Dynamic pricing: what a moving price does to emails you've already sent
Changing prices with demand, stock, competitors or the calendar. Airlines and hotels do it every day. On a shop with an email list, every price change leaves a paper trail.
- 033Dynamic Pricing
- Adjusting prices based on real-time supply and demand, competitor pricing, and other external factors.
- Moves with
- Demand, stock levels, competitor prices and the calendar
- Common in
- Marketplace repricing tools, travel and end of season clearance
- Risk for email
- A price in a sent email can be wrong by the time it's opened
- Honest version
- A price drop alert to people who were already watching
Where prices actually move for an online shop
Your own website probably doesn't run airline pricing, and it shouldn't. Prices still move, though, and usually in a few predictable places.
- Marketplaces, where repricing tools chase the lowest price around the clock
- Clearance, as stock ages or a season ends
- Launches and busy weeks, when demand is high and the discounts get pulled
- Your own email offers, which quietly give one segment a different price from another
That last one counts. A welcome code, a winback offer and a VIP early access price are dynamic pricing by another name, and they need the same care.
What a moving price does to an email that's already sent
Here's the bit people miss. Once an email has gone, the words and prices in it are fixed. If the price changes at noon, everybody who opens the morning send sees the old one, clicks through and finds something different.
Cheaper than the email said is a nice surprise. Dearer is a complaint, a lost sale and a screenshot. If your prices move often, keep exact prices out of campaign copy, or hold the price for as long as the campaign runs.
Why loyal customers notice a price change first
Your best customers watch your prices most closely, because they buy most often. When one finds out a new customer paid less for the same thing last week, it feels like a penalty for loyalty.
Keep the rules simple enough to explain. If you'd squirm telling a regular why their price was higher, the pricing is too clever. Reward loyalty with access and perks, and keep the price itself boring.
The honest use: telling people the price has dropped
There's one kind of dynamic pricing that email handles well. When something a shopper viewed gets cheaper, tell them once, with the new price and nothing else. That's the price drop flow, and it earns its place because it only reaches people who were already weighing it up.
Put a floor under the size of the drop and a cap on how often one person hears about one. Without them it turns into a discount tap left running.
Related terms
FAQs
Should a Shopify brand use dynamic pricing on its own website?
Rarely in the airline sense. Your customers compare notes, read your emails and come back often, so prices that jump around read as unfair. You'll usually do better with a stable price, planned clearance and offers aimed at specific segments, all of which you can explain if a customer asks.
Do price drop emails train customers to wait for a discount?
They can, if they fire on every small change. A floor on the size of the drop, a cap on how often one person hears about one, and a list of products that never trigger it keep the flow honest. Used that way, it tells people something useful once and stays quiet the rest of the time.
Does an email update if I change the price after it's sent?
No. The text and prices in an email are fixed once it sends, so an email opened tomorrow shows today's price. If prices might change during a campaign, leave exact prices out of the copy and link to the live product page, or hold the price until the campaign ends.
Rather we explained it on your own account?
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