On Cdiscount, Amazon and Fnac, your competitors adjust their prices every 2 hours. Following manually is impossible. Three algorithmic strategies automate this — each suited to a different type of product.
Strategy 1: Reactive (competitor tracking)
Simple principle: your price adjusts relative to the cheapest competitor on the same product. Typical rule: 'always €0.50 below the best price, unless it goes below my floor cost'.
Best for : commodity products (where price is the only choice criterion), high-volume products, marketplaces where the BuyBox depends on price (Amazon).
Limit : price wars with your direct competitor. Use sparingly on products where you have no other differentiation.
Strategy 2: Predictive (seasonality)
Principle: your price automatically increases during predictable high-demand periods. Black Friday, Christmas, Valentine's Day, back-to-school — the algorithm knows historical patterns and adjusts your prices +5 to +12% during peaks.
Best for : obviously seasonal products (year-end toys, summer beach items), gift products, products with inelastic demand during peaks.
Trap : don't go too high. If your Christmas price exceeds the November price by 20%, you risk the 'greedy merchant' effect and lose customer reviews.
Strategy 3: Pure algorithmic (continuous A/B testing)
Principle: the algorithm tests small price variations (±2-5%) over short periods (4-12 hours) and measures the impact on sales. It gradually converges toward the optimal price for each product.
Best for : products with a real differentiator (your listing is better, your service is better rated), products where price isn't the only purchase criterion.
Limit : requires a minimum volume (at least 10 sales per day on the product) for the A/B tests to be statistically significant.
Combining the 3 strategies
No strategy is universally good. A good Pricing agent runs all 3 depending on context:
- Reactive as the general rule on high-volume products;
- Predictive activated 30 days before seasonal peaks;
- Pure algorithmic on star products where net margin matters more than raw volume.
Without this orchestration, a single algorithm applied everywhere loses 10 to 25% of margin across the catalog. With smart orchestration, you can expect 5 to 15% additional margin compared to manual pricing — without watching anything.
Want to try this in practice?
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