Smart Discounting in Canadian E-Commerce: How Top Marketplaces Compete Without Race-to-the-Bottom Pricing

Client Requirement

• Client is looking for an innovative solution with real-time pricing analytics.
• A tool that enables the client to quickly monitor prices with competitors.
• Intelligent discounting models need to offer personalized discounts to specific customers at the optimal time.
• Boost or preserve profitability despite price competition.

Challenges

The following were the challenges faced when fulfilling the above client requirements:

• Data Collection at Scale: It was difficult to gather accurate and real-time pricing data from numerous competitor websites or marketplaces because of dynamic pricing and anti-scraping barriers.
• Making Discounts Smart Using AI: Creating a smart discount strategy leads to complex AI to skilfully manage elements - balance demand, inventory, and profit margins.
• Competitive Benchmarking Accuracy: Inconsistency in product SKU and description creates difficulty in matching similar products.
• Internal Adoption Challenges: There are high chances that the retailer may hesitate to rely on an automated discount-generating facility due to a lack of trust in the algorithm and fear of losing control of pricing.
• Privacy, Compliance, and Platform Policies: Difficulty in following strict guidelines for the legal and platform-specific use of data.
• Communicating Value Without Devaluing Brand: Communicating Value Without Devaluing Brand

Solutions

• Data Collection at Scale: Use of scalable and robust AI-powered API with geo-targeting and IP rotation to collect data related to price from any location without any issue.
• Develop a Smart Discount: Implement a smart discount model that utilizes AI that can analyze demand, margins, and competitor moves in order to develop discount strategies that are profit-optimized.
• Use of AI-Based Product Matching Algorithm: AI-based algorithm can be used to effectively match products with each other. This will help to make sure the comparison is valid and meaningful across different platforms.
• Create a User-Friendly Dashboard: Provide the client a user-friendly and intuitive dashboard, transparent pricing logic, and support to build trust and adoption of the scraping tool.
• Use Personalized Promotions and Loyalty Reward: Get personalized time-based loyalty rewards and promotions instead of providing constant discounts that make your brand cheap.

Impact

• Increase Leads: Client receives 50% increase in a few months of e-commerce business. Further lead sources were diversified into a new market. Therefore, business is expanding further.
• Real-Time Insights: Client can see real-time and location-specific insights without blocking IP address. This enables the client to respond quickly to market changes.
• Receive Revenue: It helps the client to receive more revenue. With the solution provided, the client’s business would optimize prices in real-time. This solution provides surety that discounts are not only strategic but also profit-driven. The automated discount strategy gives timely and tailored offers to optimize the conversion rate.

Conclusion

It is very essential to move beyond offering blanket and adopt AI for making smart pricing strategies to stay competitive without continuously lowering the price. Scraping Intelligence has achieved this goal by offering clients a next-generation scraping API to implement smart discounting strategies, data-backed decisions, and maintain profitability while protecting their brand image.