Amazon Marketplace Repricing

Challenge

Sgt Knots Supply Co. Sells their products on the Amazon Marketplace as well as their own website using Shopify Plus.  They use SkuVault to manage their product catalog.

Sgt Knots sells their products online under their own brand, so they do not have any direct competitors.  They do no use traditional repricers for their products since they are private label, and the only merchant associated with it; however, there are other merchants selling similar products so is necessary for them to be price competitive or suffer lost sales.

For 3 years, Sgt Knots used an online system to store their products for repricing.  Unfortunately, it was not linked to their inventory management software SkuVault.  They had to download from one platform and upload to another and vice versa to keep everything current.  It was a lot of work and data always seemed to be out of synch.

Repricing products for Sgt Knots require product cost, plus add-ons like packaging & shipping costs.  A markup value for a desired margin is applied to calculate an interim price.  Next, market fees are calculated based on the interim price, and added to arrive at an estimated sales price.

Once product repricing was completed, they had to export the repriced products from their online system.  The file was then reformatted into 3 separate files one each for Amazon, Shopify Plus, and SkuVault.  Each file required additional formatting to conform to each platforms specification for uploading product files.

This lengthy and cumbersome process took place each time Sgt Knots repriced 1 or 1,000 products.  On some occasions, they needed to perform this process several times a day for various product groups.  It became increasingly clear they needed to do something different since their current repricing process was unsustainable.

Their goal was to automate their repricing process by eliminating as much staff involvement as possible.  They wanted a central hub for products repricing.  Once a product has been repriced, they wanted it to be automatically uploaded to Amazon, Shopify, and SkuVault simultaneously in the required formats for each platform.

They weren’t sure if this could be done, but they asked us for a proposal for their Product Repricing Automation project.  We responded with a scope of work, project deliverables, timeline to complete, and estimated cost to complete.  They eagerly accepted our proposal and we proceeded with the project.

Solution

Sgt Knots requirement for a central hub for repricing guided our decision to use Communique for Marketplaces as the foundation for their Product Repricer Automation project. Communique already contained all the necessary structures and functionality for staff interaction and data storage so in essence it became the hub.

Phase 1 entailed deployment and installation of Communique and related database software since it would act as both the reporting platform and data store for product repricing.

Phase 2 was acquiring data from their inventory management system SkuVault.  Since SkuVault was used as their master catalog, we needed to get product, brand, category, purchase orders, supplier, warehouse data to populate the data store.  We built a Synchronizer to integrate with SkuVault and periodically download their product catalog and related product information automatically.

Phase 3 was an integration with Amazon.  We used our existing Amazon Seller Central Synch to integrate with amazon and download FBM and FBA orders and listings including that same data from Canada and Mexico.  Settlement file downloads and processing were enabled as well to support their marketplace accounting.

Phase 4 was an integration with their Shopify website.  Since SkuVault was being used as their master catalog, we could not use product data from their Shopify site.  We modified our Shopify Synchronizer to download their products to a separate products table.  We needed the Product ID to facilitate price updates with Shopify (cannot use the SKU for updates to Shopify).

Phase 5 entailed creating a custom report “Product Repricer” to facilitate the user interface (Hub) for product repricing.  The report contained all the necessary features to calculate a new price based on the preset markup %, market fees %, any additional amount to include in the new price, and finally settings for the price floor and ceiling.  In addition to the automated price calculations, we include the ability for manual price, floor, and ceiling overrides.  The user could accept the calculations or choose to manually enter a different value.  When repricing has been confirmed, it is sent to a queue awaiting upload.

Phase 6 entailed uploading the repriced products to Amazon, Shopify, and SkuVault.  The SkuVault Synchronizer was expanded to include a Repricing tab containing options controlling the frequency and uploads to the marketplaces.  By default, uploads occur every 30 minutes.

Finally, the software was deployed setup and configured to operate automatically.

Bottom Line

The Product Repricer we created for Sgt Knots fulfills all project requirements from start to finish.  The only manual process of product repricing is using the product repricing report found in Communique for Marketplaces.  Even the report is mostly automated requiring a few points and clicks to narrow the range of products and calculate new prices.

Once the new prices are submitted, an integrator running in the background collects the repriced products and automatically submits them to Amazon, Shopify, and SkuVault without any need for further staff involvement.

The Product Repricer offers Sgt Knots essentially limitless opportunities to reprice their products as often as necessary with very little effort by staff.  The project was a resounding success.

This process is one less concern for Sgt Knots staff allowing them to focus on other aspects of operating their business.  This project is good example where automating is the right answer and best course of action.

To learn more about how we can help with your business automation, 3rd party integrations, custom development, and reporting, contact us.