Price Intel

SKILL.md

---
name: Price Intel
description: Monitor and analyze competitor pricing movements, discount patterns, and bundle strategies to inform your own pricing decisions without a race to the bottom.
---

# Price Intel

Pricing decisions made in a vacuum — without visibility into what competitors are doing — almost always end in two failure modes: you leave money on the table by underpricing, or you trigger a discount war that compresses margins across the whole category. Price Intel gives TikTok Shop sellers, Amazon merchants, and multi-channel ecommerce operators a structured framework for monitoring competitor pricing movements, decoding their discount patterns and promotional calendars, and identifying bundle or value-add strategies that let you compete on perceived value rather than raw price. The goal is smarter positioning, not a race to the bottom.

## Solves

- Competitor drops price by 20% and you don't know if it's permanent or a flash tactic
- You're about to run a promotion but don't know how deep to discount vs. category norms
- Conversion rate dropped and you can't tell if price competitiveness is the root cause
- You're launching a new SKU and need to set the anchor price relative to competitors
- You manage 10+ SKUs and need a repeatable system for quarterly pricing reviews
- You're entering a new marketplace and need to map the competitive price landscape
- You want to compete on value bundles instead of lowest price but don't know the gap

## Quick Reference

| Decision | Strong | Acceptable | Weak |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price monitoring cadence | Daily for top 5 competitors via tool | Weekly manual check | Monthly or ad hoc |
| Discount response strategy | Wait 72h, analyze depth and duration | Match immediately | Ignore or always undercut |
| Bundle pricing benchmark | Map full bundle value vs. competitors | Price core item only | Assume bundle discount is always better |
| Promotional calendar | Build 90-day competitor promo calendar | Track major platform events only | React to promos as they appear |
| Price floor setting | Cost + 30% min margin + competitive floor | Cost + margin only | Match lowest competitor |
| Competitive data source | Dedicated tool (Jungle Scout, Keepa, etc.) | Manual spot checks | No systematic tracking |

## Workflow

### Step 1 — Define Your Competitive Set
Identify 5–8 direct competitors per SKU. Focus on listings that share your main keyword, price tier (within 30%), and target customer profile. Exclude brand leaders if you can't realistically compete on brand. Document each competitor's ASIN/Shop ID, current price, and primary positioning angle.

### Step 2 — Set Up Price Monitoring
Use a price tracking tool (Keepa for Amazon, TikTok Shop's native analytics, or Prisync for multi-channel) to capture daily pricing for your competitive set. Set alerts for price changes >10%. For manual tracking, export a weekly snapshot to the Price History template.

### Step 3 — Decode Discount Patterns
For each competitor, categorize their discount behavior over the past 90 days: flash sales (under 48h), event promotions (tied to platform events), everyday low pricing (EDLP), or high-low cycling. This tells you whether a price drop is structural (requires a strategic response) or tactical (can often be ignored).

### Step 4 — Map Bundle and Value Positioning
List the top 3–5 bundles or added-value offers each competitor uses. Calculate the implied per-unit price within each bundle. Identify gaps where your competitors are underinvesting.

### Step 5 — Build Your Positioning Matrix
Place each SKU on a 2x2: price vs. category average and perceived value vs. competitors. The ideal zone is above-average value at or slightly above average price.

### Step 6 — Respond to Competitor Price Events
Wait 72 hours and classify the move. If structural, decide between: (a) price match, (b) value-add response, or (c) differentiation response.

### Step 7 — Run Quarterly Pricing Reviews
Every 90 days, audit your full competitive set, identify structural shifts, and update price floors and positioning.