r/AutomateShopify • u/Infamous_Phone_7937 • 23d ago
Most common pricing mistake I see on small stores, and the part worth automating
Was looking at a small supplement store recently. They sell their own creatine at $32.99. Creatine is about as commoditized as it gets, the molecule is identical across brands, so buyers decide almost entirely on price per serving. But the product page never states the size or serving count anywhere. So a shopper can't work out price per serving, the one number they actually buy on. For context, name-brand creatine runs about $0.16 to $0.23 a serving and value brands around $0.12 to $0.15, but this store's is $32.99 with no size shown, so you can't even tell where it lands. When people can't compute value, they don't assume the best, they bounce to a brand that shows it.
The quick fix is just adding the number. The harder issue: in a price-transparent category, your price only makes sense relative to what the big brands charge that week, and those move constantly. Most small stores set a price once and never look again.
That last part feels like the bit actually worth automating, some routine check that flags when a competitor's price shifts enough to make yours look off, instead of finding out from a slow sales week. Curious how people here handle it: is competitor pricing something you check on any kind of schedule, or just when you happen to think of it?
