# Price intelligence

Price intelligence is collecting competitors' published prices for products you sell, matching them to your own lines, and acting on the gaps that matter.

Also called: online retail price intelligence, competitor price monitoring, price tracking

- **Is:** Collecting competitors' published prices, matching them to your lines, and acting on real gaps.
- **Needs:** A chosen scope, regular collection, reliable matching and a readable view of the gaps.
- **Watch for:** Reacting to every move. Published prices show nothing of costs or volumes.

## What it means for retail and category teams

A price intelligence programme has four parts: deciding which products and competitors to watch, collecting prices and availability regularly, matching competitor listings to your own products, and reading the result in a form the team can act on, such as a price index, a list of lines outside policy, or a note when a competitor moves. Collection is the easier half. Most of the value comes from the matching, from how fresh the observations are, and from knowing which gaps are real and which come from patchy coverage.

It is also a bounded view. Published prices and availability say nothing about a competitor's costs, supplier funding or sales volumes, so price intelligence tells a team where to look. Deciding what to do still needs the retailer's own margin and sales data.

## Why it matters

Shoppers compare prices constantly, especially online and on known-value items, and a gap that goes unnoticed for weeks can cost volume or margin. Reacting to every competitor move erodes margin for no gain. Good price intelligence narrows the team's attention to the gaps that matter, on the lines where price actually drives the choice.

## How Twelfth handles this

twelfth's Pricing intelligence module follows competitor list prices and availability across the SKUs a workspace has asked it to track, from the Australian retailer feeds the workspace selects. It is organised as a Brief that explains what moved, a Tracked set that shows SKU-level coverage, prices and index, and Reports for internal briefs and seller conversations. It does not see sales, margin or funding unless those data are supplied elsewhere, and an index difference is treated as a signal to investigate before anyone changes a price.

## Illustrative example

The business and figures are illustrative. None of it is customer data.

A health and beauty retailer tracks 300 lines against three competitors, collected daily. On Monday the read shows one competitor has cut a sunscreen range by 15%, but only on two sizes, and both are out of stock at that competitor by Wednesday. The category manager holds price, notes the event and reviews five other lines that have sat more than 5% above all three competitors for a month.

## Related concepts

- [Price index](https://twelfth.ai/glossary/price-index)
- [Matched SKU](https://twelfth.ai/glossary/matched-sku)
- [Price position](https://twelfth.ai/glossary/price-position)
- [Tracked set](https://twelfth.ai/glossary/tracked-set)

## Next step

### Look at the price gaps that matter

Bring a few products and competitors. We can walk through matching, observation dates and which gaps deserve a closer look.

- [Book a demo](https://twelfth.ai/book-a-demo)

Source: https://twelfth.ai/glossary/price-intelligence