The sales team brings in a screenshot: the product is selling well below the recommended price. An hour later the price on the site has changed, the seller says it was the price for a different size, and in their basket the total is higher because of shipping. Sound familiar? A single observation without context proves nothing and is easy to dispute. Here is what you need to record so that a deviation from the recommended retail price (RRP) becomes a fact you can base decisions on.
Why "I saw it cheaper" doesn't work
- Prices change fast. Online shops and marketplaces update prices several times a day, and promotions last for hours.
- The price depends on who is looking. Region, delivery country, being logged in, loyalty programmes and coupons give different shoppers different prices.
- The listed price is not the checkout price. Shipping, payment-method fees and minimum order values change the total.
- It may be a different product. A different size, colour or configuration, a bundle, a marked-down item or a returned one.
- VAT. B2B sites often show prices excluding VAT — they look lower than the RRP, even though they do not contradict it.
What a deviation record should contain
A complete record answers "what, where, how much and when" in a way that someone who never saw the page can verify:
- Product — your SKU and, if available, the EAN/GTIN barcode, so there is no dispute about whether it is the right item.
- Seller — the shop, and on a marketplace the specific seller: a single product listing can have dozens of them.
- URL of the page where the price appeared.
- Price and currency, noting whether the price includes VAT.
- The RRP at the time of the check and the size of the deviation as a percentage.
- Availability — in stock, available to order or out of stock. A low price on an out-of-stock item is a different situation from a low price on stock that is ready to ship.
- Date and time of the check.
- A screenshot of the page and the saved HTML. The screenshot shows what the shopper saw; the HTML lets you check where the price was taken from if the screenshot is disputed.
Mistakes that create false violations
The costliest mistake is incorrect product matching. If the system mistakes a set for a single item, or 50 ml for 200 ml, the "violation" turns out to be an error — and trust in the data is undermined. That is why matching has to be verified: automatically by SKUs and barcodes, and by a person in disputed cases.
The second typical mistake is picking the wrong price from the page: the price of a neighbouring product in a recommendations block, a struck-through old price or a unit price. The saved page lets you check this quickly.
A history, not a single snapshot
A one-off deviation says little about the market. Patterns matter more: how long the price stays below the RRP, whether it recurs week after week, whether it coincides with retail chain promotions, clearance sales or the arrival of new sellers. Regular scheduled checks turn individual screenshots into a price history that shows what is really going on — a temporary promotion or a sustained price drop.
What to do with this data
Accurate data is needed for market analysis, promotion planning, evaluating sales channels and checking the conditions you are entitled to enforce — for example, a maximum price or the rules of selective distribution. If you operate in the EU, remember: you cannot require a seller to keep the price at or above the RRP, and monitoring data must not become grounds for pressure. This line is covered in detail in the article "Recommended Retail Prices in the EU: What Brands Can and Cannot Do".
How it works in Helecos
Helecos checks your products' prices at sellers on a schedule and compares them with the RRP. Products are matched using AI with 99% accuracy. For every deviation it stores the seller, URL, price, currency, RRP, check time, HTML and a screenshot of the page, and new deviations trigger reports and alerts. Learn more on the RRP monitoring page; to see how it looks on your own products, try a free price audit.