Knowledge is More Than Power— It’s Profits

KNOWLEDGE IS MORE THAN POWER—IT’S

PROFITS!

Chris Allinotte, WRLA

Attention hardware store owners and managers: How do your

prices compare to the big box stores in your area? How do you know? Did you look up their products online?

How about on that other product? How’s the pricing on that one? Better look that one up, too.

Now half the morning is gone and there’s a sale starting mid-week anyway so all the information is going to change.

How can you keep up with price changes, and make sure you’re staying in your area?

Product Sonar may have the answer you’re looking for. Recently introduced to WRLA members, Product Sonar is a tool that can help independent dealers compete with big box stores by providing pricing data sourced from your local market.

Currently tracking over 1.01 million unique SKU’s across 5 major retailers with 618 physical locations across Canada, Product Sonar produces weekly, or even daily reports that can help you ensure you know what your customers are seeing when they walk into your competitor’s locations, and give you the edge to help increase your sales without sacrificing your profit margins.

While the pricing data is certainly trustworthy enough that it would be possible to just undercut the big retailers across the board, that’s not the intention of Product Sonar.

“It’s not intended to create a race-to-the-bottom culture,” says Nate Boscher, Sales and Support representative for Product Sonar. Rather, one of the benefits the reports provide is to help dealers identify products that you can charge more for thus improving your profitability.”

On their website, where you can obtain a free local market report before jumping into a subscription, you’ll find tips on “relevant” pricing. In short—know which products in your area customers are aggressively price matching, such as 2 x 4 lumber, and which ones they’ll pay for without a second thought, even if they cost a little more at your store—nails and fittings, for example. It’s this second category where stores armed with Product Sonar’s market data stand to benefit. Customers see that you’re right in line on the products they’re watching closely, and they’ll stay to do the rest of their shopping, and happily pay an increased margin on the extras. Once you’ve flagged the “high alert” products you want to keep an eye on, it’s just a matter of pulling your weekly report to keep track of the ebb and flow of pricing on those products in your area.

You also have the ability to customize the frequency of the reports. Checking in on a weekly basis may be more than enough, whereas in some markets, and with some products, you may want to be looking at your reports as part of your morning routine. It’s all customizable, and Product Sonar works with each of their customers to deliver the most useful data in an easy-to-understand format.

The Product Sonar website itself has a few surprises that make it worth the time to check out. The home page features random SKU’s from across Canada, and whether their price today is up or down. You’d be surprised how many times you’ll click the button to find out what they’re charging for laundry hose in Barrie, ON or ¾" PVC Tees in Winnipeg. How well do you know the price of common lumber off the top of your head? Put it to the test with a round of “Stick Trivia”.

The most valuable offering on the website, by far, is the “try before you buy” local market report. Select from up to 6 categories to track, put in your postal code and email, and Product Sonar will track those items in your market for a few days before sending you a full report.

On the next page, you’ll see a sample report that shows just how Product Sonar works to give you the best information in a readable format, comparing the largest retailers against the market average, and giving you trends across 7 days, 90 days, and the full year-to-date. It also lets you know how much time you’d be taking if you were to look up each of these items on your own!

The WRLA Tech Committee vetted the program before launching to members. Gary Fletcher from Trail Building Supplies undertook the pilot of the program and has offered to help other dealers that are thinking of adopting this program. Gary can be reached at gary@trailgroup.com or 780-463-1737. For more information to trial the program, please scan the QR code on the next page or visit the link provided. What have you got to lose?