fbpx
Case Studies
28.03.2023
1,814

How To Improve Market Presence and Price Positioning For a Brand. MSI and Pricer24 Case Study

The Client

MSI is a Taiwanese technology brand that produces computer components and gaming peripherals for gamers. MSI products are represented in all major retail chains and online consumer electronics stores in the Ukrainian market.

Pricer24 has been cooperating with the Ukrainian representative office of MSI since 2021. In this article, MSI’s category management specialists tell how Pricer24 helped them automate the analysis of market presence and price positioning across dozens of partner websites.

The Tasks

1. To ensure that all the items are available with all partners’ websites

The niche where MSI is operating is quite saturated, and the business environment is competitive. The market is filled with brands that have long and firmly established leadership positions. We aim to win a better slice of this pie, so the availability and market presence of our assortment on partner sites is critically important for us.

Each MSI product must be available on the partner store’s digital shelf exactly when the customer wants to buy it. Otherwise, we will face lost sales and customers gone.

Analyzing the shelf presence of goods and reducing the number of Out-of-stock and Out-of-shelf items requires regular data collection and daily monitoring, which equals at least 50 working hours per manager per month.

2. To defend the brands’ price positioning

Another factor we as MSI closely monitor is price positioning. Maintaining demand from vendor partners for a brand that aims to gain market share is essential.

If we, as a vendor, do not monitor the pricing policy of online retailers, sooner or later, price wars will begin. Dumping will kill the margins of goods, and it will become unprofitable for retailers to sell them.

Therefore, maintaining a coherent price positioning is another critical area of responsibility for our managers. But this process has to be regular, and it takes a lot of category managers’ time: 2-3 hours a day if they manually collect data on all the products and all the partners. Our goal is to automate it.

3. To see the growth areas in advance to maintain positive sales dynamics

In addition, like any other business, we sometimes faced changes in sales dynamics. The reasons may have been: 

  • a drop in the availability of our goods on the partners’ digital shelves;
  • a dumping policy on our goods by sellers.

To understand the reasons for the drop in sales, we needed to track their dynamics, analyze the market, and have historical data on availability and prices.

We realized we needed to see the cause before we had the consequences, like falling sales. We rejected the manual information collection from partner stores and marketplaces immediately. Since we have hundreds of SKUs, it would take so much time that the report would be outdated as soon as it is ready.

That is, the moment we received the sales report, it was impossible to analyze historical data. Therefore, we needed to automate data collection for two main goals:

  • day-to-day market monitoring regarding the assortment presence in all key e-stores;
  • analyzing the price positioning of our brand on partner websites.

We started looking for a solution and found Pricer24.

The Solution

Data collection

We handed over our catalogue of more than 500 SKUs to the Pricer24 team and a list of partner sites for monitoring – 20 online stores altogether. After matching the products, the service started collecting relevant data seven times a day. The following indicators were to be monitored:

  • availability status of our products in partner online stores;
  • prices for our products;
  • the number of MSI products on each of the 20 trading platforms on our list.

Reports and analytics

In Pricer24, we monitor assortment availability in partner stores provided by distributors, the overall price positioning of our products on the market, and the absence of dumping. Managers regularly use Assortment Analysis, Price Comparison, and Price History reports.

The first two show the current situation, and we can detect deviations in advance

✓ before our product is underrepresented and competitors take our market share;

✓ before the prices of our products become so low that it is unprofitable for partners to sell them.The last one, Price History, allows analyzing how the price of a product has changed and who was the first to lower it.

Assortment analysis report

Now our managers can quickly track the availability of MSI products throughout the vendor network. That is, in case of availability lowering, the manager: a) will see it in time; b) will be able to take immediate action.

Price comparison report

Thanks to this report, we monitor the brand’s price positioning on an ongoing basis. In case of violations, we think of ways to improve the conditions with our partners to prevent dumping and price wars and maintain MSI’s holistic price positioning in the market.

The Results

  1. Thanks to the daily data collection, which takes place without the involvement of our employees, MSI category managers can get all the necessary information about the brand’s market presence and prices for each product across the entire network of partners in a few clicks.
  2. Now, we can identify problems before they have consequences, and the time to make decisions reduces by several days.
  3. We save at least 50 working hours for each manager every month. This allows us to focus on tactics and strategy, and Pricer24 takes care of all the monkey work.
Take a consultation
  • Market analytics
  • Price parsing
  • Product visibility
Take a consultation
  • Market analytics
  • Price parsing
  • Product visibility
Share it:

Get expert advice

Request a demo to see how Pricer24 can meet your needs



    *By submitting this form, you agree to receive marketing emails

    This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

    Privacy policy

    Your privacy is very important to us. We want your work on the Internet to be as pleasant and useful as possible, and you quite calmly used the broadest range of information, tools and opportunities that the Internet offers.

    The personal information of the Members collected at the time of registration (or at any other time) is mainly used to prepare the Products or Services in accordance with your needs. Your information will not be transferred or sold to third parties. However, we may partially disclose personal information in special cases described in the “Consent with the mailing”

    What data is collected on the site

    At voluntary registration on reception of dispatch you send the Name and E-mail through the registration form.

    What is the purpose of this data?

    The name is used to contact you personally, and your e-mail for sending you mailings of newsletters, news, useful materials, commercial offers.

    Your name and e-mail are not transferred to third parties, under any circumstances, except for cases related to the compliance with the requirements of the law.

    You can refuse to receive mailing letters and remove your contact information from the database at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link present in each letter.

    How this data is used

    With the help of these data, information on the actions of visitors on the site is collected in order to improve its content, improve the functionality of the site and, as a result, create high-quality content and services for visitors.

    You can change your browser settings at any time so that the browser blocks all files or notifies you about sending these files. Note at the same time that some functions and services will not be able to work properly.

    How this data is protected

    To protect your personal information, we use a variety of administrative, management and technical security measures. Our Company adheres to various international control standards aimed at transactions with personal information, which include certain control measures to protect information collected on the Internet.

    Our employees are trained to understand and follow these control measures, they are familiarized with our Privacy Notice, regulations and instructions.

    Nevertheless, despite the fact that we are trying to protect your personal information, you too must take measures to protect it.

    We strongly recommend that you take all possible precautions while on the Internet. The services and websites that we organize include measures to protect against leakage, unauthorized use and alteration of the information we control. Despite the fact that we are doing everything possible to ensure the integrity and security of our network and systems, we can not guarantee that our security measures will prevent illegal access to this information by hackers from outside organizations.

    If this privacy policy is changed, you will be able to read about these changes on this page or, in special cases, receive a notification on your e-mail.