Setting up competitor price monitoring

Overview

Competitor price monitoring helps you stay informed about market conditions and adjust your pricing strategy accordingly. Vendably collects competitor price data through two methods: automated web crawling for any retailer, and direct API integration for platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce. Once you add a competitor, Vendably matches their products to your own catalogue and tracks price changes on a recurring schedule.

This article covers how to set up competitor monitoring, how product matching works, and what permissions are required to manage competitors.

How Vendably collects competitor price data

Vendably uses two distinct approaches to gather competitor pricing information.

Automated web crawling

The web crawling method works on any retailer's website. Vendably runs a six-tier extraction pipeline that attempts to find product prices and details using multiple techniques, tried in order of reliability:

1. Platform APIs (if the retailer exposes a public API).
2. JSON-LD structured data embedded in page HTML.
3. Microdata markup (schema.org attributes).
4. Google Tag Manager data layers.
5. JavaScript state objects rendered by the page.
6. CSS heuristics and DOM parsing as a fallback.

This layered approach means Vendably can extract data from retailers regardless of how their website is built. The crawling process respects robots.txt rules and standard web crawling etiquette.

Direct platform API import

For known platforms such as Shopify and WooCommerce, Vendably can connect directly to the retailer's API instead of crawling their website. API integration is faster, more reliable, and requires fewer requests. If you add a competitor who uses Shopify or WooCommerce, Vendably will offer to use their API if you provide the necessary credentials or access tokens.

How product matching works

Once Vendably collects competitor product data, it must link each competitor product to a product in your own catalogue. This matching determines which of your products are compared against which competitor offerings.

Vendably attempts matches in order of reliability:

1. GTIN match: If both your product and the competitor's product share a GTIN (Global Trade Item Number, also called a barcode or EAN), they are matched immediately. This is the most reliable method.
2. Brand plus MPN: If GTINs do not match, Vendably compares the brand and MPN (manufacturer part number). A match on both fields is treated as a reliable pairing.
3. Title similarity: If brand and MPN do not match, Vendably uses text similarity to compare product titles. This method is less precise but catches products sold under different names.

Each matched product pair is assigned a confidence score. You can review matches before they count toward price comparisons, allowing you to reject incorrect pairings or manually approve uncertain ones.

Adding a competitor

Competitor management lives in the Intelligence area of your Vendably dashboard, under Competitor Tracking.

Step 1: Enter competitor details

Navigate to Competitor Tracking and select 'Add competitor'. Enter the competitor's domain (for example, competitor-store.com). Do not include https:// or www. - just the domain name.

Step 2: Let Vendably discover products

After you submit the domain, Vendably begins by parsing the competitor's sitemap to discover product URLs. This process typically takes a few minutes. If the competitor does not publish a sitemap, Vendably will crawl their website structure to find product pages.

Step 3: Review matched products

Once Vendably has discovered products and attempted to match them to your catalogue, you will see a list of matched products with confidence scores. Each match shows:

• The competitor's product title and any key attributes (brand, MPN, GTIN).
• Your matched product (if a match was found).
• The confidence score (based on the matching method used).
• An option to accept, reject, or manually reassign the match.

Review matches before they count toward price comparisons. Rejecting an incorrect match prevents misleading price data. Manually reassigning a match overrides Vendably's automatic pairing.

Step 4: Enable scraping

Once you have reviewed matches, enable scraping for this competitor. Vendably will then crawl the competitor's website (or query their API) on a recurring schedule, typically daily or weekly depending on your plan. Price data will populate in your price comparison reports.

Permissions and access control

Vendably enforces a permission model for competitor management:

Owners and Admins have full control over competitor setup. Editors can import competitor data and review product matches, but cannot add or remove competitors or enable scraping. Viewers can only see price comparison reports and cannot make any changes.

This structure allows you to delegate match review to team members without giving them control over which competitors are tracked.

What success looks like

Once you have set up competitor price monitoring, you should see:

1. Competitor added: The competitor appears in your Competitor Tracking list with a status showing active or pending.
2. Products matched: Your products are linked to the competitor's products, with confidence scores visible in the match review interface.
3. Price data populating: After the first crawl, price and availability data from the competitor appears in your price comparison reports. Subsequent crawls update these prices on schedule.
4. Recurring crawl activity: Vendably logs each crawl attempt, showing the date, number of products updated, and any errors encountered.

Price data becomes actionable once you have matched at least a few products. You can then use competitor-price-alerts-and-how-to-act-on-undercuts to monitor when competitors undercut your prices and decide how to respond.

Practical guidance for merchants

Maximise match quality

Match accuracy depends on the quality of your product data. Ensure that your own catalogue includes GTINs, brand names, and MPNs wherever possible. Products with complete data are more likely to match correctly on the first attempt, reducing manual review work.

If a competitor uses a different brand name or variant naming convention (for example, 'Blue Widget Pro' versus 'Widget Pro Blue'), manual match review will catch these cases. Take time to correct mismatches during the initial setup, as this improves future crawls.

Start with high-value competitors

Begin by adding your most direct competitors. Tracking a small number of competitors thoroughly is more useful than tracking many competitors with incomplete data. Once you have established a workflow, you can add additional competitors.

Monitor crawl logs

Vendably logs each crawl attempt, showing which products were updated and whether any errors occurred. If a competitor's website structure changes, crawl logs will show a drop in matched products or an increase in extraction failures. Review logs regularly to catch these changes early.

Adjust match confidence thresholds

Depending on your catalogue size and product diversity, you may want to manually review only high-confidence matches or all matches. Smaller catalogues with unique products may benefit from reviewing all matches. Larger catalogues with many similar products may trust high-confidence (GTIN and brand + MPN) matches automatically.

Conclusion

Setting up competitor price monitoring involves adding a competitor's domain, allowing Vendably to discover and match their products, and enabling recurring price crawls. Vendably's multi-tier extraction pipeline and product matching system work together to provide accurate, up-to-date pricing intelligence. Once matched products are approved, price data populates automatically and can inform your pricing strategy and alert you to market opportunities.