Amazon Repricing: Creating an Automated Repricing Rule

Josh Smith

August 31, 2023 22:27

Automatically repricing your Amazon listings is a great way to keep your prices competitive within the parameters you select. As a general trend, our clients see an increase in their sales after they start automatically repricing their listings. This article explains all the repricing options available to you.

Before you apply an automated repricing rule for the first time, it is helpful to understand how we calculate your sell price, floor price, ceiling price, and price if there are no other sellers. The Related Articles section includes articles about these calculations. We also recommend applying your first rule to only a few example items to watch it work before applying it in bulk.

In this article:

How Automated Repricing Works
The Amazon Sell Price Expression
Creating an Amazon Pricing Rule
Repricing Rule Options
Minimum Price Floor, No Other Sellers Price, and Maximum Price Ceiling Section
Amazon Fees Section
Beating Lowest Competitive Offer, Sellers to Ignore, Competing With Other Product Conditions Section
Special Buy Box Protection Section
Related Articles

How Automated Repricing Works

Our automated repricer offers a high degree of control over how your prices are set on Amazon.

In your Amazon Pricing Rule, you will set a minimum price, so you won't be priced too low. You will also establish a price to use if there aren't any other sellers competing against you. If you want, you can also set a maximum price.

We maximize your profits by increasing your prices whenever possible. We only submit a lower price when necessary.

You can create multiple rules to properly manage the prices on specific items. One common reason people create multiple rules is to ensure they capture enough profit on products in different price ranges.

EXAMPLE: For items that sell for $10 or less, you might want to capture at least 50% profit. For products priced between $10 to $25, 30% profit might be enough. For items between $25 and $100, you might want at least 15% profit, and so on.

You can also apply a fixed price rule to some items, such as items with Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) requirements, and automated repricing rules to other items. Another example is to apply rules that compete only with FBA sellers on FBA items, and apply other rules to Merchant Fulfilled items.

NOTE:

Amazon provides us with: your price, the lowest overall price, the lowest FBA price, and the Buy Box price. Shipping fees are included, but seller information is not. We can only work from the information Amazon provides. We cannot compete with the second lowest overall price, ignore specific sellers, etc.

The Amazon Sell Price Expression

Solid Commerce calculates the Minimum Price Floor, Maximum Price Ceiling, and No Other Sellers Price based on the value you enter in the Amazon Sell Price Exp field.

The most common practice is to enter the word cost in the Amazon Sell Price Exp. We then refer to the numeric value you have entered in the cost field in your Solid Commerce Warehouse or Vendor Inventory List.

You can also enter a fixed number in the Amazon Sell Price Exp field, or even pad your cost by entering a simple formula, such as cost+2.50 or cost*1.2. More complex formulas like cost*1.2+5 or ((cost*1.2)+5) work as well. The formulas are especially handy if you want to account for some of your shipping costs.

NOTE:

If you want to start automatically repricing listings that imported from Amazon, you need to change the fixed price rule that was applied during import to an automated repricing rule. If you would like to use the word cost in your Amazon Sell Price Exp field, you will probably also need to update the cost in your Solid Commerce Warehouse or Vendor Inventory List. That is because when we import items that don't already exist in a Solid Commerce Warehouse, we save your sell price from Amazon in our Cost field. If the items are already saved in a Solid Commerce Warehouse, we only import the Amazon listing information. We leave the Cost and quantity untouched.

Creating an Amazon Pricing Rule

1) Go to the Marketplaces menu -> Amazon Pricing Rules.

2) Click the Add Rule button.

3) Enter a Rule name.

We recommend using a short, descriptive, name. If you choose to apply Amazon Pricing Rules through a spreadsheet, you need to enter the name of the rule.

EXAMPLE NAME: Reprice <10

4) Click the Save Automation Rules button. You can continue to save your rule as you add or refine options.

If you modify an existing rule, the revisions are automatically applied to all of the listings that rule is assigned to. Your changes will be pushed to Amazon without you taking any further action.

5) Once you finish setting all the options, you are ready to save your rule and apply it to some live listings.

We recommend applying your first repricing rule to only a few test listings. It's best to choose listings with frequent price changes. As you watch the price move on your test items, you may find that you want to refine your rule. Once you are comfortable, you can apply your rule to more listings, and create more rules.

If you use the word cost in your Sell Price Expression, please remember to verify that your item's cost is accurate in your Solid Commerce Warehouse. If you need to adjust your costs, do so before applying your repricing rule.

Repricing Rule Options

These options allow you to choose how you want to compete on Amazon. Depending on which of these options you select, different repricing settings will appear.

The "Do not update sell price on Amazon" and the "Fixed Price - Update sell price on Amazon according to item's 'Sale Price Expression' field" options are explained in the article Creating a Basic Amazon Fixed Price Rule.

Automated Repricing Options	Repricing Option Descriptions
Compete with All Amazon Sellers according to the rules below	This option allows you to compete with the lowest overall price on the listing. This is one of the most popular options.
Compete only with the Buy Box price according to the rules below	We will only reprice you against the Buy Box price. As a note, the Buy Box price is not always the lowest overall price.
Compete only with FBA Sellers according to the rules below	We will only reprice you against the lowest FBA price. Keep in mind that the lowest FBA price may not be the lowest overall price. FBA sellers are favored to hold the Buy Box, so they can win it even if there price is higher than some of their competitors' prices. This is not a widely used option. In most cases, it only makes sense to implement this option on FBA items.
Continuously price to Win the Buy Box according to the rules below	This option prompts us to continually lower your price until you win the Buy Box. This popular option is explained in detail in the article Amazon Repricing: Guide to the "Win the Buy Box" Option.

Minimum Price Floor, No Other Sellers Price, and Maximum Price Ceiling Section

To set up your floor, ceiling, and no other sellers price:

1) Select Fix $ or Percentage % (the more popular option) from the drop-down to add a fixed dollar amount or percentage to your Amazon Sell Price Expression. If you want to set an exact price for each item, select By item param from the drop-down menu. For more info, see Amazon Repricing: Using the By Item Param Options.

2) If you selected Fix $ or Percentage %, enter number in the text field representing the dollar or percentage amount.

Field Names	Field Descriptions
Profit is at least	This establishes the minimum price we will submit to Amazon. If your competitors' prices drop below this amount, we will leave your item at the Minimum Price Floor.
If no other sellers are offering this product then raise my sell price by	This establishes the price we will submit to Amazon if there are no sellers competing with you on the listing. It is also the price we will initially push to Amazon when we submit new items to list. Until you are listed, we don't know what your competitors are charging, so we default to this price.
Maximum sell price	This establishes the highest price we will send to Amazon. EXAMPLE: The retail price on one of your items is $100. There is only one competitor on your Amazon listing. Their price is $200. Normally, our repricer would compete with this elevated $200 price. Using the Maximum sell price setting, you could set a ceiling price of say $120 to keep your item looking attractive.

Amazon Fees Section

If you want us to add Amazon's Referral Fees in our calculations of your floor price, ceiling price, and no other sellers price, check the Include Amazon fees as part of the profit margin box. To view the published list of Amazon Referral Fees for each category, click the following link (or click on the View Amazon Fees link in the Amazon Pricing Rule)

For a full description of how we add Amazon's Referral Fees to your price calculations, see Amazon Repricing: How to Calculate Your Price Floor, Price Ceiling, and No Other Sellers Price.

Beating Lowest Competitive Offer, Sellers to Ignore, Competing With Other Product Conditions Section

Follow these steps next to each of the three "beat by" options:

1) In the first drop-down, select lower my price by to beat your competitor's price, or select raise my price by to make your price more expensive than the lowest price.

2) In the second drop-down, select Fix $ or Percentage % to add or subtract a fixed dollar amount or percentage from the lowest price.

3) Enter a number in the blank field for the dollar or percentage.

For an example of how we calculate your price on Amazon, including how we account for shipping fees, see Amazon Repricing: How Solid Commerce Prices You Against Your Competitors.

Beating Lowest Competitive Offer Field Names	Field Descriptions
when beating lowest competitive offer	Establishes how we should set your price based on the lowest overall price on the listing. POPULAR OPTIONS: Our clients use a variety of pricing strategies, but many of them choose to beat the lowest price by $0.01, or to match the lowest price (enter 0 in the text field).
when beating lowest FBA seller offer	Establishes how we should set your price based on the lowest FBA price on the listing. Because Amazon favors FBA sellers for the Buy Box, some non-FBA sellers like to compete more aggressively with FBA sellers.
if lowest price is Buy Box then	Establishes how we should set your price if the Buy Box price is the lowest overall price. We added this setting because some people like to compete more aggressively with the Buy Box price than they do if the lowest price is not the Buy Box price.
If a seller is selling a product of better condition, but is pricing it below my sell price rule, then compare my sell price to the better condition product, and set my sell price lower by	If you commonly sell used or refurbished items, or compete against sellers that frequently carry products in various conditions, we recommend using the two checkboxes for competing with other product conditions instead of this option. They provide you with more range. These other condition options are described below. If you enable this option, and you are competing against a seller who has the product in a better condition than you, we will beat their price by the Fix $ or Percentage % value you specify. This allows you to beat a competitor more aggressively if they have the product in a better condition than you do. Amazon's general hierarchy of conditions is: New, Refurbished, Used - Like New, Used - Very Good, Used - Good, Used - Acceptable For more information, and category specific hierarchies, see Amazon's Help: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=1161242#CSCG.

Sellers to Ignore
Field Names

Field Descriptions

Ignore sellers with a rating % below

We will not compete with sellers that have a feedback score lower than the threshold you select from the drop down menu. Sometimes clients enable this option only to find that they want to compete with sellers that have lower feedback scores than they originally selected. We recommend setting the percentage a bit lower than you might initially think you should.

Ignore sellers with a rating number below

We will not compete with sellers that have less than this number of feedbacks you specify in this field. This option is useful for avoiding sellers that are new to Amazon.

If you don't know what number to enter into this field, look at some of your Amazon listings and see how many feedbacks your competitors have.

Competing With Other Product Conditions
Field Names

Field Descriptions and Valid Values

Compare my product to the better condition product, and set my sell price lower by

If no competitor is selling your item in the same condition as you, we can beat the lowest price in the condition one level higher than yours.

EXAMPLE: You are the only person selling a refurbished item, but there are other people selling the item new.

Select whether you want us to beat the price by a Fix $ amount or a Percentage %.

Compare my product to the lesser condition product, and set my sell price higher by

If no competitor is selling your item in the same condition as you, we can raise your price over on the lowest price in the condition one level below yours.

EXAMPLE: You are the only person selling the item new, but someone else is selling it refurbished.

Select whether you want us to add a Fix $ amount or a Percentage % to their price.

Amazon's general hierarchy of conditions is:
New, Refurbished, Used - Like New, Used - Very Good, Used - Good, Used - Acceptable
For more information, and category specific hierarchies, see Amazon's Help: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=1161242#CSCG.

Special Buy Box Protection Section

If you raise your price while you are holding the Buy Box, Amazon might replace you with one of your competitors. However, if a gap develops between you and the next lowest priced seller, you are losing out on profit that you could capture if you price was higher. This section of the rule allows you to take control of your Buy Box repricing.

Field Names	Field Descriptions and Valid Values
If I am in the buy box, do not change the sell price	We will not change your price until you lose the Buy Box. This option can be helpful in trying to hold your position in the Buy Box, but it can expose you to the risk of missing out on profit when your competitors have much higher prices than you. Because of this risk, it is the least popular option.
If I am in the buy box, change the sell price when the difference between my sell price and the competitor sell price is greater than	We won't reprice your item until the gap between you and the next lowest price seller is larger than the amount you specify. If you enable this option, select whether you want your gap to be a Fix $ amount or a Percentage %, then enter a number in the empty text field. EXAMPLE: You are okay with being up to $0.50 lower than the next lowest priced seller if it helps you keep the Buy Box. If your price in the Buy Box is $20, and the next lowest price is $20.25, we will not reprice you. If the next lowest price is $21.00, we will reprice you according to your Beating Lowest Competitive Offer setting.
Continue repricing when in buy box according to my 'Beating Lowest Competitive Offer'	We will ignore the fact that you are holding the Buy Box, and continue to reprice you against the lowest priced seller.