Introduction
Tracking competitors’ prices in any industry allows companies to adapt and optimize their sales and marketing strategies, ensuring their offerings remain competitive and aligned with the current market position. While the e-commerce market has long been saturated with various ready-made tools for price tracking and comparison, the cybersecurity sector needs such solutions.
This article explores research conducted on the development of a Cybersecurity Competitor Tracking Pricing Platform. It delves into the necessary components and features that should be incorporated into such a platform.
Cybersecurity Market Dynamic
The competitive intensity in various cybersecurity markets varies significantly, directly impacting the distribution of revenues among companies. In markets with high competition, such as France and Germany, revenues are distributed fairly evenly among competing brands because they are all actively vying for market share. Meanwhile, in countries with low competitive intensity, such as the USA, there is greater inequality in revenue distribution, where some brands may dominate the market, significantly outpacing others.
Furthermore, the economic capacity of consumers varies across different regions, driven by differences in GDP per capita. This determines how much consumers are willing to spend on services, including cybersecurity. In countries with high-income levels, consumers tend to spend more on protecting their data and devices, creating higher revenue potential for companies operating in these markets. Meanwhile, in countries with lower GDP per capita, spending ceilings on such services will be significantly lower, requiring companies to adopt a more flexible pricing approach to remain accessible to a wide audience.
Сybersecurity Market Pricing Characteristics
Due to the large volume of users compared to paying customers, competing brands offer significant discounts to customers during the initial purchase of the product. This strategy aims to attract new users by incentivizing them to purchase a reduction in the initial cost compared to subsequent renewal prices.
In the industry, the practice of automatic subscription renewal is widespread, where after the expiration of the introductory offer, the cost of the service significantly increases for the next 12 months. This model helps firms retain customers and ensure steady revenue, but it may lead to dissatisfaction among users due to unexpected price hikes.
Customers can also opt for a long-term commitment by subscribing for more than 12 months, allowing them to receive a significant discount on the annual subscription. However, in this case, the entire amount is charged upfront rather than being evenly distributed over the entire period, requiring customers to make more substantial initial investments.
Sometimes, the large sums associated with such offers are presented as monthly payments, although in reality, the payment is made in a single installment. This may give potential customers the impression that they are getting more value for their money, despite the total cost remaining unchanged.
Source: IDC
Manual VS Automate price monitoring
Manual monitoring
One monitoring option is manual price control, including analyzing offerings from leading competitors across a range of products in key geographical regions. It’s also important to note that the consumer cybersecurity market is fragmented, adding complexities to price monitoring and comparison.
Manual price monitoring in the cybersecurity market has significant drawbacks, especially concerning the speed of reacting to market changes. After completing the analysis of competitive prices, there is a possibility of missing important changes in pricing due to the time gap between data collection and analysis. The result is decision-making based on outdated information, rendering the company’s response irrelevant by the time it is implemented in the market.
Such an approach can seriously affect the strategic positioning of the company, as any delays in updating information or errors in data can lead to incorrect strategic decisions. This, in turn, not only reduces the effectiveness of responding to competitive threats but also can impact the reputation and financial position of the company in the market.
Automate price monitoring
Automated price monitoring in the cybersecurity market offers significant advantages compared to manual methods. It enables companies to promptly respond to changes in competitor prices, ensuring continuous and instant data updates.
Thanks to automation, the risk of missing important changes in pricing is reduced since the system can continuously track the market and adapt strategies in real-time. This increases the accuracy of strategic decisions and enhances the company’s positioning in the market.
Moreover, automation reduces the workload on analytical departments, freeing up resources for more complex tasks that require deep analysis and a creative approach.
In our opinion, the implementation of automated monitoring systems becomes a key element in the strategy of maintaining competitiveness in the rapidly changing cybersecurity market.
The collection of data on prices and products of competitors in the cybersecurity sector largely depends on the use of web scraping technology. This method allows for the automatic extraction of information from competitors’ websites, ensuring the relevance and accuracy of the data needed for market analysis.
Competitor Tracking Pricing Platform Development
Let’s explore the key benefits that an automated platform can provide:
Comprehensive analytical tool: The platform should be designed to provide teams with extensive data for deep analysis of product distribution across various countries, categories, and price levels.
Price comparison functionality: The platform should offer capabilities for comparing initial prices, discounted prices, and subscription renewal prices.
Product and market analysis: The tool should allow users to view data on products in different countries and conduct comparative analysis between different markets.
Initial focus on specific markets: The tool will be focused on markets such as the USA, UK, France, Germany, and Brazil. Detailed information on each market will be available for in-depth analysis and comparison.
Instant snapshots of the current situation: The platform should provide real-time snapshots of the market situation for all system users.
Market dynamics analysis: The platform should include tools for analyzing changes in pricing and market positions of products over time to understand market dynamics and trends.
Flexibility and scalability: The platform should be designed with the ability to easily add new countries, products, and brands, allowing it to adapt to changes in business strategies and market conditions.
Main Competitors
In the cybersecurity market, several major players exert significant influence on industry trends and pricing. We have identified ten of the most significant brands in this segment, in our opinion. Among them are companies that are part of larger corporate groups, such as Avast and Norton, united under a single corporate umbrella but operating as separate brands with their own strategies and market initiatives. This division allows each brand to uniquely position itself in the market while preserving common corporate resources and strategic direction.
Using this group of companies as an example, we will examine the stages and challenges that may be encountered in the development of a Cybersecurity Competitor Tracking Pricing Platform.
Product List
First of all, it is necessary to define the product categories that we will be tracking and determine the category to which each product belongs. For example, the VPN category is represented by all the brands listed above except Trend Micro and ESET, and accordingly are named:
A similar categorization needs to be applied to all product lines of interest (antiviruses, Password Managers, VPN, etc.). This will enable us to create summary graphs and identify the pricing strategies of various brands relative to the category of their product.
It may also be important to track the emergence of new products from competitors. For example, in the case of Norton, this information can be obtained from the website’s footer. All the company’s products are listed there, and when a new product appears in this list, we will know about it in real-time.
Locations
Pricing in the cybersecurity sector is closely tied to the geographic location of consumers, which is reflected in the use of different currencies and the adaptation of websites to specific markets. Brands develop separate websites for different locations, allowing them not only to provide information in the respective language but also to display prices in the currency of the user’s country.
In the US market, prices are listed in US dollars. In France and Germany, prices are presented in euros, considering the economic characteristics of the European Union. In Brazil, prices are displayed in Brazilian reais, in accordance with the national currency policy. This differentiation helps companies to adjust their marketing and pricing strategies more accurately to each specific market, taking into account the GDP per capita in their pricing.
To collect comprehensive data, it is necessary to develop a web scraper for each version of the website. Websites from different locations are often not exact copies but have differences.
Therefore, your platform should be able to provide analytics not only in terms of product groups but also in terms of location.
Additional Platform Features
To create an effective price monitoring system in the cybersecurity sector, it is necessary to include a number of key functionalities that will meet the needs of the majority of companies, regardless of their specific requirements:
Tabular data display: The system should provide information on all products in a convenient tabular format with fields such as competitor, department, product, and price, allowing users to quickly navigate through the data.
Data filtering: It is important to provide the ability to filter data by various parameters so that users can easily find relevant information regarding specific products or markets.
Favorite products: Users should have the ability to add products to a list of favorites, allowing them to quickly receive information about products that interest them the most and track price changes.
Historical data view: The system should include functionality to display historical price change data in the form of graphs, allowing users to analyze trends and price dynamics for products of interest.
Product comparison: Users should have the ability to add products to a comparison feature to evaluate their cost and features side by side with competitive offerings.
Notifications: It is important to implement a notification system that informs users of any price changes for subscribed products. Notifications can be configured to be sent via email, ensuring timely receipt of important information.
Such a set of features will make the price monitoring system not only a powerful tool for tracking current market changes but also a valuable resource for strategic planning and making informed decisions.
Conclusion
In the cybersecurity industry, where competition is fierce but limited to only a few major players, it is impossible to find ready-made SaaS products that fully satisfy the need for competitor price analysis. In such conditions, companies are forced to develop their own platforms, which allows them to gain a competitive advantage in a rapidly changing market.
As a company specializing in the development of custom data platforms for 15 years now, we are convinced that making informed decisions can only be based on high-quality data. This not only enables us to follow trends but also makes a significant contribution to the strategic development of our clients.
