First of all, lets tackle the terminology: some clients ask us if provide product matching service, or we can offer product matching software.
In essence, both expressions (product matching software VS product matching service) are right – but the word ‘service’ better describes what we actually do, since we do not sell licenses for our software.
The way our solution works is actually a typical SaaS: the client provides the products that need to be matched, along with the list of matching candidates. What we will deliver are the matching probabilities for each candidate – is it a mtch, or not.
What does product matching software do?
Product matching software does, just like it’s name says, provide the URLs of matched products.
This can be done in several different ways (automatically, manually, and here in Product Matching AI we have opted for the 1st way: AI does the actual product matching work!
The API interface enables our clients to communicate which new product need to be matched across which competitor sites. The same API also enables them to monitor the progress of the matching task, and to retrieve results.
What does product matching software NOT DO?
Product matching software does not monitor prices, nor assortment of competitor sites for you.
Instead, product matching software does something which is essential for price monitoring: it will establish which matches are correct (making sure that only accurate matches are returned). However, it will not revisit the site and check if the price, availability, or another parameter has changed.
This is what price monitoring solutions do, and I will name some of the most popular ones here.
- Competera – most suitable for large enterprises
- Price2Spy– most suitable for monitoring bot-aware Websites
- Prisync– low cost solution
- Intelligence Node – another solution fit for large enterprises
- Minderest – best for assortment monitoring
- Dealavo– another solution great for SMEs
On top of this, some vendors offer Dynamic Pricing services – based on rules that you set, they will identify which products from your offer should go down (or up) in price – to make your offer more competitive (or to make you make bigger profit).
One vendor for all services, or separate vendors for each service component?
Of course, we all know that businesses prefer simplicity, and in this case, simplicity would mean finding a vendor which will take care of all our needs: product matching, price monitoring, assortment monitoring dynamic pricing.
However, there are a couple of problems with this approach.
- Not all vendors offer all of the mentioned services
- Not all vendors are equally good at all of the above services. For example: Vendor X may be good at price monitoring, but very bad at product matching
- The cost of the above services may strongly vary from one vendor to another.
That is why we recommend a segmented approach, with finding the best vendor for each of the above listed service components. This may require a bit more time to investigate the market and find the best vendor for that particular component, but the time invested will certainly pay off in the long run.
Product Matching AI will be there for all your product matching needs, and we will be happy to advise how the matches we deliver can be imported into any of price monitoring / repricing solutions.