Reading the comparison view

The Comparison page is where you'll spend most of your time. Each card shows one of your products with the matched competitor products lined up next to it.

What's on a comparison card

For each pairing you see:

• Your product: title, price, pack quantity, and price-per-unit.
• Each matched competitor: their title, their price, their pack quantity, their price-per-unit.
• A confidence indicator: how sure the matcher was about the pairing.
• Quick actions: approve a suggestion, edit the match, say it is not a match, or open the product detail view.
• No longer listed: shown when the competitor's product was not on their site at the last price check, so the price on the card may be out of date.
• The sizes that were read: the sizes found in the two product names, and whether they are the same size. See below.

The competitor's price on each card is brought up to date after every price check. If a competitor renames a listing, the match follows it.

What was read from each listing

A price difference only means something when the two products are the same size. Under the two names, each card shows the sizes VantageDash read from them, yours and theirs, as the names write them.

• Different sizes: both names state a size and the two differ, for example yours 100 x 60 cm and theirs 450 x 700 mm. The prices on that card may not be like for like.
• Same size: both names state the same size. It can be written two ways, such as 600 x 400 mm and 60 x 40.
• Sizes read: the sizes could not be compared. Either only one name states a size (the card says "none stated" for the other), or the two are different kinds of size, such as a measurement against a weight.

A card says nothing about size when neither name states one.

Sizes are read from product names. For your own products, the size options from your store are read too. A size that a store shows only in a picture or a description is not read.

Sizes are compared as they are written, so 10 inches and 25 cm count as different sizes. For some kinds of product VantageDash knows sizes that go together, such as a 4 x 5 bag and a 1/8 oz bag, and shows those as the same size.

To find every match in another size, choose Different sizes in the size filter above the cards.

The price per kilogram or per 100 ml

Between two sizes the listed prices can point the wrong way. A 4 lb bag at $34.99 looks cheaper than an 8 lb bag at $49.99, and per lb it costs more.

So when the two listings of a match state different weights or different volumes, the card adds a line with each listed price per kilogram, per 100 g, per litre or per 100 ml (per lb, oz, gallon or fl oz when your own listing is written that way), for example "Per lb: yours $8.75 · theirs $6.25." The line also says when it points the other way from the listed prices. A multipack is divided by everything it holds: 8 x 400 g is 3.2 kg.

You see this line if your industry, under Settings, is food and drink, pet food, supplements or cosmetics, where a product is sold by its weight or volume. It is left out when the two listings are the same size (the price per item already compares them), when one states a weight and the other a volume, when a name states more than one amount and it is not clear which the price is for, and for a competitor whose prices you have marked as per item on the Competitors page.

The figures at the right of the card, and your win rate, still compare the listed prices or the price per item. Use this line to judge a pair of different sizes.

How old their price is

The competitor's price on a card is the one VantageDash read the last time it read that product at their store. When that was more than a week ago, the card says so, for example "Their price was read 27 days ago." A card says nothing about age when the price was read within the last week.

The date belongs to the product, not to the store. A price check of a large store reads part of its catalogue each time, so a store that was checked two days ago can still hold products that were last read weeks ago.

The products you have matched are the exception: every price check reads them first, before the rest of the store, so the prices on this page are brought up to date at each check. One case is left. A store that is read from its category pages stores a product under the page it was listed on, and when the product is no longer on that page it cannot be read again from there. Its card keeps the last price read and says how old it is. Once a product has been read under its own page, later checks read that page directly.

Three things can explain an old price, and the card says them:

• Price checks are paused for this store. You told VantageDash how that store sells, for example that it does not show prices, so it is no longer checked. Change it under How they sell on the competitor's page.
• Its earlier prices were kept. The last price check found far fewer products at the store than before, so VantageDash kept the earlier ones.
• Their price was entered by hand. Someone typed that price in, so a price check does not update it. Change it on the competitor's page.

When any competitor price on the page is more than a week old, a line above the cards says how many, with a link to the Competitors page, where Check Prices reads the prices again.

Price-per-unit (PPU)

When your product and the competitor's product come in different pack sizes (say you sell singles and they sell cases of 1000), comparing sticker prices is misleading. VantageDash computes price-per-unit so you can compare apples to apples.

For example, if you list a $0.25 pack of 100 and a competitor lists $149 for a pack of 1000, the card shows:

Your PPU: $0.0025/unit · Competitor PPU: $0.149/unit

The card highlights whichever side is lower so you can see at a glance who's winning on price.

Filtering and sorting

Use the controls above the cards to:

• Search: find a specific product by name.
• Sort by price gap, confidence, or product name.
• Adjust columns: choose up to 6 cards per row. A narrower window shows fewer than you chose, so a card always has room for both product names.
• Filter competitors: narrow down to one competitor at a time.
• Filter by size: show only the matches in different sizes, only the ones in the same size, or the ones whose sizes were not compared. Each choice shows how many matches it holds.

Reviewing suggestions

A suggestion is a pairing VantageDash found but was not sure enough to approve. Suggestions are listed under your approved matches, each with Approve and Not a match.

To answer several together:

1. Tick the box on each suggestion, or click Select all above the list. To narrow the list first, search or filter by competitor or by size: Select all takes only the suggestions shown. Choosing Different sizes first is a quick way to remove every suggestion that is another size of the right product.
2. In the bar at the bottom of the list, click Approve selected or Remove selected.
3. Confirm. You are asked once, for all of them.

An approved match is not changed by later matching runs. A suggestion you remove is not offered for that product again.

Removing a suggestion also ends the guessing for that product at that store. VantageDash does not put that store's next closest product in its place; it only adds a match there again when it is confident in it. If the store does sell the same product and the wrong one was suggested, do not remove the card: click the pencil on it and pick the right product from the store's list.

Putting a removed match back

Everything you have removed is listed under Removed, at the bottom of the Comparison page. The list is closed until you click it. Each line names your product, the store and the product you removed, and whether it was a suggestion or an approved match.

Click Put back on a line to undo the removal. The match returns as it was, with its price brought up to date, and that store can be suggested for that product again. A match you had made or approved yourself comes back as yours.

If the store already has a different match for that product by then, the removed one is not put back on top of it. It can be suggested again the next time matching runs.

A product's own page lists what was removed for that product, with the same button.

Editing a match

Click the pencil icon on any card to open the edit dialog. You can:

• Swap the competitor product for a different one (searchable dropdown).
• Override the match name (useful when the auto-named group is awkward).
• Adjust the confidence score manually.

Exporting

Click Export at the top of the page to download the comparison as a CSV or PDF. Useful for sharing with stakeholders or pulling data into a spreadsheet. The CSV has a column for the sizes read from your product, one for the sizes read from theirs, and one saying whether they are the same size. Another is the day the competitor's price was read. The last three are for matches in different sizes: the unit they are compared in, and your price and theirs per that unit.

Price history

From the Comparison page, click any competitor's name (or use the Price History page in the sidebar) to see a line chart of how that competitor's prices have moved over time. Helpful for spotting promotional cycles and gradual price drift.