Automating Competitor Price Tracking to Protect Margin & Inform Strategy

The Challenge

After years of growth, the business had lost control of its pricing strategy. Margins were eroding, products were being sold below cost, and pricing decisions were reactive rather than data-driven.

Key issues included:

• ❌ No structured competitor price tracking
• ❌ No connection between OEM data and internal SKUs
• ❌ Manual price updates introducing inconsistency and risk
• ❌ Executives flying blind on margin gaps across the range

Without visibility, pricing became a guessing game — costing the company profit every month.

What I Did

• Built Python Web Scraper
  Captured real-time competitor pricing, SKUs, pack sizes, and OEM numbers from major competitor websites.
• Developed Excel Matching Tool with VBA
  Mapped OEM part numbers to internal SKUs using a rule-based logic engine — cleaning and structuring data for analysis.
• Integrated SQL Reporting Engine
  Pushed cleaned data into SQL, where custom scripts calculated price variances, flagged margin risks, and summarised trends by brand, category, and threshold.
• Automated Monthly Reporting Process
  Scheduled scraping and delivered drill-down Excel reports to executives — highlighting pricing risks, wins, and opportunities by range.

The Result

• 📉 Uncovered hundreds of SKUs priced below cost
• 📈 Recovered lost margin through realignment and oversight
• 🔁 Created a repeatable, automated monthly pricing review
• 💼 Enabled supplier negotiations based on real margin data
• 🧠 Shifted pricing from reactive to strategic

Why It Mattered

In wholesale, pricing is profit — and you can't improve what you can't see. By automating competitor price tracking and linking OEM data to internal SKUs, I gave leadership the tools to act confidently and consistently.

Instead of relying on gut feel or outdated lists, the team now makes pricing decisions based on real market data, reviewed monthly, with risks surfaced in minutes — not months.

✅ Key Takeaways

• Manual pricing left gaps in visibility and margin
• Python and VBA automated competitor tracking and SKU mapping
• SQL reporting flagged risks and summarised market trends
• Hundreds of SKUs identified as underpriced
• Leadership now adjusts pricing proactively, not reactively