Knowing what your competitors charge is no longer optional in e-commerce. Consumers compare prices across multiple stores before making a purchase, and even a small price difference can shift their decision. Monitoring competitor prices gives you the visibility you need to price your products strategically and protect your margins.
In this guide, we cover the methods available for tracking competitor prices, the pitfalls of manual monitoring, and how automated tools like FastCompete can give you a reliable, real-time view of the competitive landscape.
Your competitors adjust prices constantly based on demand, stock levels, promotions, and seasonal trends. Without visibility into these changes, you risk losing sales by pricing too high or leaving money on the table by pricing too low.
Price monitoring turns guesswork into data-driven decisions. It helps you understand the market positioning of every product in your catalog relative to the competition.
See every price change as it happens
Avoid pricing too low when the market supports higher prices
Stay competitive on high-visibility products that drive traffic
Detect industry-wide price movements before they affect your bottom line
Identify retailers violating minimum advertised price agreements
There are several approaches to tracking competitor pricing, each with different trade-offs in accuracy, scalability, and effort.
Visiting competitor websites one by one and recording prices in a spreadsheet. Simple to start but does not scale.
Best for: fewer than 10 products and 3 competitors
Building your own scrapers to pull prices from competitor sites. Flexible but requires ongoing maintenance as websites change.
Best for: teams with dedicated engineering resources
Dedicated platforms like FastCompete that handle data collection, normalization, and alerting out of the box.
Best for: businesses of any size that need reliable data
Follow these steps to build a reliable competitor price monitoring process for your business.
Start by listing the products you want to track. Focus on your best sellers, highest-margin items, and products where you face the most competition.
Map out which retailers sell the same or equivalent products. Include direct competitors, marketplaces, and niche sellers that overlap with your catalog.
FastCompete can automatically discover competitors selling the same products.
Link your products to the corresponding pages on competitor websites using SKU codes, UPC/EAN barcodes, or product names to ensure accurate price comparisons.
FastCompete matches products by SKU and UPC codes across any e-commerce website.
Configure your monitoring tool to scan competitor pages on a regular schedule. Daily scans work for most businesses; high-volume sellers may need more frequent checks.
FastCompete scans competitor prices automatically on a daily basis with no manual effort.
Set up notifications for significant price changes, such as when a competitor drops below your price or when a product goes out of stock at a competing store.
FastCompete sends instant email alerts whenever a competitor changes their price.
Review price reports regularly. Look for patterns, identify opportunities to adjust your pricing, and use historical trends to anticipate competitor moves.
FastCompete provides price history charts, competitor matrices, and exportable reports.
Where your price ranks compared to competitors for each product. Are you the cheapest, median, or most expensive?
The percentage difference between your price and the lowest competitor price. A key indicator of competitiveness.
How often competitors change their prices. High frequency signals an aggressive pricing strategy you need to respond to.
Whether competitors have the product in stock. Out-of-stock competitors present an opportunity to capture their customers.
Not all price monitoring solutions are equal. Here are the features that matter most when choosing a tool for your business.
The tool must reliably extract the correct price from each page, handling sales prices, VAT, and currency differences.
It should support any e-commerce website, not just a limited list of pre-integrated stores or marketplaces.
Configurable notifications that tell you when a competitor changes price, so you can respond before losing sales.
Historical price data and visual reports help you understand trends and make informed pricing decisions over time.
Tracking only one or two competitors gives you an incomplete picture of the market.
Weekly manual checks miss rapid price changes that could cost you sales every day.
Blindly matching every competitor price cut leads to a race to the bottom and eroded margins.
Price is only part of the equation. Consider shipping costs, stock availability, and promotions too.
The goal of price monitoring is not to always be the cheapest. It is to understand the market well enough to price each product at the level that maximizes your revenue and profit.
With the right tool and a clear strategy, competitor price data becomes one of your most valuable business assets. You can identify when to hold firm on price, when to run a targeted promotion, and when a competitor's price drop signals a broader market shift.
Use data to find the optimal price point for every product
FastCompete tracks competitor prices automatically, alerts you to changes, and gives you the insights you need to price with confidence. Set up your first product in minutes and see how your prices compare to the competition.