IRVINE, Nov. 20, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- This holiday season, experts predict ecommerce spending will increase more than three times the rate of total retail spending growth, with total U.S. retail sales reaching the trillion-dollar mark for the first time ever. Brands must capitalize on the biggest shopping season of the year, while also ensuring both pricing and seller integrity are protected. To streamline the process, PriceSpider, the global leader in data and consumer analytics technology, is launching an exclusive partnership with David G Howell and Associates, the leading online brand protection and marketplace sales compliance firm, to automate access to Howell's nearly 100,000 verified sellers.
"PriceSpider is dedicated to delivering a platform that provides complete brand protection and ultimately helps ensure brands are improving consumer conversion and driving more sales," said Anthony Ferry, CEO of PriceSpider. "With the integration of Howell & Associates' services — the undisputed leader of verified sellers — PriceSpider is doubling down on the investigative power of the solution and as a result, making it even easier for brands to protect themselves this season and beyond."
PriceSpider data shows that last year, the average brand gained over 50 sellers between Black Friday and Cyber Monday (a 25 percent increase just over those few days). Moreover, in just the last month, 53 percent of ecommerce URLs had price changes, with 26 percent of URLs having multiple violations every day.
"The marketplace is changing and it's getting more difficult to identify violators and maintain compliance across channels," said David Howell, managing partner of Howell & Associates. "We're working with top brands to identify the most difficult-to-uncover sellers and have a robust database in place already; the partnership with PriceSpider is a game-changer for the industry. By helping automate the process, we are making it easier for brands to maximize relationships with both consumers and sellers."
To help brands navigate the space this season, PriceSpider is unveiling its top five tips for managing MAP:
1. Make it legal: Your MAP policy is a legal document, so the language needs to correlate with the laws and regulations governing brands, retailers, and ecommerce. Work with an antitrust lawyer to ensure it's as tight and right as it can be.
2. Consider the consequences. Whether you want your MAP policy to simply protect your price or you want a process for terminating sellers that hurt your brand, set penalties that align with your goals. Choose appropriate punishments, including the right number of "strikes," and decide if you'll have a process for forgiving those strikes over time.
3. Prioritize your SKUs. When first starting to enforce with price monitoring software, you're likely going to have more daily violations than you can act on. It's important that you work big to small and focus on SKUs that will have the most impact on your brand — start with the top 10–20 percent of your SKUs.
4. Focus on the first. Once one seller violates your MAP policy, others often follow (sometimes automatically), because if they don't lower their price, too, they'll lose sales. With the ability to identify who violated your MAP policy first, you can focus your efforts on the retailer that's causing all the trouble.
5. Modify MAP over time. As your brand evolves, your MAP policy should too - consider it a dynamic document that changes with your needs, instead of a one-time practice that's in place as-is forevermore.
For more information, and deeper insights into managing MAP, visit http://bit.ly/3509iSy.
About PriceSpider
PriceSpider is an advanced retail data technology company that provides insights about consumer purchasing behavior for the world's largest brand manufacturers. Powered by proprietary "spidering" technology that collects immense data sets from thousands of ecommerce sites, PriceSpider helps brands discover – with precision – what, where, when, and how people purchase. PriceSpider also delivers actionable insights that preserve pricing integrity for manufacturers to help them protect their brand by patrolling and enforcing minimum advertised price (MAP) everywhere their products are sold online. From enabling brand manufacturers to maintain brand and pricing consistency across online channels, to giving shoppers easy access to authorized retailers, PriceSpider connects the dots between brands, retailers, and shoppers – delivering the ultimate conversion optimization platform and helping manufacturers know more to sell more. Learn more by visiting http://www.pricespider.com.
About David Howell & Associates
David Howell & Associates, headquartered in Boise, Idaho, is a Full-Service Online Sales Compliance, Brand Protection, Marketplace Channel Management, Strategy & Consultancy Agency, combining nearly 20 years of experience in the Who, What, Where, When and Why of such things as Brand Protection, Channel Compliance and Amazon.com in helping companies succeed! David is the founder and managing partner of the industry leading online brand protection and marketplace channel compliance strategy and consultancy agency. A thought leader in brand protection and online marketplaces for the past 19 years, David's experience has benefited a majority of the Fortune 500. Learn more by visiting http://www.howellandassociates.com.
SOURCE PriceSpider
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