MWS Pricing Rules |
The Pricing Rules Wizard will guide you through configuring AMan pricing rules. You may click Finish at any time to save any settings you have changed. The first series of dialogues will go through the most common pricing rules which should be sufficient for most users.
The MWS Pricing Rules Wizard is displayed by doing the following:
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The following dialog will appear:
Condition and Sub-Condition Filters
Price
against offers having:
When listing on Amazon, the condition of the item is specified as two parts
- Condition and Sub-Condition. As an example, an item listed as Used -
Very Good would be considered to have a Condition of Used and a Sub-Condition
of Very Good. AMan allows you to decide if you wish to price within the
same Condition and/or Sub-Condition.
Same or better Sub-Condition - This option will price against other seller offers that have the same Condition or better. For instance, if your item is listed as Used - Good, then AMan would price against offers that are listed as Used - Good, Used - Very Good and Used - Like New. Used - Acceptable items would not be factored in. (Default = Selected)
Same Sub-Condition - If specified, AMan will only price against offers with the same Sub-Condition (e.g. Used - Very Good offers will not be considered when pricing an item that you have listed as Used - Good). (Default = Not Selected)
Same Condition- If specified, AMan will only consider offers with the same Condition (e.g. New, Used etc.). (Default = Not Selected)
Any Condition - If specified, AMan will consider all offers regardless of the Condition. That means that you may be pricing against New and Used offers. (Default = Not Selected)
Condition Exceptions
Always price below Lowest New offer if not New - If selected, AMan will price your Used and Refurbished items lower than the lowest New offer. (Default = Selected)
If Collectible, only price against Collectible offers - If selected, only Collectible offers will be considered when pricing your Collectible items. (Default = Selected)
Exclude Acceptable offers (if not Acceptable) - This option will cause AMan to not consider Acceptable offers if your item is not Acceptable. (Default = Selected)
Exclude offers that ship from another country - This option will cause AMan to ignore offers that ship from a foreign country. (Default = Not Selected)
Feedback will be returned in ranges rather than absolute values. The ranges will be available in the List an Item screen when listing or repricing inventory. Currently Amazon uses the following ranges: 98-100%, 95-97%, 90-94%, 80-89%, 70-79%, Less than 70%, Just launched.
Exclude sellers whose percentage feedback range do NOT include or is less than - (Default = 89%)
Exclude sellers with less than this number of feedbacks - Setting a non-zero value will cause AMan to exclude pricing against sellers whose number of feedbacks is less than that number. This is usually used to exclude pricing against new sellers who may under-price. (Default = 0)
Once AMan has filtered out offers you do not wish to price against, your price will be calculated against the lowest remaining price and then adjusted by the amount or percentage specified.
Amount to adjust lowest price found after applying rules - If this is negative, then AMan will subtract this value from the lowest of the remaining prices to obtain your price, if positive will add this value to the lowest remaining price to obtain your price. If zero, AMan will match the lowest remaining price to obtain your price. (Default = 0.00)
If Use $ Amount is selected, AMan will treat the value as an absolute monetary value. (Default = Selected)
If Use Percentage is selected, AMan will adjust your calculated price by this percentage. Default = (Not Selected)
If no competing offers remain after filtering, set My Price to item MaxPrice - If checked, and a MaxPrice is assigned to an item, and all competing offers obtained are filtered out based on your configured rules, AMan will set your price at the MaxPrice. (Default = Selected)
Minimum Price to use after My Price is calculated
Never price below - This value is a "Global Minimum Price". If no MinPrice is assigned to an item, and no Cost is assigned to an item or a Cost Formula is not configured, AMan will use the price configured here as the minimum price.
If zero, AMan will never price below 0.01. (Default = 0.00)
For items that have a MinPrice and/or a Cost assigned to an item + a Cost Formula configured, AMan will use the item specific minimum as the minimum price and ignore the global minimum configured here.
Using this option, AMan can be configured to always set the prices an amount or percentage below the lowest New price. This will only apply to Used or Refurbished items. It will not factor in when pricing Collectible items. New items will be priced against New items by default.
Price at least X below low New- This will cause AMan to always ensure that the price of each Used or Refurbished item will be X below the current lowest New price. This will allow you to be competitive with New prices when pricing Used or Refurbished items. (Default = 0.00)
Price at least Y% below low New- This option always ensures that the price of your Used or Refurbished items are at least Y% below that of the lowest New price. (Default = 0.0%)
This section allows you to set a minimum price for all your items based on the cost of your item. AMan allows entry of the cost of each item when listing (or afterwards in bulk) - see Listing a Single Item or Changing Pricing Parameters in Bulk .
Here you can specify the formula for the minimum price based on the cost of an item. The formula is simply: Min Price = (Cost * X) + Y
Typically, X is the amount of profit you wish to make and the Y is the amount to factor in to cover the cost of shipping handling.
For instance, if the cost of an item was 5.00, X was set at 1.5 and Y was set at 2.00, then AMan would never price that item at less than 9.50 (7.50 + 2.50) which would allow a 50% profit and 2.00 for handling charges. (Default = 1 + 0.00)
Note: The Cost Formula is ignored if the multiplier value is 0.0 or there is no Cost associated with an item.
These options allow you to price a percentage and/or amount lower than the New Buy Box price. Additionally you may choose not to reprice your item if you own the New Buy Box.
Note: If a New Buy Box price is obtained for media items, this will usually be the Amazon price.
Price at least X below New Buy Box price (ignored if zero) - Here you can specify an amount you want to always price your items below the New Buy Box price. (Default = 0.00)
Price at least Y below New Buy Box price (ignored if zero) - This option allows you to enter a percentage to always price your items below the New Buy Box price. (Default = 0.0%)
Do not change my price if the New Buy Box is already owned by me - If you own the New Buy Box and this option is selected, AMan will not reprice your item. (Default = Not Selected)
Price Watch is a function within AMan pricing
used to prevent large deviations in price. These deviations may be caused
by inexperienced sellers or malicious sellers reducing prices which cause
your price to drop artificially, or from increasing beyond what you feel
is a reasonable price. Price Watch allows you to specify what action to
take if a price changes by more than an amount or a percentage value.
It also allows you to specify which items to apply Price Watch to. Note
that when prices are limited by Price Watch, Pending Uploads (the column
PW will be checked and colored)
and List an Item will display .
Note: Price Watch is turned on only if both the checkbox is checked AND a non-zero value has been entered for the amount and/or the percentage.
Never Reduce prices by more than: - Here you may specify the amount or percentage that will trigger Price watch. For instance if you specify 70% as a percentage amount, then if a price decreases by that amount or more, the Price Watch action will be taken. (Defaults = Selected and 70.0%)
Never Raise Prices by more than: -
Here you may specify the amount or percentage that will trigger Price
watch when your price increases. For instance if you specify 50% as
a percentage amount, then if a price increases by that amount, the
Price Watch action will be taken. (Defaults = Not Selected
and 0.0%)
Action to take when above limits reached:
Leave price unchanged - If specified, then AMan will leave the price at its current value. (Default = Selected)
Change price by lower of % or amount - If selected, and Price Watch kicks in, AMan will adjust the price but only to the lower of the amount or percentage. This provides a graduated price change mechanism while still protecting you from large deviations. (Default = Not Selected)
Apply Price Watch when my existing price is at least - This allows you to exclude items with a value less than specified from Price Watch. For instance, you may not be interested in price deviations for an item you have listed at 0.50. (Default = 1.00)
For non-media items, Amazon allows sellers to specify a shipping time greater than 2 days. If you sell non-media items, you may not wish to price against sellers whose shipping times are greater than 2 days.
Exclude offers whose shipping do NOT include or is greater than X Days - If checked, and a number of days is entered, AMan will not price against other seller offers whose shipping time does not include or is greater than the number of days specified. (Default = Not Selected)
These options allow you to specify which Condition(s) you do not want AMan to price.
Do NOT price my New items - If checked, AMan will not price any items in New Condition.
Do NOT price my Used items - If checked, AMan will not price any items in Used Condition.
Do NOT price my Collectible items - If checked, AMan will not price any items in Collectible Condition.
Do NOT price my Refurbished Items - If checked, AMan will not price any items in Refurbished Condition.
AMan can exclude other sellers offers that are below your minimums before calculating your prices. It is possible to have up to 3 different minimum prices for any item. These are:
The "Global Minimum Price" configured above
An item specific Minimum Price
A cost based minimum, if a Cost is entered for an item and a Cost Formula is configured above
Exclude offers priced below my minimum price (specific, global or cost based) - This option will cause AMan to filter out any seller offers that are less than the highest minimum price entered or calculated for the item. Turning this option on will cause AMan to price against the next highest available offer price above your minimum when pricing causes your minimum to be used. Note that as Amazon does not provide a contiguous set of offer prices, the next available (as opposed to the next actual) offer price may be significantly higher than your minimum and cause AMan to price your items quite high. (Default = Not Selected)
Exclude offers priced below the New Buy Box offer - Setting this option will cause AMan to filter out any seller offers that are less than the New Buy Box offer (if one exists). If you are interested in pricing against the buy box but do not want to price below it and cause a downward spiral of prices you should select this option. (Default = Not Selected)
Merchant (Self/MFN) Fulfilled Items Filter
Here you can specify which type(s) of offers you wish to price your Merchant Fulfilled items against.
Price my Merchant Fulfilled items against:
Merchant Fulfilled (MFN) - If checked, AMan will price your Merchant Fulfilled items against other Merchant Fulfilled offers. (Default = Selected)
Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) - If checked, AMan will price your Merchant Fulfilled items against FBA offers. (Default = Not Selected)
Pricing Processing Options
When listing new inventory, AMan will not know, and may not be able to determine your shipping cost.
Initially use zero for shipping cost if shipping cost cannot be determined - Checking this option will cause AMan to assume your item has a $0.00 shipping cost. Therefore, the price calculated when listing new inventory may be too high. However, once listed, AMan will know your shipping cost and will adjust your price accordingly when repricing. Leaving this option unchecked is not recommended as AMan may be unable to price the new listing. (Default = Selected)
If you configure AMan to increase or decrease prices calculated by a percentage, there are two ways to calculate the percentage - a percentage of the price without shipping, or a percentage of the total (price + shipping). The options below allow you to choose which method AMan will use when calculating percentage increases and decreases.
Use Total Price (price + shipping) when calculating percentages - If selected, AMan will use the Total Price when calculating a percentage increase or decrease. (Default = Selected)
Use Listing Price (price without shipping) when calculating percentages - If selected, AMan will use only the Price (excluding shipping) when calculating a percentage increase or decrease. (Default = Not Selected)
AMan has a safety mechanism that will trigger warning messages and prompt you to review the prices calculated if the configured percentage of your items that previously were not priced at a penny are repriced to a penny. This mechanism works the same whether repricing manually or automatically. If automatic repricing is halted due to the trigger, those prices will not be uploaded to Amazon and automatic repricing will be turned off.
Stop pricing if X% or more items are repriced to a penny - Enter a percentage you feel comfortable with. (Default = 60%)