The most dangerous number in your account is the price you set six months ago.
Brands set a price at launch, get busy, and let it sit while everything around it moves. Your fees changed. Your competitors repositioned. Your reviews got stronger, which means you earned the right to charge more. Or your category got crowded, which means you didn't.
Price is not a setting. It is a position, and positions drift.
Raising price is underrated
A brand with a real review moat and a strong main image can usually take a 5 to 8% increase with a conversion dip small enough that contribution margin goes up. We test it in a two-week window and watch units, not just revenue. Most of the time it holds.
Racing to the bottom is a Buy Box trap
Automated repricers set to beat any competitor will chase an unauthorized seller or a liquidator straight through your margin floor. Set the floor at the number where the sale is still worth making, and let the Buy Box go rather than fund a loss.
Two years of leaving money on the table
A brand we work with sold a $24 product in a category where the two nearest competitors were at $31 and $34, with worse reviews. They'd priced defensively at launch two years earlier and never revisited it.
We moved them to $28 in two steps. Units dipped 6%. Revenue rose 9%. Contribution margin rose 21%. They had been leaving money on the table for two years to win a fight nobody was having.
When did you last pressure-test your price instead of defending it?