We had a long conversation about price matching our ecommerce site today. It was discussed that we don't need to do this and others said, yes we do. Are there any documented studies of this and why it should or should not be done? Thanks for any help or information.
If lowering your prices to match a competitors means you'll increase sales enough to offset the loss in profit per unit due to the lower price, then it's probably worth doing. The catch is finding out whether or not its worth doing. The only thing I could suggest is having a "sale" where you prices are lowered to match your competitor, and see if it increases sales. Of course christmas is really the wrong time of year to do it anyway as sales fluxuate a lot anyway and since we're in a depression it's not really worth comparing last years christmas sales volumes either The problem with ecommerce I find is, everyone is on the internet to find the cheapest prices possible, whilst in traditional "walk in" shops, people judge customer service in a higher regard compared to the internet and will generally not query price differences as much if it means them getting a better service in the shop. One of my ecommerce clients does price match, and it seems to work for him. However that was after a re-design and SEO too so it might be that hes getting more sales from the shear volume of visitors compared to his old site rarther than his price matching alone, and since the last web designer didn't have analytics installed, I unfortunately have no data to compare it too
The price need to be match competitor price in order to survive current fierce market. But there is also many part other than price factor that make customer purchase from you. Such as sales support,by respond fast enough to customer email. And then do provide after sales service will greatly increase customer satisfaction thus keep them loyal to you