You launch a great product. You establish a pricing policy that guarantees margin for you and your partners. Everything looks good until your sales department starts reporting problems: "We can't sell this coffee maker to chain X because they said the same model is 15% cheaper on Allegro."
You check Allegro – indeed. One of the sellers has lowered the price. You look at Erli – it's even cheaper there. Before you know it, your suggested retail price (SRP) becomes fiction, and your premium product starts being perceived as clearance merchandise.
This is a classic example of price erosion. And contrary to appearances, the worst part isn't sudden "price wars," but the slow process of market decay that you don't notice in the daily rush.
The Boiling Frog Effect
In e-commerce, prices rarely drop drastically overnight. It's usually a slow descent. Distributor A lowers the price by 5 złoty to rank higher in sorting. Distributor B sees this the next day and lowers by another 2 złoty. Distributor C, seeing they're losing sales, adds free shipping and drops the price even further.
After a month, the market price of your product is 20% lower than you planned.
Why is this dangerous? Because customers quickly get used to the new, lower price (so-called price anchoring). When you try to return to the SRP level, sales will stall because in the consumer's eyes, the product has "become more expensive." Without regular monitoring, you wake up at a point where reversing this situation would require enormous marketing investments.
Excel Isn't Made of Rubber
Most companies try to control the situation manually. A Brand Manager or intern gets the task: "Once a week, check the prices of our top 20 products."
Sounds simple, but let's do the math. If you have 20 products and want to check their prices on Allegro, Amazon, Empik, Erli, and Google Shopping, that's 100 places to visit. Properly checking, recording the price, and taking a screenshot takes at least a minute per product. That's almost 2 hours of tedious, manual work.
And what if you have 50 products? Or 100?
Then compromises begin. You only check Allegro, ignoring other channels. Or you check less frequently. As a result, "dead zones" emerge – places on the internet where your pricing policy doesn't exist, and you don't even know about it. That's exactly where customers looking for deals escape to.
MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) Only Works When Enforced
Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) policy is standard in protecting premium brands. You agree with distributors that they won't promote the product below a certain amount. However, just writing this into a contract isn't enough.
Trading partners are willing to maintain the price under one condition: that others do too.
If your key distributor sees that a small online store is breaking the agreement with impunity and taking their customers, they'll eventually lower the price too. They'll feel cheated that you – as the brand owner – aren't maintaining order.
To maintain discipline in the sales channel, you need hard data. Not assumptions that "someone saw something," but a report:
- Who? (seller name)
- Where? (specific marketplace)
- For how much? (gross price)
- When? (verification date)
Having a daily report on your desk, you can call a partner and say: "I see that the price on Empik is below the agreement. Please correct it." This builds your authority. You show that you control the market.
Monitoring Is More Than Just Allegro
In 2025, e-commerce is more dispersed than ever. Your customers aren't just on one portal. They search for deals on price comparison sites, niche industry marketplaces, or foreign platforms (cross-border).
Manually tracking all of this is impossible. And this is where automation comes in.
Tools like ShopRadar don't get tired of clicking. Every morning they "go through" all the platforms you've indicated – whether it's Polish Allegro, German Amazon, or a specialized online store. They collect data on prices and availability, and you get a ready picture of the market with your morning coffee.
This eliminates chaos. Instead of fighting fires and wondering why sales are dropping, you can focus on strategy and supporting those partners who play fair.
Take Control of Your Pricing
Feel like the prices of your products are living their own life? Contact us, and we'll show you what your market looks like through the eyes of our robots.
Free consultation
Every organization works differently, which is why we start with a conversation. In 30 minutes, we'll discuss your sales channels, monitoring scope, and key metrics.
