.
You proved to be a client-oriented company. Our initial requirements were taken into account during the setup stage, and the tool we use today is the result of productive collaboration between both teams, with its development still ongoing.
Georgiy Kulik, Category Manager of the Auto Group department at Epicentr
Tasks that Pricer24 helps Epicentr accomplish
In large-scale retail, with tens of thousands of SKUs in certain categories, competitor price monitoring can only be automated. Price data needs to be collected daily or even several times a day, and processing such volumes of data manually is not feasible. At the same time, the greatest value of monitoring lies not in the data itself but in the insights derived from it.
The Epicentr team uses data collected by Pricer24 to:
- Compare their own prices with competitors’
- Analyze market assortment: which items in Epicentr’s assortment have more attractive prices, which items are unique, and which items are present in competitors’ catalogs but not yet included in Epicentr’s assortment
- Monitor product availability among competitors
- Assess the competitiveness of procurement conditions based on competitor pricing data
To continuously monitor the market, the retailer required reliable data that is updated frequently. At the same time, the company needed analytics that would help them to remain among the market leaders, which has been a non-trivial task in Ukraine in recent years.
By prioritizing the interests of end customers, Epicentr invests in fair market pricing, and the Pricer24 solution has become one of the tools that helps them achieve this goal.
Implementing Pricer24 in Epicentr’s analytical processes
At the beginning of our cooperation, the Pricer24 and Epicentr teams developed a detailed technical specification outlining the required functionality and describing processes needed to obtain relevant market data in a convenient format.
To launch a new project, it is often sufficient for us to receive a product feed and a list of websites for monitoring, then deploy standard functionality. However, Epicentr’s analytical process was already well-established and complex at the start of cooperation, requiring customization on our side. Since Pricer24 is a flexible, modular platform, we were able to adapt the system to meet the client’s needs and ensure ease of use.
We customized the platform’s functionality to match the client’s requirements and the product volumes to be monitored, and we automated data collection at a sufficient frequency.
In the current solution, data provided by Pricer24 helps Epicentr’s internal analytics team apply advanced analytical approaches aimed at maintaining continuous, active competition in the market, from assortment management to promotional activities.
Our platform collects data on competitor prices and assortments, enables comparison with the client’s prices, and supports analysis of competitor catalogs in terms of assortment. For certain categories, monitoring is performed several times a day, allowing for a fast response to price changes.
One of the key hurdles in our partnership was the volume of data to be processed, as Pricer24 collects data for Epicentr from more than 80 competitors across multiple categories, totaling over 1.2 million SKUs.
Crucially, optimization of Pricer24 functionality to meet the client’s needs has continued throughout the entire cooperation. We continually work on increasing data processing speed and improving accuracy, which allows us to remain leaders among pricing analytics providers in terms of data quality.
How the Epicentr team uses data collected by Pricer24:
Monitoring helps the team identify key market signals:
- Where their own prices require additional action
- Where there are opportunities to expand the assortment
- Where unique items appear
- Where competitors may temporarily have better procurement conditions
- Where competitors deviate from generally accepted market practices
- Where competitor products require additional clarification regarding supply channels
Based on this data, the client’s team:
- Reviews pricing and offers better purchase conditions or additional promotions
- Strengthens cooperation with suppliers
- Adjusts the assortment
- Analyzes the market situation and identifies new opportunities
- Optimizes internal processes and costs
In addition, Epicentr regularly runs promotions. With the help of Pricer24, the team selects which products should be included in promotional campaigns. After launching promotions, Epicentr continues monitoring prices to ensure that their promotional conditions remain the most competitive on the market.
Price monitoring with Pricer24 has definitely had a direct impact on sales growth. However, the effect of monitoring is not immediate. This is due both to the time required from ordering a product to its delivery, and to the fact that the insights obtained require actions that do not produce results instantly. On average, it takes from several weeks to a month for changes in pricing and procurement conditions to be reflected in financial results.
Georgiy Kulik, Category Manager of the Auto Group department at Epicentr
What Pricer24 analytical tools proved useful for Epicentr
The main Pricer24 analytical tools that Epicentr uses are price comparison and assortment analysis.
Price comparison
This tool allows users to see how many competitor prices are equal to, higher than, or lower than the client’s prices. Data can be filtered by categories, brands, and individual items. The tool also enables downloading detailed data for each specific product and viewing the history of competitor price changes in a convenient time-based chart.
The price comparison report can be customized in any suitable format. For example, it is possible to display only competitors’ products whose price differs from the client’s price by a minimum percentage, or to generate separate reports for key items within a category.
Assortment analysis
This tool makes it possible to see how the client’s assortment overlaps with competitors’ assortments, which items are not yet included in the client’s catalog, and which items are unique. Assortment analysis helps plan the expansion of the client’s catalog and optimize work with suppliers. The assortment overlap report is presented in a convenient format and can be filtered by categories, product groups (e.g., A, B, C items), and other parameters.
Toward deeper analytics
Epicentr is a business that has a significant impact on shaping the Ukrainian market. Recognizing its influence, the company takes responsibility for caring about customers and offering better purchasing conditions, not only competing in terms of price.
The cooperation between Epicentr and Pricer24 continues to evolve. Future plans include new analytical initiatives aimed at making the overall Ukrainian retail market more customer-friendly.
