Competitor dumping? Find a solution: 35 tips

Competition is, of course, the engine of trade. But when there is not enough imagination to advance honestly, ideas like dumping come to mind. You can understand and forgive those who did not go well, and they want to somehow sell out and recoup their investment, but they no longer pose a threat to the future. Regarding - beginners who need to get into an already formed market. But there are citizens who are deliberately guided by such a strategy: they copy other people's developments and lower prices, believing that since others have it, they will come in twice with an underestimated cost.

In these cases, dumpers face problems, because they are the ones who will suffer the most in the long run. Expenses will not decrease, there will be no money left to promote themselves and goods.

There is nothing to despair. As studies say, price is not the first most important marker that influences a purchase .

Yes, a certain class of people are looking for the cheapest. But there are others. For example, those who do everything at the last moment, fast delivery will be more important for them. There are Old Believers who do not buy on the Internet or only take it from hand when they meet - they need offline and, accordingly, the same city. On average, cost is only the third criterion that influences the decision. According to The Forum Group, they will refuse to buy more due to poor service and lack of attention. Therefore, there is a fairly high chance of replaying.

You need to be afraid when the prices of competitors have decreased due to optimization of costs or production, more favorable conditions for the supplier, new productive personnel. Well, or when they purposefully want to eliminate you. For example, if only you and a competitor are on the dance floor. Therefore, you need not be led by provocations, but check the state of your affairs and correctly calculate the strategy.

How to deal with dumping

We have collected for you advice, book and real, from working businesses. There are well-known methods, and those that no one will share. We will not only offer black methods like sinking a competitor or breaking his legs :)

So you've entered the dumping game of what to do.

In a good way:

1. Explain the risks and why low prices are bad:

• what is, for example, MRC from the supplier
• you can get into a scam with non-original products
• used or a product for another market, defective, with a limited set of functions (this often happens with electronics)
• opened
• incomplete set
• you will have to pay extra for something else
• no guarantee
• paid service
• bad service
• not in stock
• sold illiquid, slow-moving sizes
• the seller can wishful thinking, resort to tricks: the action was yesterday, the product has already ended and blah blah.

2. Write an article on how to choose a product, how to distinguish the original, what mechanisms of deception. Share on media and social networks.

3. Give the fullest possible information about your product or service: what do you make, how do you make it. So you will show yourself savvy, and a competitor, if he does something unclean, will not be able to repeat your monologue. This is what distinguishes a good seller from a bad one - the power of persuasion. Let it look like it is depriving customers of something important against your background.

Do all this so that dumping does not hurt your reputation, and you are not known as a redneck looking only for super profits.

Tell us that high-quality materials, timely maintenance of equipment, salary to a good manager, correct storage conditions, compliance with safety rules, return / exchange, installments (it will also increase the check), your courier, etc. - it all costs money and works to satisfy the client's need.

4. Try to convince the client that you have the cheapest one. Cheaper considering the benefits it has received. Offer a reward under certain conditions. You can also play on this and make up-sales.

5. If dumping fails, even selectively, raise prices, but explain to people what they are paying for. Those. increase customer value. Although there will be a churn of customers, you will get more profit at the exit.

List your advantages and why you are more reliable: the conditional $ 10 paid now to a verified seller will save $ 300 for repairs or buying a new unit.

6.Certificates, licenses , high-quality live photos of the product and retail outlets, teams, events, photo reports of the production process will help to prove that the product is there and corresponds to the price. Standardized products are more expensive, but certification itself costs money and time, do your customers need it? Check with them. Some people forget about guarantees, they are not interested in quality at all, check with the consumer if there is any place to lower the bar and prices too.

7. Scare that you will be able to reduce the cost if you buy low-quality material, or the order will have to wait 2 weeks, or there will be, for example, packaging defects, etc.

If you have studied the competitor well, what is important, and are sure of his failure, send the client there, let him compare. And he will no longer want to look for someone on the side. This is a long-lasting method, but dangerous)

Slyly:

8. Protect yourself - try to block your competitors' access to your information as much as possible, at least automatically: close parsing to unknown third-party robots, the ability to register with def. domains and subscribe to your price cuts and mailings, block their IP and issue a message like: " The site is under repair " so that they could not withdraw your prices for some time.

Or vice versa, if you know that he is definitely dumping, and is limited in resources, show him the numbers below and force him to reduce more until he abandons this idea.

Make sure that the robot cannot substitute your site for certain conditions: the status is "in stock", write "cost" instead of "price", do something with a picture, not text. Search engines have quite serious bots, and a competitor, a cat. dumping, is unlikely to wallow in such options. This will keep the rivals in check and win you some time. But always be careful not to harm your indexing and visitor experience.

9. Go where there is no competitor: mobile, social media ... And where you are not, too. Make a name for yourself if the company is mainly found through word of mouth. Go to SEO , finally, if before the site was given only on business cards. Or in context and inform there that you have discounts (although, maybe, only for the 2nd product).

10. Study the market. Find out what is missing, what are the real prices, who your competitor is and what he offers, be guided by objective data, and not who you know personally. Talk to your customers and your competitor's customers to find out what they want. Do something that no one else has done in your niche or city, exclusive. But in advance, secure your idea so that it is not stolen and only you are associated with it.

Find a free segment without competition. For example, sell your cereals in premium packaging that can be stored later.

11. Create added value, find your own flavor and be unique, not like anyone else. But it should be beneficial or at least evoke pleasant emotions in the buyer. Over time, everything becomes boring or annoying.

12. Optimize your site and boost your ads. Just don't bombard the visitor with all your pop-ups at once.

• Add as many possible methods of feedback and payment as possible. Structure information regarding registration and delivery: it will be easier for a person if he clearly sees how much he will pay in the end. Especially if he has to find out from a competitor. Expand delivery time and territory, do it quickly, respond to inquiries instantly. Service is the king of sales!
• Choose an ad that goes exactly to your target audience, fork out for it if the budget is tight. Identify the type of ad that best brings orders and invest in it. Make the most of the system, make your ads attractive and fill out everything you can. If a competitor is dumping, perhaps he has problems with the budget and his advertising is limited to a pasted leaflet in public transport, and there not everyone can afford to buy something.
• Do you have money? Look for new channels or creatives. Push in advertising on the status, they say, it is not supposed to already be carried out on economy goods, poor service and all that.
• If you can work calmly with a budget, expand your audience to similar ones. Attack the client from all sides, you must be in sight and heard, make up the impression of being the leader in the industry.

13. When there are gold reserves and established customers, you can just wait it out - dumping prices cannot be kept forever and for the entire range. But developing is much more interesting, right? You can also wait out the lunge of beginners, especially if you overlap with them to a minimum. They may not be competitors at all to you, but to other players. And it will even go a plus. Another argument for knowing well who you are dealing with.

You can wait, and while the less restrained market player goes to fire the office :)

14. Update and expand the assortment more often, add accompanying and what is not, but is asked. Study your catalog, maybe some section with immodestly high margins is a fertile ground for dumping, so get rid of it.

For special occasions:

15. When a competitor keeps low prices for one category of goods, move another until his resources run out, then go back to the usual.

16. At some positions that allow, reduce the price until the enemy stops. This will allow you to understand the minimum markup and the ball will be on your side. Generally look for weak points and focus on them. Give the buyer what the competitor can't.

17. Produce online sellers with prices even lower than those of a dumping company. If at the same time you answer those who wish, your counterpart will also have to play a price war with others and he may change his mind.

Or write fake bad reviews about such stores so that competitors merge with your sites and negativity, and focus on the originality of the products in your home.

You can try to occupy the entire top with yourself and satellites + context. If the prospect is long-term, you will have to invest in the creation, maintenance, and promotion of sites, different phones, crowd marketing. The main thing is that the network should not be in any way connected with the main site: different contacts, IPs , hosters, etc., so as not to burn out on affiliates and not fall under the sanctions of the PS.

18. Sometimes it is also difficult to compete with networks or very large players, which, due to the volume of turnovers, can reduce prices. Then you can focus on elitism . They are ready to pay extra for being closed and limited. To do this, become a sponsor of a specialized event or organize it - do everything to raise the level of expertise in the eyes of clients.

19. Networks can be contrasted with unique designs. Go to the market with a new product and ... dump it!

20. Show or make testimonials about yourself. In the online space, dumping is also quite flourishing, all sorts of price aggregators, browser add-ons such as the Advisor, marketplaces contribute to this. In order not to pull your hair out from how they take away negligent customers, use these services and turn them into your weapon. Having good reviews, real photos, descriptions versus a bare page with a cheap product and a low rating - it's doubtful that anyone will choose the latter. Don't want to develop your store on third-party sites? There are blockers that save you from Expert Advisors, but are not recommended for installation. Although, if you have a smart developer , you can make your own.

Add average prices from price aggregators to your website page. Or show those migrating from similar locations a lower cost when it's cost-effective. Break up traffic and apply price discrimination. For those who were looking for the article / code / name of the manufacturer, let's give a low price - they turned to the search for this very purpose, tk. definitely know what to buy, just looking for cheaper. This is best done by ticking the stock for a very limited time. So the idea will not get through and will not bring down the negative when a person comes out of the house directly, but sees a completely different figure. Don't make your clients look like idiots, they won't forgive that.

21. Look for new suppliers, open points of sale or issue. Seal ties with existing ones, buy out the entire batch, ask simply not to sell to dumpers. Add opt. If you already have it, stretch out the deadline for payment.

Professionally:

22. Know everything about your product and bring this knowledge to the client, he will appreciate it. Networks often lack the required level of competence.

23. Diversify promotions, plan and implement strategies, not keep records in notebooks. Then there will be no sharp churn, you will gain time for the strategy, the client will be able to make sure of the quality of your services / product. Promotions should be temporary, better short term, but reasonable given the average decision time in your category.

• Give something for free: trap goods, as a gift , at a discount, raise the price and make a discount to your norm.
• Focus on upselling: one who buys a lot is better than 10 who buys little things.
• Offer more goods for the same price, so increase your turnover.
• Set certain conditions: wholesale price when buying from 3 units, when ordering a service not in prime time (than sitting around, it is better to sell it at a discount).
• Bet on impulse purchases , offer a discount that is valid only now when you try to leave the site. Do not play too much, so as not to mislead the buyer and not to lose his trust when the amount is opened only in the basket.
• If the product is the same with a competitor, turn the purchase into a holiday, make a buffet table, lottery, excursion to the factory, add some branded trifle to the order.

24. Optimize work processes too: automate, control, save. Although nothing prevents you from doing this constantly.

Make a special price for ordering from the site, self-pickup, waiting for shipment until the day the goods arrive in order to save on storage and delivery.

If you are a manufacturer, check prices with resellers so that sellers do not take the difference between your discount and the average price for themselves, and the buyer gets a higher price. Ideally, develop or buy software to automatically track and report dealers.

25. Decrease the% to managers from the overlapping product or increase to another, then they themselves will reorient the people. If you enter a low-end supply, simply develop scripts for them to translate those interested from the cheapest to the highest.

26. Redistribute the markup from the cheapest goods to the most expensive ones, respectively, reducing the cost of the former and increasing the latter.

27. Create a subsidiary, more budgetary brand, while you yourself continue to work with the paying public. If these are services, put young specialists, trainees, trainees to work to gain experience under someone's supervision. Release the product in a simpler version, or even several versions for different classes. If there are goods, master the economy segment (like china phones used to be). It will be, of course, worse and will clearly show where the difference in price comes from, as well as attract buyers from a new audience.

28. Show 2 options: the minimum cost for the "naked" product and the normal one, with all the benefits. The client will have to compare with each other 3 prices. Selling for a minimum acceptable to you, and all other buns for an extra charge will show what the client will lose by buying from a competitor without all these advantages. You can split the product / service into "indivisible", set the prices lower, and sell something for granted and attached at a higher price or at the price of the difference.

Breaking bad

29. Use your experience and business nuances that the dumping dealer does not know. Team up with another competitor with whom you have a normal relationship and together push the cocky one out of the market. Participants must also feel the benefit for themselves, otherwise they will not observe anything. But stay within the law so that this whole undertaking does not pull into collusion.

Or enter into partnerships with other companies, an alliance with which can benefit you and the client: something from a related area or components, service.

30. If you have a service, give the reins to a competitor and offer a free audit to the customer. You can also change the sales plane: if you sold the working hours, now it will be the result in pieces, so that there is no way to compare prices.

31. If you are a brand, add other brands (by-products), mono-brand store / landing page - make another multi-market site. Start up branding in the office and online, advertise that you need to buy this brand from you. Then you can get more marketing budget and gifts from the manufacturer.

32. Complain to: the supplier about the collapse of prices, the antimonopoly authorities about unfair competition, underpayment of taxes and gray import methods, violation of production technology, etc., if you are sure that this is the case. Because it is troublesome and involves a loss of time, sometimes money, gather evidence that this is not a one-time action, but dumping.

33. Do not give up your customers, grab them, do everything so that they use your goods / services for as long as possible: enter a subscription system at a bargain price, trade-in, a loyalty system with maximum bonuses, monitor the life of the goods and slip promotions, reminders for replacement and maintenance, purchase of consumables.

Sell services in packages to make it difficult to compare prices. it will no longer be a pure product. List so many components that the client could no longer compare and think that he was incredibly lucky. The feeling that you've found a great deal is valuable in itself, even if it's not as good as it was presented.

34. Go for the trick - increase the consumption of the product, if you produce it, review the packaging to increase consumption. Everyone remembers 2 chewing gum pads? And these caterpillars of toothpaste on the brushes?

Change the name of the product so that the person cannot compare prices.

35. And the most that I would not like, cooperate with dumpers. It is highly likely that he will run out of goods, offer him supplies according to your terms.

If you see that you can't do it yourself, call on experienced marketers, government agencies, lawyers, or trained firms. It will be cheaper than playing someone else's game.

In short ...

Usually, price wars do not benefit anyone involved. With the active development of marketplaces for more or less intelligent buyers, the price significantly lower will be an alarming signal. Do you need unreasonable clients? They will not form the core of regular customers for anyone - they will always look for where it is cheaper. And they will find it, because there will always be someone who is cheaper.

You will suffer at the beginning of the journey, and it will already be difficult for a competitor to return prices to a normal level. Between the reliable and the new seller with the newly raised prices, the proven one will be chosen, and the lost trust will be the lost sales.

That feeling when you yourself fall into your own trap.

For your fight to be effective, remember yourself as a buyer. Let's say you're looking for something on a bulletin board. Why does one want to buy from one seller, but not from another, even if it is cheaper? Give this to your parishioners :)

If you produce something, remember why you came up with it, what tasks you wanted to solve, how to help the world, how to make life easier for people. Elon Musk, Isn't YouTube an example?

And, of course, don't be greedy. If in the same USA 7% is considered profit, then ours need to squeeze out all 700. Check to see if your prices are really overpriced. Sink slowly and you will come to the goal.

Start from the reasons that prompted the competitor to knock down prices, and from the specifics of the business. Appreciate yourself

• let the product look expensive
• sell hopes and results
• describe the benefits
• associate your purchase with positive emotions
• find new uses and audiences
• describe the pricing and your "white" work
• create a USP
• closed community

Voila!