Boloo or Rylee? How MarktMentor delivers more data than these two companies combined
Lars HurkmansCo-founder1 July 2023Reading time 8 minutes
MarktMentor differs from traditional product trackers such as Boloo and Rylee in that we don't use the shopping cart method. Where they track individual products per user, we use algorithms to monitor practically all selling products on bol. This way we track data on more products than Boloo and Rylee combined, without you having to wait for data.
There are several tools you can use to track sales on bol, including Boloo and Rylee. Below we first explain what product trackers do and where their way of collecting data runs into trouble. Then we show how MarktMentor offers an alternative to that.
What are product trackers and how do they work?
Product trackers are automated tools that track the sales of individual products by monitoring stock changes. This lets you estimate product sales, important information for every seller. One of the biggest companies using this method to track products is Boloo. Boloo has a prominent position in the market and many users who rely on the product tracking system.
To research which products there's demand for, you can use different angles. These can roughly be divided into two types: qualitative and quantitative methods. Qualitative methods include, for example, getting ideas from conversations with suppliers, looking at products in shops or wholesalers, or scouring the internet to come across interesting products there.
To validate these ideas, you'll need to use quantitative methods. A commonly used method is the shopping cart method. This is a method in which an estimate is made of the sales of individual products by tracking stock changes. At regular intervals the stock of individual products is measured, after which the difference in stock is counted as realised sales. This method is often applied on online marketplaces such as bol or Amazon.
Manually applying this method is a time-consuming process. To speed this up, there are various online tools that have automated the shopping cart method. These tools have a computer carry out the actions of the shopping cart method at regular intervals, making it relatively easy to get sales estimates for various products.
There are several companies that have built their business model around automating the shopping cart method. These companies give their users the ability to track a product's sales over time, so they can back up suggestions they've come up with through, for example, various qualitative methods with some form of data. In e-commerce this service is known as a product tracker. Boloo and Rylee are two of the biggest players offering this service.
Rylee, like Boloo, offers a product tracker based on the shopping cart method. Rylee's product tracker is designed to help e-commerce sellers track the sales of their products on online marketplaces such as bol. By attracting multiple users and then having those users track multiple products, these companies can expand their database.
What are the limitations of the shopping cart method?
The shopping cart method is a valuable tool for tracking product sales, but it has a number of technical limitations. These include setting the right measurement intervals, the difference between stock changes and actual sales, dependency on the online marketplace, the issue of multiple sellers offering the same product, and scalability issues. These limitations can blur the picture of actual sales and affect the accuracy of product tracking.
Setting the right measurement intervals is crucial for the shopping cart method. The bigger the time interval between two measurements, the bigger the uncertainty about each measurement. In practice it's hard to have small intervals when you also want to measure many products. That's why companies often have to trade off between the number of products they want to track and how often they measure each product.
Another issue is the difference between stock changes and actual sales. Although stock changes often come down to sales, there are other possibilities too. A seller might, for example, suddenly decide to remove part of their stock, making it look like a product sold a lot, while in reality that's not the case. By only looking at stock changes and not including contextual information, sales derived from stock changes can be an overestimate of total sales.
The shopping cart method also depends on the online marketplace. The ability to measure stock depends on how much information the online marketplace releases. On bol, for example, it's possible to see stock up to 500. This means that when stock is higher than 500, no sales estimates can be made. On top of that, an online marketplace can decide ad hoc to lower the maximum visible stock, making it impossible to see the stock at all.
On online marketplaces, different sellers can offer the same product. To get an estimate of the total sales of the product, the shopping cart method needs to be applied for all sellers offering that particular product. This can be a challenge, especially for popular products offered by many sellers.
Finally, the scalability of the shopping cart method can be an issue. It's an intensive way to determine sales estimates, because for every product the stock needs to be measured multiple times. For validating individual products this doesn't have to be a problem, but for companies that want to track products at scale, the scalability of this method can be a barrier.
What do these limitations mean for Boloo and Rylee?
Companies such as Boloo and Rylee run into these limitations too. Scalability in particular is a big problem here. That's why you'll see that companies tracking products via the shopping cart method either can't track very many products, or track products at most once a day. This means these companies have to balance between the accuracy of their data and the total size of the data they track.
More on this: Why the shopping cart method no longer works
What downsides do product trackers have for users?
Users of product trackers run into various problems, which mainly stem from having to indicate themselves which product they want to track. Two scenarios are conceivable here.
In the first scenario, at least one other user on the platform is already tracking the product the user might be interested in. This means data is already available. This scenario has a downside: the other user has a time advantage, because they discovered the product earlier. That can make it less attractive for the new user to start selling the same type of product.
In the second scenario, the user is the first to discover the product, so no data is available yet. In this case the user will have to wait a number of weeks or months before enough data has been collected to draw conclusions. On top of that, other users may notice this product too, creating competition.
Besides these two scenarios, there's also a third limitation, related to users' prior knowledge. Many users have no idea in advance whether a product sells or not, which is the reason they use a product tracker in the first place. When they want to know whether a certain type of product sells, they'll therefore need to choose a product to track. Selecting the right variants of the product type is therefore crucial. If they don't pick the most representative products here, they get a skewed picture of the sales performance of the product they might want to sell. This is compounded by the fact that most online platforms let users track only a limited number of products. So in many cases it isn't possible to track all variants of a product type. Taken together, it's questionable whether the responsibility of selecting representative products should be placed on users, a significant portion of whom don't yet have a good market picture.
More on this: Why historical data protects you against poor product choices
How does MarktMentor offer an alternative?
MarktMentor tackles these limitations with a different way of collecting data. We've recognised the problems of the shopping cart method and of product trackers and built a tool that gives a more complete and representative picture of the market.
What sets MarktMentor apart is the way we reduce the dependency on users when collecting data. Instead of relying on users to select and track products, at MarktMentor we use algorithms to systematically carry out market research. This lets us track a much broader range of products than traditional product trackers, resulting in a more complete and representative picture of the market.
Another important aspect of MarktMentor is the way we deal with the limitations of the shopping cart method. Instead of simply tracking products' stock changes, at MarktMentor we use algorithms to get a more accurate picture of a product's actual sales performance. This lets us give a more accurate picture of the demand for a product, which helps sellers determine which products are profitable to sell.
Why does MarktMentor deliver more insights than a traditional product tracker?
Through the method we apply, we can monitor practically all products that sell on bol. As a result we track data on more products than competitors Boloo and Rylee currently do combined. This way, through MarktMentor you get insight into all relevant products on bol, without waiting days or weeks for it.
Based on the system we've built, we can also offer a range of additional features that give even more valuable insights for e-commerce sellers and that are separate from directly tracking products. These include, among others:
- Analysing entire sales markets: with MarktMentor you can analyse the performance of entire sales markets, not just individual products. This gives you a broader picture of the market and helps you make better-informed decisions.
- Gaining insight into all niches on bol: our tool gives you insight into all niches on bol, so you can see which products perform best in each niche.
- Analysing the profitability of your own range and comparing it to competitors: with MarktMentor you can analyse the profitability of your own range and compare it to that of your competitors. You can also view your market share and conversion and compare them to your competitors'.
- Keyword research for SEO on bol: our tool offers versatile keyword research capabilities that help you improve your findability on bol. Think for example of the Keyword Guide. On top of that you can easily analyse your current findability on bol.
More on findability: organic versus combined rankings on bol
MarktMentor is also designed for ease of use, so the tool is usable for those new to e-commerce as well.
Is MarktMentor an alternative to Boloo and Rylee?
Yes. MarktMentor offers an alternative to traditional product trackers such as Boloo and Rylee. The tool overcomes the limitations of the shopping cart method and gives a more complete and representative picture of the market. Because we don't depend on users bringing in products themselves, we monitor practically all selling products on bol and track data on more products than both competitors combined. The tool is usable for experienced sellers and for those just starting on bol.
Read more:
- How do you choose a product research tool for bol?
- Why the shopping cart method no longer works
- Why historical data protects you against poor product choices