Continuous price collection only creates value when the information is used. The ideal frequency depends on the pace of your market, your margins and the importance of the products you monitor.
1. Measure volatility by category
Technology, beauty and fashion experience rapid changes. Tools and industrial equipment, by contrast, tend to be more stable. Classify your categories according to their actual volatility.
2. Prioritise the products that carry the most weight
Your flagship products should be monitored more frequently than the long tail. Apply an 80/20 principle: 20% of products justify 80% of refreshes.
3. Adjust for key commercial periods
Sales, holidays, advertising campaigns and launches require more frequent collection. Prepare seasonal frequency schedules.
4. Consider technical constraints
The higher the frequency, the more robust the technical setup must be: error handling, extraction times and compliance with the websites being scraped.
Example frequency matrix
- Traffic-driving products: two to six collections per day.
- Strategic products: one collection per day.
- Secondary products: one collection per week.
- Long-tail products: one collection per month.
Monitor and adjust
Analyse the real value of collections: how many useful alerts and how many decisions? If a segment never triggers action, reduce its frequency.
The optimal frequency changes with seasonality and competition. The objective is to remain responsive where it matters without overloading your teams.