Rival price change → a pricing response

Why it matters

A rival who cuts the product price may have raised delivery, narrowed the free-delivery threshold or added a fee at checkout. Compare the full price a customer pays, delivery and fees included. The gap is often smaller than the product page suggests, and sometimes you already win.

Price is one lever. A better delivery promise, a bundle or clearer proof of quality can answer a cut without giving up margin. The competitor website monitor loop is in build and not on sale; when it ships it will flag price changes on the pages you choose. Until then, the manual check below catches the changes that matter most.

What you need

• - A short list of products you and your rivals both sell, matched like for like (same size, spec or bundle)
• - Each rival's product page, basket and delivery page for those products
• - Your own current price, delivery charge, free-delivery threshold and margin per product
• - A rule for what you will not do (for example, never price below a set margin)

Setup

1. For each matched product, record the rival's product price, delivery charge, free-delivery threshold and any fee added at checkout. Add items to the basket to see the true total; do not complete a purchase.
2. Record the same for your own product, so both sides are measured the same way.
3. Note the date and keep a screenshot of each page. Prices move, and you need the evidence.
4. Paste both sets of figures, plus your margin floor, into the prompt below.
5. If you decide to run a comparative ad, check it against the advertising rules on comparisons before it goes out.

The prompt

Paste this into any capable model, followed by the evidence you gathered in the setup.

You are helping a UK online shop decide how to respond to a rival's price change.
Below, for each matched product, are the rival's and our: product price, delivery charge, free-delivery threshold, any checkout fees, and the date captured. Our minimum acceptable margin is stated at the end.
Do this:
1. For each product, work out the full price a customer pays on each site for a single unit, and at the free-delivery threshold. Show your working using only the figures given.
2. State whether the rival is now cheaper, the same, or dearer on the full price, and by how much in the units given.
3. Give three response options: match on price; hold price and improve something else (delivery, bundle, guarantee, proof); or hold and do nothing. For each, state what it costs us in margin using only the figures I gave.
4. Recommend one option per product, rated for effort (low/medium/high) and likely impact (low/medium/high), with the reason.
5. Flag any page where a fee only appears at checkout, quoting the wording.
Rules:
- Quote the evidence for every point, word for word, and say where it came from (which rival, which page or ad, which date I captured it).
- Label each point OBSERVATION (you can see it in the evidence) or HYPOTHESIS (your reading of why). Never present a hypothesis as a proven cause.
- Never invent a figure, a date, a price or a result. If the evidence does not show it, write "not in the evidence".
- Use British English and plain words.

Figures:
[paste the figures here]

Doing it by hand today

Check your matched products by hand once a fortnight, and every week in the run-up to the November sales peak. A simple sheet with one row per product and one column per rival is enough.

Two sets of rules apply. The CMA's price transparency guidance covers mandatory fees in the headline price and drip pricing: a rival who hides a fee until checkout carries that risk, and a shop that shows its full price early has a point to make in its own copy. If you compare prices in an ad, the CAP Code requires the comparison to be like for like, objective and verifiable.

The shipping threshold tool and the discount designer help you model a non-price response before you commit to one.