Competitor price tracking
Competitor price tracking is the practice of continuously monitoring the prices that competing retailers charge for the same or comparable products. It is the retailer-side application of price monitoring: instead of guarding your own products' prices at resellers, you watch what the shops you compete with are charging.
Matching the right products
Tracking starts with knowing which competitor page corresponds to which of your products. For identical products this is done via product identifiers (such as EAN/GTIN) or simply the competitor's product URL; for comparable-but-not-identical products (private labels, variants, different pack sizes) the match is a judgment call that determines whether the comparison means anything.
What to track besides the price
The shelf price alone can mislead. Shipping costs change the effective price, availability determines whether a competitor's low price is actually winning orders, and promotions explain temporary dips. Tracking price together with availability paints the real competitive picture.
From data to decisions
Tracked prices feed concrete decisions: adjusting your own price on products where you are out of position, timing promotions when a competitor is out of stock, spotting which competitor consistently moves first, and identifying products where competing on price is pointless and margin is the better play. Some teams automate the last step with repricing; the data layer underneath is the same.
How PricePatrol fits in
PricePatrol handles the data layer: paste competitor product URLs and it checks them daily — including JavaScript-heavy and protected shops — with alerts when prices change. What you decide with those numbers stays yours.