Worksheet: Log competitor prices for your most-contested products

A competitor price looked up for one deal is gone a year later. This sheet keeps a monthly record for twenty products, and adds what customers say they paid when you lose. It builds the Competent step of the check:

Competitor list prices for a defined set of products are logged on a calendar, so movements over time can be seen.

Where the prices come from. Take them from customers, tenders and published lists. Never take them from a competitor, and never join an industry survey of future prices. Competition law bans concerted practices, and swapping price information can be one with no agreement at all (ACCC guidance). If a competitor offers you its prices, decline and write down that you did.

Step 1. The twenty products

#	Product	Why it is contested	Main competitors
1
2
3
4
5

Continue to twenty.

Step 2. The monthly log

Month	Product	Competitor	Published list price	Source (published list, tender, customer)	Logged by
e.g. March	Product 4	Competitor A	$1,450/t	Published list	Pricing analyst

Step 3. What customers paid when you lost

Date	Customer	Product	Our price	Price the customer says they paid the competitor	Source (customer, tender result)	Confirmed by a second source?

Step 4. Each quarter, look at the movement

Quarter	Product	Our average realised price	Competitor list	Competitor paid (from lost deals)	Gap this quarter	Gap last quarter

Done when: competitor list prices for the twenty products have been logged every month from allowed sources, for long enough to show movement.

Adapted from our own pricing self-assessment (PSP, 2004).