For our latest article, our experts analyzed retail price data as well as product information from the Health & Beauty category keywords on Google Shopping during February 2021. Using our Price Intelligence Solution, we collected the data from highly competitive keywords in the category. We found more than 3,000 unique product SKUs from approximately 650 brands, sold by nearly 4,000 retailers. There were more than 35,000 price changes on these products throughout the month.
We looked at which retailers were making the greatest number of price changes and which ones were providing the most options in terms of Health and Beauty products. We also investigated the data to see what day’s retailers were lowering their prices vs raising them. Another aspect we examined was which retailers typically had lower prices than their competitors in this category throughout the month.
Most Visible and Price Competitive Retailers
We discovered that eBay had the highest product visibility followed by Walmart. If you are a retailer in this category, these two retailers appear to be your largest competitors. While having more product visibility gives the customers more options, it also means there is more competition among the manufacturer/brands of these products, in addition to more competition.
Looking at the price change data, Walmart seems to have a more aggressive dynamic pricing strategy than eBay, since they had less product visibility, but a greater number of price changes. Retailers like ModeSens, Ulta Beauty, and Sephora who are in the top five in terms of SKU count, accounted for less than 1% of the overall price changes. This tells us that during February, they did not have many price changes on their products.
Most Visible and Price Competitive Brands
Per our product pricing data, MAC was the top brand visible with the 115 Health & Beauty products. They were also the most competitive brand, as they recorded 6% of the total price changes in the category during the month. The only other brand that made the top five in terms of competitive price changes and product visibility was DevaCurl. DevaCurl had one of the most aggressive pricing strategies, as they had almost 2.6% of the total price changes on just 28 SKUs. Meaning that on average, each of their product’s prices was updated 30 times during the month.
Most Competitive Price Range
From our pricing analysis, we found 80% of the price changes were in the $0-$50 price range. This was also the most price competitive price range comprising 80% of the price changes on 74% of the SKUs. The least competitive price range was the $50-$100 range, which had 13% of products, but only 12% of the total price changes. The price range between $200-$300 had very few products, as well as a low number of price changes. These price ranges (from $200-$300) show that there isn’t much competition here. Brands could likely use this as an opportunity to target these price ranges with less competition and get good visibility on their products.
Best Deals for Shoppers
Our product pricing data showed that eBay provided the best deals for Health & Beauty products during the month. They had the greatest percentage of the lowest-priced SKUs, in comparison to the rest of the retailers in the market. eBay had the lowest prices on 44% of products during the month. Meaning that at some point during the month, eBay had the lowest price on 44% of the products. Therefore, customers shopping here would have been more likely to find the best deals for health and beauty products. Walmart was a distant second, having the lowest price on 15% of the products.
Best Weekday for Shoppers
Our Price Intelligence tool found Friday to be the best weekday for shoppers as the chances of finding Health and Beauty products at lower prices were higher. Prices were lowered 60% of the time and raised only 40% of the time on Fridays. On the other hand, Tuesday was found to be the worst weekday for shoppers as the prices were raised (63%) far more often than lowered (37%).
Top Products Carried by Most Sellers
Below are the top 5 products visible for the category Health & Beauty. These products were sold by the greatest number of retailers based on our price intelligence data.
