The most common rule strategies#

Repricing rules in Pricing Fox are very flexible – they can be combined, layered, and adjusted to match the specific business strategy of each online store. Below you’ll find the most common ways to set up rules and when to use them.

1. Be the cheapest on the market#

The simplest and most aggressive strategy. Pricing Fox sets the price so that your product is the cheapest of all the offers on the price comparison site (Heureka or Zboží.cz).

When to use it: For commodity goods, where customers decide primarily by price and where you have a low enough purchase price for this strategy to remain profitable.

Recommendation: Always combine it with a minimum price (limit) setting, so the resulting price doesn’t fall below the purchase price or below the margin threshold you’ve set. Without a limit, you risk selling at a loss.

2. Track a specific competitor#

Pricing Fox tracks the price of one or more specific competitors and sets your price relative to them – cheaper, the same, or more expensive by a defined amount or percentage.

When to use it: If you know your main competitor on the market and want to be systematically cheaper or keep pace with them. Also suitable for branded goods, where distributors’ pricing policy is strict.

Example: Always be 1 % cheaper than a specific online store, but not by less than 1 CZK and not below the minimum price.

3. Target a specific position among competitors#

Instead of tracking one player, you target your rank in the listing on the price comparison site – for example, you want to be in 2nd or 3rd place. Pricing Fox adjusts the price so that your offer reaches the desired position.

When to use it: If you don’t want to be the cheapest at any cost, but want to be seen among the top offers. Suitable for maintaining competitiveness without needlessly undercutting the cheapest player’s prices.

Tip: Combining it with a maximum discount limit ensures that you don’t drop to too low a price for the sake of position.

4. Margin as a safety net (fallback rule)#

A fallback rule typically stands at the end of the list of rules and catches all products that didn’t meet any previous rule (for example because they aren’t paired on the price comparison site and no reference price is available for them). A fixed margin or markup is then applied to these products.

When to use it: Always. A fallback rule should exist in every project as a safeguard, so no product is left without repricing logic.

A product is always repriced by only one rule – the first one it fits into. The fallback rule must therefore always be last in order.

5. Psychological (charm) prices#

A strategy that rounds the resulting price so it ends in “9” – for example 499 CZK instead of 500 CZK. Customers perceive this price as significantly cheaper, even though the difference is minimal.

When to use it: For products aimed at the consumer market (B2C), where the psychological effect of price plays a role in the purchase decision. Less suitable in B2B or for premium products, where too low a price may seem untrustworthy.

How to set it up: In the rule editing view, choose the rounding option and set the target pattern (e.g. –1 from the nearest whole number or a “charm” pattern to a specific digit).

6. Combining strategies and layering rules#

The strength of Pricing Fox is that you can stack rules together. A typical combination looks like this:

1. Rule for TOP products – track a specific competitor or target the 1st position
2. Rule for the standard assortment – target the 2nd–3rd position with a minimum margin
3. Rule for long-tail products – a fixed margin without tracking price comparison sites
4. Fallback rule – a fixed margin for everything else

Each rule applies to a precisely defined query of products (category, manufacturer, label, diagnostic state, etc.), so the rules don’t overlap.

We recommend starting simple – one or two rules – and gradually adding granularity based on data from reports and diagnostics. An overly complex rule structure can be hard to maintain.

FAQ#

How many rules should I have? There’s no correct number. Smaller projects manage with two or three rules; larger stores with a varied assortment can have dozens. What matters is that each rule has a clear purpose and that the fallback rule is always last.

What happens to a product that doesn’t meet any rule? The product remains unrepriced – Pricing Fox won’t calculate any price for it. That’s why we recommend always having a fallback rule with no product query (applying to all), which catches such products.

Do I have to set up the fallback rule manually? Yes. Pricing Fox doesn’t create it automatically. Just create a rule with a fixed margin or markup and leave the product query empty – the rule then applies to all products that weren’t covered by the previous rules.

Can I have multiple rules for one product at once? No. A product is always repriced only by the first rule in the list that it fits into. The order of rules is therefore key.

How do I tell that the strategy is working correctly? On the Products page you can filter by rule and check how many products fall into it and what prices Pricing Fox calculates for them. The detailed view of an individual product then shows exactly how the engine arrived at the resulting price.