And Amazon’s holiday pricing strategy is…

An analysis of Amazon.com’s holiday pricing for its best-selling items reveals two key strategic trends.



According to research from product intelligence technology provider 360pi, Amazon’s top two price dynamic categories: were best-selling office/school products (55% repriced one day to the next) and best-selling toys/games (45%).



Other categories that saw a high level of price dynamism were electronics and clothing, which are both highly contested gift categories.



“Amazon’s price dynamism on its best-selling products is particularly interesting in comparison to the retailer’s typical level of price dynamism,” said Jenn Markey, VP marketing, 360pi. “For example, we recently reported that 17% of the larger toys category was repriced daily, which is only a fraction of the dynamism we observed for their best-selling toys this month.”



In addition, 360pi observed an unusually strong focus on third-party Amazon Marketplace sellers in best-selling, price dynamic categories. For example, best-selling toys have an average of 80 marketplace sellers for each product, with Amazon proper still the only seller on 4% of them.



“Amazon has built their business around a highly sophisticated data-focused retail model, and no products get more of their attention than their best sellers,” said Markey. “The observed correlation between the number of marketplace sellers and Amazon’s price dynamism for their best-selling toys, provides additional insight into the ecommerce giant’s tactics and strategies during the holidays and beyond.”