FAQs

We have compiled answers to the questions we hear most often from our clients — about how price monitoring works, what we specifically track, how our collaboration unfolds and what you can expect from it. If you can't find your question among them, feel free to reach out — we are happy to take the time and discuss your situation personally.

What is price monitoring?

Price monitoring is an automated process of tracking your competitors' product prices online. The system regularly collects current pricing data from online shops, marketplaces and price comparison portals and presents it in clear, structured reports. Thanks to price monitoring, you can find out at any time how your prices compare to the market — without manually browsing through competitors' websites.

Why is price monitoring important for my business?

Prices in the market change every day. Without regular monitoring, you risk selling too expensively and losing customers — or too cheaply and unnecessarily sacrificing margin. Price monitoring gives you a real-time overview of the market situation, allowing you to react quickly to changes, strengthen your negotiating position with suppliers and optimise your pricing strategy before your competitors do.

Who is price monitoring suitable for?

Price monitoring is designed for companies that sell products in a competitive environment — online shops, retail chains, manufacturers, distributors and suppliers. It is used by companies in the FMCG, retail, pharma and e-commerce sectors. It is equally suitable for smaller businesses looking to monitor a handful of key competitors and for large corporations tracking hundreds of thousands of SKUs across the entire market.

How does price monitoring work technically?

Price monitoring is based on automatic crawling — software regularly visits websites, online shops and price comparison portals and collects current pricing data. This data is then cleaned, matched with your own products (product matching) and presented in the form of clear dashboards and reports. The entire process runs automatically and without any manual intervention.

Is price monitoring GDPR-compliant and legally permissible?

Yes. Price monitoring works exclusively with publicly available data — information that is accessible to any website visitor. No personal customer data or protected information is processed. Lumera Insights' solution is 100% ethical, GDPR-compliant and developed in Europe in accordance with applicable European regulations.

What is the difference between price monitoring and assortment monitoring?

Price monitoring tracks the price level of competitors' products. Assortment monitoring goes a step further — it observes which products the competition offers, which new items they add, which they delist and where stock shortages occur. The combination of both services gives you a comprehensive picture of what the competition sells and at what price — the foundation for truly informed business decisions.

How up to date is the data from price monitoring?

The update frequency depends on your requirements and the chosen solution. Lumera Insights offers monitoring with a frequency ranging from daily updates to real-time monitoring — depending on how quickly prices change in your market segment. For most industries, a daily overview is sufficient; for more dynamic markets, we recommend more frequent data collection.

How much does price monitoring cost?

The price depends on the number of monitored products (SKUs), the number of competitors and the update frequency. Lumera Insights offers tailored solutions for every client — without fixed packages or restrictions. Contact us for a free consultation and a non-binding offer tailored precisely to your needs.

Can I monitor only selected competitors?

Yes. Price monitoring from Lumera Insights can be configured exactly according to your needs — you can monitor specific competitors, entire market categories or a combination of both. The monitoring can be expanded or adjusted at any time as your market situation evolves.

What is customer review monitoring?

Customer review monitoring is the automated collection and analysis of customer ratings and reviews for your products and your competitors' products — across all relevant online platforms, including online shops, marketplaces, price comparison portals and review sites. The result is a consolidated overview of what customers are genuinely saying about your products and those of your competitors.

Why is customer review monitoring important for my business?

Customers read reviews before making a purchase — that is an undeniable fact today. However, customer review monitoring gives you far more than just an overview of ratings. It uncovers specific weaknesses in your competitors' products that you can turn to your advantage. It shows you what customers appreciate about your products and what they feel is missing — a direct input for product development, marketing and customer service.

From which sources are reviews collected?

Lumera Insights collects anonymised reviews and ratings from all publicly available sources — product pages of online shops, marketplaces such as Heureka or Amazon, Google reviews, specialist portals and other relevant platforms depending on your industry. The sources are defined individually based on where customers in your market segment are active.

Are personal data processed during review monitoring?

No. Review monitoring works exclusively with anonymised, publicly available ratings. We do not process any personal customer data — no names, email addresses or other identifiers. The entire process is GDPR-compliant and in accordance with European data protection legislation.

How can I use the data from review monitoring in practice?

The applications are wide-ranging. Product teams use review data to identify product defects and weaknesses before customers start complaining en masse. Marketing teams extract arguments from reviews that customers themselves consider important and incorporate them into their communications. E-commerce teams monitor the ratings of competitors' products and identify opportunities where they can win over dissatisfied customers with their own offering.

Do I receive only numerical ratings or also a text analysis of reviews?

Lumera Insights offers on request a qualitative content analysis of reviews — meaning not just how many stars a product receives, but also what customers specifically praise or criticise. This analysis uncovers recurring themes, customer sentiment and the key drivers of satisfaction or dissatisfaction — insights that a purely numerical rating can never reveal.

Can I monitor reviews for specific products only or entire categories?

Review monitoring is configured precisely according to your requirements. You can monitor individual SKUs, entire product categories, reviews on specific platforms or a combination of all of the above. The system is fully flexible and scalable — monitoring can be extended to new products, categories or markets at any time.

How does review monitoring differ from Google Alerts?

Google Alerts notifies you only when the name of your company or product appears somewhere on the web. Review monitoring goes far deeper — it systematically collects, sorts and analyses ratings from dozens of platforms, including those where customers review products without directly mentioning your company. The output is not a mere notification but a structured report with actionable insights.

What is assortment monitoring?

Assortment monitoring is the automated observation of your competitors' product portfolios. The system regularly captures which products the competition offers, which new items they add to their range, which they delist and where stock shortages occur. The result is an overview of the breadth and depth of the market assortment, helping you make better purchasing and category decisions.

What is the difference between assortment monitoring and price monitoring?

Price monitoring answers the question: "At what price does the competition sell?" Assortment monitoring answers the question: "What does the competition sell at all?" They are therefore complementary services — price monitoring tells you whether you are more expensive or cheaper, while assortment monitoring tells you which products you are missing from your range or where you hold an exclusive position. The combination of both gives you a complete picture of the market.

What exactly can be tracked with assortment monitoring?

Assortment monitoring captures new additions to competitors' ranges — new products, new brands and new categories. It tracks stock shortages and out-of-stock situations, changes in product variants, delistings and the removal of products from the range. Based on this data, you can identify gaps in your own assortment, spot trends earlier than the competition and make purchasing decisions with data-backed confidence.

Who is assortment monitoring most suitable for?

Assortment monitoring is particularly valuable for category managers, buyers and product managers in retail, FMCG and e-commerce. It is equally used by manufacturers and suppliers who want to observe how their products and competitors' products are distributed across different sales channels. It is suitable for any company that wants to actively manage its category and not react to market changes with a delay.

How does product matching work in assortment monitoring?

Product matching is the process of automatically pairing competitors' products with your own SKUs. The system compares product names, EAN codes, attributes and descriptions, and assigns each competitor product to its equivalent in your range. This way, you can see directly where your assortment overlaps with the competition, where you have exclusive products and where you are missing products that the competition is successfully selling.

How frequently is assortment data updated?

The update frequency is agreed upon together based on your requirements and market dynamics. For most clients, weekly or fortnightly assortment monitoring is sufficient, as assortment changes do not happen as quickly as price changes. In dynamic categories where the competition adds new products every week, we recommend more frequent monitoring. Everything is set up precisely according to your requirements.

Can I also monitor assortments in foreign markets?

Yes. Lumera Insights collects data from all publicly available sources without geographic restrictions — in any language and from any market. Whether you want to monitor the UK, US, German, Austrian or Polish market, assortment monitoring works just as precisely as in your home market.

Do I receive only raw data or also an interpretation?

In addition to the raw data, Lumera Insights offers on request analytical reports with concrete recommendations — which products should be added to the assortment, where stock levels can be reduced and where exclusivity over the competition can be leveraged. It is therefore not just about data, but about real business insights that you can immediately put into practice.

What are typical use cases — who uses Lumera Insights and for what?

Our clients are typically companies that need to systematically monitor the market and their competition. Typical use cases include: a category manager in retail who wants to know which new products the competition is listing before adding them to their own range; a brand manager at a manufacturer checking whether retailers are adhering to recommended retail prices; an e-commerce team optimising its pricing strategy based on daily price data; or a product team using customer review data to develop better products. What they all have in common is one thing — they need reliable market data, not gut feelings.

Is a one-time monitoring project possible or only long-term collaboration?

Both options are available. A one-time monitoring project is ideal before launching a new product, entering a new market or ahead of important business negotiations — when you need an accurate snapshot of the market at a specific point in time. Regular monitoring, on the other hand, provides a continuous overview of market developments over time and allows you to track trends, seasonal fluctuations and the competition's reactions to your business moves. We recommend starting with a one-time project and deciding on the next steps based on the results.

Is there a limit on the number of monitored products (SKUs)?

No. Lumera Insights places no restrictions on the number of monitored SKUs, competitors or markets. Whether you want to monitor 100 or 500,000 products — we adapt the solution precisely to your scale. The absence of artificial limits is one of our key advantages over standardised tools that force you to pay for every additional package or product tier.

Am I contractually bound? What are the terms of collaboration?

The terms of collaboration are agreed individually for each project. For a one-time monitoring project, you are not bound by any long-term contract — the collaboration is established for a specific project with a clearly defined scope and price. For regular monitoring, we agree on the terms in advance, aiming for maximum flexibility — without automatic renewal and with the option to adjust the monitoring scope at any time to reflect current needs.

How long does it take from first contact to the start of monitoring?

Typically, from first contact to the delivery of the first data, it takes one to two weeks. This time covers the needs assessment, the setup of sources and the crawler, product matching with your SKUs and quality control of the data before handover. For simpler projects, we can be faster; for complex monitoring across multiple markets and languages, the setup may require a little more time.

Which markets and languages can you cover?

Lumera Insights collects data from any publicly available source on the internet — without geographic or language restrictions. We cover the UK, US, German, Austrian, Swiss, Czech, Slovak, Polish, Hungarian and other markets equally reliably. If you are expanding outside Europe, we can set up monitoring for non-European markets as well. The language of the source website is no obstacle for us.

How do you ensure the quality and accuracy of the data?

Data quality is our highest priority. Every monitoring project goes through a multi-stage quality control process — automated data validation as well as manual spot checks before handover to the client. We monitor the availability of sources, the error rate of the crawler and the consistency of data over time. If we detect any anomaly or source outage, we notify you immediately and resolve the issue without you having to take any action on your end.

How does the first contact work and what happens afterwards?

Simply write to us or fill in the contact form on the website. We will get back to you within one business day and arrange a short introductory call, during which we ask about your needs, goals and current situation. Based on this call, we prepare a non-binding, tailor-made offer — without unnecessary delays and without generic packages that do not fit your requirements.

FAQs

What is price monitoring?

Why is price monitoring important for my business?

Who is price monitoring suitable for?

How does price monitoring work technically?

Is price monitoring GDPR-compliant and legally permissible?

What is the difference between price monitoring and assortment monitoring?

How up to date is the data from price monitoring?

How much does price monitoring cost?

Can I monitor only selected competitors?

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