XPA FAQ - Product Matching Module
Quickly find answers to your questions about the Product Matching module of ourPricing Analytics solution
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Learn how to match your products to competitors’ SKUs to ensure the accuracy of your price comparisons.
1. What is product matching?
Product matching involves identifying correspondences between your catalog and those of your competitors in order to compare equivalent products. This step is essential for accurately analyzing your price positioning, product assortment, and competitiveness. It provides a reliable foundation for guiding your pricing and sales decisions.
2. How is product matching performed?
The matching engine analyzes various product attributes, such as codes (EAN, CIP, etc.), product names, brands, formats, sizes, and other characteristics. By cross-referencing this information, it identifies the most relevant matches, even when the product codes are not identical.
3. What is the difference between data collection and product matching?
Data collection involves gathering product information from your competitors, whether it comes from catalogs, e-commerce sites, or field surveys. Product matching is then used to compare this data with your own catalog and identify identical or comparable products.
4. How does the module handle products without a standard code, such as private-label products?
When products do not have universal codes—such as private-label products—matching is based on a similarity score calculated using product names, characteristics, and other attributes. This approach achieves a high level of accuracy, even in the absence of a common reference.
5. How are differences between similar products taken into account?
The module distinguishes between products that are exactly the same and comparable products that differ in size, volume, or packaging. It can also apply comparison factors to ensure consistent pricing analyses among equivalent products.
6. What metrics can I track using product matching?
The module provides several key metrics, including price positioning relative to the competition, price differences between comparable products, matching coverage rate, product assortment comparisons, market price trends, product similarity scores, and the impact of competitors’ promotions. These metrics facilitate analysis and accelerate decision-making.
7. Is product matching suitable for my industry?
Yes. The module supports various coding standards (EAN, CIP, CIP7, etc.) and adapts to the specific requirements of many industries through configurable matching rules and custom mapping tables.
8. What are the benefits of reliable product matching?
Reliable product matching makes it possible to compare competitors’ catalogs more quickly, improve the quality of pricing analyses, and speed up decision-making. It can also increase the 25% in the automatic matching rate thanks to EAN codes and make processing up to three times faster, while making it easier to integrate new competitor products.
