How e-commerce is changing the pricing game
Ecommerce has been revolutionizing the retail industry for over a decade now, as a constant threat to the high street and an increasingly convenient choice for the consumer. However, one of the biggest changes of all has been how e-commerce has changed not only the average price of goods but also how prices work in general.
Here, we’re looking at some of the big ongoing changes in pricing that can be traced directly to the world of e-commerce, and how modern businesses are coping.

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After the dip
The trend of shifting to e-commerce, in general, has seen prices fall for some time. One of the big benefits of e-commerce is that not only was it convenient, but people could often find the products they were looking for at a lower price. However, now that the market has largely shifted towards e-commerce, many online stores are using the leverage to find ways of boosting the prices while offering additional value. For instance, many e-commerce businesses have started increasing prices while offering a more high-value service and including extras, such as loyalty reward systems that can carry over points from all of their purchases to offer discounts or exclusive rewards.
The rise of dynamic pricing
One of the most recent changes and one that even consumers have started to pick up on is the fact that prices of a single product in one store can change from one visit to the next, without any kind of sale, even on the same day. Dynamic pricing sees businesses using tools like competitor price comparison software, as well as monitoring website analytics to gauge both the most competitive price they can offer, as well as those that are more likely to encourage customers to convert. As such, businesses are learning to be more flexible with their pricing in a way that can encourage the most conversions while still ensuring a significant profit.
Adding subscriptions to the shopping basket
Subscription services might still predominantly be in the kind of digital media services like video streaming and audiobook services, but there are plenty of retail businesses that are starting to look more closely into the subscription model. Some of them are delivering pre-determined boxes of goods (sometimes with different varieties and options) for a monthly subscription, while others are charging a subscription for access to a certain number of or value of products on the store per month. Either way, a lot of businesses have found this to be a good way to add a mark-up to the prices, since consumers are aware they’re not just paying for the products, but the convenience of having the shopping process expedited.
E-commerce is still very much finding its feed and both subscription and dynamic pricing are only some of the latest examples of this disruptive market and the changes it’s making to how we do business. It’s very likely that even greater changes will come as a result of the massive migration to online business that we’re currently seeing.