What is a repricer and how do you use one on a marketplace?

What does a repricer do and which rules exist?

A repricer looks at your price, other sellers' prices or your margin, and adjusts your selling price by rules. The aim is a price that is not too high to sell and not lower than needed. The common rules are:

• Follow the lowest price. Your price moves to the lowest price of other sellers, or just above or below it.
• Margin floor. Your price never drops below the point where you still keep an agreed margin after purchase cost, commission and shipping.
• Ceiling. Your price does not rise above a maximum, for example the recommended retail price.
• Step size. You set how far the price may move at a time, for example €0.25.
• Price per channel. Every channel has its own commission and competition, so its own rules and limits.

Why does this matter on bol and Kaufland?

On these marketplaces several sellers can offer the same product, and the marketplace decides which offer is shown first and most prominently. On bol that is the buy box. Bol looks at price, delivery and quality for it, and compares the price including shipping costs and VAT. Small differences, such as one cent, have no impact, and the weighting differs per category.¹ So price is one of three, not the only one. For Kaufland we state no mechanics here: read its own seller documentation for that.

You can read more about the requirements and the buy box in the guide to selling on bol and the guide to selling on Kaufland.

Risks and a safe setup, with a worked example

The risks

• Price war. If everyone undercuts the other by a little, the price falls to everyone's floor and nobody earns anything.
• Vanishing margin. A rule without a floor, or with a floor that forgets commission or shipping costs, sells at a loss.
• Rule loops. Two repricers, yours and another one, that keep following each other by a step push the price down or up without anyone wanting that.
• Stale stock and data. Lowering your price for a product that is nearly sold out, or based on old competitor data, costs margin without extra sales. See also preventing overselling.

How to set it up safely

1. Calculate the floor first per channel: purchase cost, shipping, commission and your minimum margin.
2. Set a ceiling, so the price does not rise beyond what your customer finds reasonable.
3. Pick a step size that suits the price. Because a one cent difference does not count on bol,¹ a one cent step makes little sense.
4. Set rules per channel, because commission and competition differ.
5. Start small with one product group, watch the result for a few weeks and only then expand.

What does StoreLinkr do about it, and how do you judge a repricer?

This is established about StoreLinkr, according to the help documentation:

• Competitor insight. For marketplaces such as Bol and Kaufland you see the lowest and highest price of other sellers for the same product and how many sellers there are. Your offer gets a label from cheapest to too expensive. You fetch new market data yourself with the Import Competitors action.
• Margin based price suggestions. You set a minimum margin, a fixed margin amount, a minimum sales price and a rounding rule (for example .99). StoreLinkr calculates suggestions and shows the new margin. You accept, deny or accept all.
• Sending to the channel. You can push changed prices to the marketplace with the export action.

How to judge a repricer

• Can you set a floor and a ceiling per product and per channel, and does it hold them strictly?
• Does it compare the total price, including shipping, as bol does?
• Can you start with a small group of products and see afterwards why a price changed?
• How fresh is the data it reacts to, and how often does it push prices?
• Does it also look at stock and margin, and not only at the lowest price?

Read more about pricing in StoreLinkr on the page about the repricer and the page about dynamic pricing.

Frequently asked questions