Monitoring competitive pricing is an essential part of any e-commerce retailer’s strategy. By using a price monitoring tool, you can stay ahead of the competition and ensure that your prices are always attractive. Two popular solutions for this purpose are Google Price Competitiveness Report in Google Merchant Center (GMC) and Sembot Price Tracking. Both tools provide valuable insights, but they do so in different ways and offer unique benefits. Our today’s article is addressed to both e-commerce business owners and performance agencies that provide services to this type of companies.
Google Price Competitiveness Report
Google Price Competitiveness Report is a free tool available within the Merchant Center. It provides a comprehensive overview of how your product prices compare to those of your competitors.
The report shows you the average price for your products, as well as the percentage of products that are priced competitively. It also shows the percentage structure of prices from other sellers for the same product you offer (these are not detailed prices, as in the case of Sembot, which will be discussed later). You can use this information when pricing your products or setting advertising bids.
This report is designed to help you identify opportunities to improve your pricing strategy and increase your visibility in Google Shopping ads.
Google Price Competitiveness Report offers several benefits:
- competitive pricing analysis: it compares your product prices with those of other merchants selling similar products and shows average product prices, allowing you to identify areas where you may be overpriced or underpriced
- insights at the product, brand, category, and product type levels: the report provides pricing structure information at multiple levels, enabling you to make informed pricing decisions for individual items at the product
- visibility optimization: by adjusting your prices based on the report’s insights, you can improve your product’s visibility and ranking in Google Shopping ads, potentially increasing sales and revenue
- integration with Google services: as part of Google Merchant Center, this report integrates seamlessly with other Google services such as Google Ads and Google Shopping. This integration enables easy access to price competitiveness data and facilitates informed decision-making for ad campaigns and product listings
However, Google Price Competitiveness Report has limitations. It does not include products that are available from too few sellers or are not very clickable. Only includes shopping ads and free listings. Additionally, the report is updated periodically, which may not provide real-time pricing information.
Sembot Price Tracking
Sembot Price Tracking is a comprehensive, paid solution that goes beyond the capabilities of Google Price Competitiveness Report. It offers a range of advanced features and functionalities tailored to meet the needs of e-commerce businesses.
Sembot provides information about the positions of specific products you track. This is data about the price of your products, your competitor’s lowest price, your competitor’s highest price, and your average product price. The data is saved, and you can view it in a chart. You are able to check the prices of a given product along with the shipping cost on a specific day in your store and at those of your competitors.
Here are some key advantages of Sembot Price Tracking:
- real-time price tracking: Sembot continuously monitors your competitors’ prices, providing up-to-the-minute data to help you stay ahead of the competition
- customizable competitor selection: you can choose which competitors to monitor, ensuring that you track the most relevant players in your market
- automatic verification of competitive products: Sembot allows you to set rules and automate the verification of cheaper products based on competitor prices, saving time and ensuring quick response to market changes. You are able to create campaigns where your products are cheaper compared to competitors’ prices and allocate a higher budget for them. You can also find products that are more expensive than your competitors and include them in a campaign with a smaller budget
- comprehensive reporting: detailed reports and analytics provide insights into pricing trends, market share, and competitor strategies, enabling data-driven decision-making
- additional features: by purchasing access to Sembot Price Tracking, you also get access to other Sembot modules, such as: product data optimiser, automatic advertising campaigns, position tracking, and soon also to Marketer AI and many others solutions
GMC vs Sembot: which price monitor is right for e-commerce business?
The best price monitoring solution for you will depend on your individual needs and budget. If you are a small business with a limited budget, then Google Price Competitiveness Report is a good option. However, if you need more features and want to track prices in a broader context, then Sembot is a better choice.
Although Sembot Price Tracking is a paid service, it offers a more comprehensive and tailored solution for businesses seeking advanced price monitoring capabilities.
While both Google Merchant Center and Sembot offer robust solutions for price monitoring, they cater to different needs and contexts. These are the most important of them:
- ease of use: Google Price Competitiveness Report is more user-friendly, especially for those already using Google’s suite of tools. It is ideal for businesses looking for an integrated solution within the Google ecosystem
- customization and real-time data: Sembot excels in providing customizable and real-time data, making it suitable for businesses that need highly specific and timely insights. This level of detail can be crucial for dynamic pricing strategies
- depth of insights: both solutions provide valuable insights, but Sembot’s in-depth analytics and ability to track a wide range of competitors’ prices in real-time can offer a more granular view of the competitive landscape
In a nutshell, Google Price Competitiveness Report provides a free and valuable starting point for price monitoring. Meanwhile, Sembot Price Tracking offers a more robust, real-time, and customizable solution for businesses seeking a competitive edge in the dynamic e-commerce market.
Choosing between Google Price Competitiveness Report and Sembot Price Tracking depends on a business’s specific needs. For those heavily invested in Google’s ecosystem and looking for an easy-to-use, integrated solution, Google Merchant Center is a compelling choice. Conversely, businesses requiring highly customizable and real-time competitive pricing data will find Sembot to be an invaluable solution. Both tools provide actionable insights that can significantly enhance a business’s competitive pricing strategy.
