Introduction

Product Matching

Product matching is the process of matching your competitor products to your own products. Once products are matched, the system can compare your prices to your competitors’ prices and see how you compete within your respective markets.

Competitor products can be manually matched, but to speed up the process the system also suggests matches based on product codes, EANs and product names. Depending on the type of products you sell this process can be very efficient – for example, when matching products with specific brands and part numbers. If you sell your own branded products or more generic products then the match suggestions feature can be less accurate. However, the submit a URL added feature can help you match those types of products – this feature is covered in the Submitting a URL article.

For example-

Sony KXP1081 30-inch LED smart TV > Typically the system will find accurate matches due to the specific product name and size being provided.
Red evening dress > Very difficult to match (no brand, model number or size etc.)

Process Overview

At regular intervals, the system runs a routine to compare your products to unmatched competitor products to create new match suggestions.

Potential matches are displayed in the main grid of the ‘Add New Matches’ report for you to approve or reject. This screen can also be used to manually match products – i.e. you can search for a competitor product and then match it to your own version of that product.

Note: The Add New Matches screen displays potential or recommended matches produced by the system.

The Edit Existing Matches screen displays the matches currently within the system. This particular screen allows you to update or remove existing matches. This feature is covered at the end of the Add Matches & Edit Matches category.