Price monitoring for gray-market sales and fakes

E-commerce has become more complex and varied than ever, and more convenient for consumers. At the same time, the risk of counterfeits and gray-market (unauthorized) sales is growing. To maintain the value of their products and protect their intellectual property (IP) and consumers, brands need innovative technology and solutions. One technology drawing attention in fast-changing online marketplaces is price monitoring. Used strategically, it can identify gray-market sellers outside your official channels, and even detect counterfeit sales.

Bad actors exploiting how consumers shop online

With prices high, consumers compare many online marketplaces looking for a better deal. In the process, many buy from individual sellers offering the lowest price without checking product details carefully. The problem is that many counterfeits are made to look almost indistinguishable from the real thing. It’s also common for sellers to buy genuine products in bulk during sales and resell them without authorization, or to sell products meant only for overseas markets without permission. This activity by individual sellers can seriously affect brand trust and revenue.

How price monitoring helps identify counterfeits and gray-market sales

Online marketplaces give consumers many choices but present brands with several challenges. Frequent gray-market and counterfeit sales can damage brand image and consumer trust. One important strategy brands can use to protect themselves online is price monitoring. It lets you effectively identify and act on sellers of gray-market goods and counterfeits online.

1. Identify sellers who break your normal price range

For official sellers of genuine products, there’s a normal price range that accounts for promotions, sales platforms, regions and so on. For example, if a newly launched smartphone is selling far below its expected price, that’s a warning sign that could damage the brand’s value and image. It can threaten not only the brand’s competitiveness but also its business and marketing strategy.

2. Spot gray-market stores by monitoring sudden price changes

Gray-market sellers often slash prices sharply with discount tactics, then quickly disappear or switch to selling other brands’ products. Real-time price monitoring lets you detect these sudden changes and respond quickly.

3. Find gray-market sellers through price differences between marketplaces

For example, if a skincare product sold exclusively in Asia appears in Europe or the US at a suspiciously low price, it’s likely a gray-market sale. Gray-market sellers may also sell below the prices of your own store and official sellers in multiple regions. With real-time price monitoring, brands can use regional price benchmarks to identify and analyze gray-market sales and the marketplaces where they occur most.

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How to monitor prices effectively

Price monitoring lets you quickly detect counterfeit and gray-market sellers, defend your pricing policy (your normal price range) and act on bad actors. You can also identify gray-market and counterfeit problems that occur frequently in particular countries and marketplaces and build a response strategy. So how do you monitor prices effectively? Try these methods to set up price monitoring that fits your brand.

1. Track price changes by managing official sales channels

Brands should use their official sales channels to identify and act on other stores selling their products. Search for your products on each platform, identify stores other than your official sellers, and report the seller accounts to have them removed. Also, work with your official sales channels and make active use of a reporting system for other gray-market sellers. A reporting system not only helps you identify gray-market sellers but also strengthens trust and relationships with official sellers.

How can you act on gray-market sellers?

Bad actors on open marketplaces and other online sales channels often list the product name, manufacturer, brand, country of origin and main materials exactly as they appear for the genuine product. They’re also likely to use product photos captured from the brand’s official website or app. Based on this data, you can file an IP infringement report through the platform’s own reporting center.

2. Monitor repeat bad actors on online marketplaces

Keep monitoring repeat gray-market sellers based on tips from official sellers and data on bad actors who have threatened your brand before. Some sellers reappear on other platforms or under other names even after being reported or banned. To keep watch on them, it’s important to maintain a seller list and update it regularly.

Adopting an integrated solution for price monitoring and brand protection

As individual sellers multiply across marketplaces, solutions offering integrated price monitoring have emerged. AI-based brand protection solutions such as MarqVision, for example, provide not only real-time price monitoring but also response strategies based on data insights. With these solutions, brands gain visibility into online shopping and marketplaces and can quickly detect abnormal prices or suspicious sellers. But price monitoring alone isn’t enough. To protect brand value and keep consumer trust, brands need an integrated solution that can also act on gray-market sales and counterfeits.

Why MarqVision customers value price monitoring

A representative of Henkel, a global consumer and industrial goods company, said: “Products from gray-market sellers who had stolen the official brand images of our flagship brands Persil and Homemat were showing at the very top of open marketplaces. With MarqVision’s solution, which handles everything from detection to reporting in one go, we were able to respond quickly to actions that damaged our brand image and disrupted pricing.”

Get a free consultation now to see how gray-market sales and counterfeits are threatening your brand.

Price monitoring: how to detect the gray-market sales and counterfeits threatening your brand