Q4 is where fortunes are made in online arbitrage. But it’s also the season where sloppy repricing can destroy margins, flood you with storage fees, or cause you to run out of your best sellers right when demand is peaking.
Here are 7 repricing traps we see sellers fall into (and how you can sidestep them this holiday season):
1️⃣ Treating All Products the Same
Using blanket rules like “always match lowest FBA” sounds simple, but Q4 is anything but simple. Some SKUs move fast and deserve aggressive rules. Others are seasonal, or have less competition, and need a more nuanced strategy.
2️⃣ Letting Your Costs Control the Price
Just because you paid $12 for an item doesn’t mean it should sell for $29. The market doesn’t care about your purchase price. In Q4, clinging to arbitrary margins can trap you in aged inventory and rack up storage penalties.
3️⃣ Chasing the Buy Box Too Hard
Winning 50% of the Buy Box might sound heroic, but often 10–15% is more than enough. Going overboard eats away at profit, especially on your high-velocity Q4 winners.
4️⃣ Ignoring Amazon’s New Low-Inventory Fees
This one is sneaky. If you burn through stock too quickly, you could get hit with Amazon’s per-unit low-inventory surcharge. Smarter sellers adjust repricing to slow down sales when stock is running thin. There are repricers which can automate this for you when you’re at risk of incurring these fees.
5️⃣ Dropping Prices on Old Inventory Without Figuring Out Why
Not every slow seller is overpriced. Sometimes it’s suppressed Buy Box, weak keywords, or even a broken listing. If you slash prices blindly in Q4, you might be cutting into profit on items that just needed a different fix.
6️⃣ Underpricing Scarce Inventory
If you’ve got an item that sells out the minute you restock, why rush to the bottom? Q4 demand is your friend – lean into higher ASPs (average selling price) when you’re holding the cards.
7️⃣ Constantly Micromanaging Your Repricer
Manually tweaking min/max prices every day sabotages the algorithm’s ability to optimize. A better approach: audit sections of your catalog on a rotation (for example, a third of your catalog every 3 days) – that way you keep control without choking the automation.
Q4 is all about balance – move inventory when it matters, protect margins when you can, and let automation do the heavy lifting. Avoiding these 7 traps will put you ahead of 90% of sellers who are too busy chasing the Buy Box at any cost.
👉 Stay smart with your repricing this season, and you’ll not only sell more – you’ll earn more.
Q4 rewards sellers who combine smart pricing with smart sourcing. Our lead lists takes care of the sourcing side with pre-vetted leads, leaving you free to focus on repricing strategy and growth.
Start stacking wins like Ken, one of our long-time subscribers:
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