In today’s article, we will address distributors’ bad practices in online sales channels. As you know, SingularPrice‘s raison d’être is to monitor online distribution daily. Brands and manufacturers take control thanks to an exhaustive analysis of the market. Total control of prices, stock, availability, and ratings through daily tracking of all products (both catalog and competitors). As a result of this daily monitoring and the maintenance of each of the projects, we observe sudden changes in stock, and disproportionate price deviations… In most cases, this is due to malpractice on the part of the distributors.
Do you want to know more? Below we explain some of the most recurrent situations.
Inflate the price of shipping and lower the price of the product to influence the search listings by price.
First of all, the first question is: do you control the shipping costs of the distributors that sell your products? In many cases we find products below the price recommended by the brand, but to which we then have to apply the relevant shipping costs. The distributor will have managed to position itself among the top search positions if you filter by price, but in the end the price is not as competitive as it might seem at first glance.
When stock is out of stock, lower prices to be the cheapest.
In the first conversations with our customers, one of the things we stress the most is the importance of stock. A distributor may have a record of your products and therefore availability, but may not have stock. This is a problem. If the potential customer finds the product but then cannot add it to the cart, a sale is being lost… but if, in order to compete on price, products are made cheaper just when there is no stock, a reputation can be lost if this practice is sustained over time.
Apply a linear mark-up to products regardless of their value.
Sometimes we find absurdly high prices. Most of the time this is caused by an indiscriminate increase that a distributor applies to all the products it sells. Without taking into account either the type of product or the price range.
Assign one price in Google Shopping, usually cheaper, and then display another on the website.
Google Shopping is always in the limelight… determinant for identifying new sellers and detecting price deviations, it plays a crucial role in monitoring online distribution channels. As a price aggregator/comparator, retailers bid for top positions in the search results. Especially in some sectors, the best way to stand out from other retailers is through a low price, so that the user’s attention can be quickly captured. Does relevance lead to effectiveness?
