The price test looks for best-sellers that leave you little profit on each sale, and it suggests a small price increase for each one. You apply the increase one product at a time, and Tendlio compares sales and profit before and after the change, so you can decide whether to keep the new price or put the old one back.
You will learn #
- How to turn on the price test and see what it suggests
- Which products it suggests, and why
- How to raise a price and read the result
- How to keep the new price or go back to the old one
Before you begin #
- Turn on Experimental features. The price test is an Experimental feature: it’s still being proven, and it may change. Under Settings → General → Experimental & license, switch on Enable experimental features and click Save settings. An Experimental item then shows in the Tendlio menu.
- Enter cost prices for your best-sellers. The test looks only at products with a cost price you’ve entered. A cost Tendlio works out from your average margin doesn’t count, because profit is what the test measures.
- You need permission to edit products, because the test changes prices. Without it, the panel says that only someone who can edit products can use it.
Turn on the price test #
- In the Tendlio menu, open Experimental, and click Best-seller price test to open it.
- Set Mode to Preview (no writes). In Preview, Tendlio lists what it suggests and doesn’t change any prices.
- In Price bump, set how much to raise each price. It’s 5% unless you change it, and it can be anything from 1% to 30%.
- In Round prices to, choose how to round the new price: Exact (no rounding), up to the next round step, or to a price that ends in 99 or 90. The choices match your currency, and the sentence under the list names them. In dollars, for example, the steps are 0.10, 0.50 and 1.00, and the endings are .99 and .90.
- Click Save.
Check the suggestions #
Under Candidates, the test lists the products it would raise, the fastest sellers first:
- Price now and Margin: the product’s regular price at your last analysis, and the share of it you keep as profit.
- Sells/mo: how many the product sells in a month while it’s in stock.
- New price: the price after the bump and the rounding, with the actual increase next to it. Rounding up to a tidy number can make the increase bigger than your Price bump, and this column shows the increase after rounding.
- Extra profit/mo if sales hold: what the increase would earn in a month if the product kept selling as it does now. That’s the best case: if the product sells less at the new price, it earns you less, or loses money.
A product is suggested when all of these are true:
- It’s one of the best-sellers that bring in most of your revenue (ABC class A), and it still sells.
- It’s in stock, and it has no sale price.
- It has a cost price you entered, and you keep some profit on each sale, but less than 15% of its price.
- It isn’t in a test already, and Outlet hasn’t discounted it.
The list shows up to 100 products. When it’s empty, the page says why: either none of your class A best-sellers has a thin margin, or Tendlio can’t judge any of them yet, for example because none has a cost price you’ve entered.
Raise a price #
- Set Mode to Live (apply on approval), and click Save.
- Under Candidates, click Apply +N% next to the product. Tendlio changes the product’s regular price in WooCommerce right away, and it stores the old price so you can go back to it.
- The product moves from Candidates to Tests running.
The test changes the price of simple products only, and only on your live store. A product with variations can still show up in the list, but Apply leaves its price as it is, and so does Apply on a staging site. Neither shows a note.
In these cases, too, Tendlio leaves the price as it is, but a note at the top of the panel says why:
- The list was built from an older set of numbers: you’ve changed a setting since the last analysis, the last analysis didn’t finish, or one is running right now. The note says which, and whether to run the analysis again or wait for it to finish.
- You’ve changed the product’s price yourself since the last analysis, so the suggestion was worked out from the old price. Run a new analysis, and the row shows the change from your current price.
- The product isn’t published any more.
- The product is boosted right now. Stop the boost first, or wait until it ends.
Read the result #
Under Tests running, each product shows its old and new Price, when the test started (Since), and its Result, for example “12 sold in 14 days, kept 86% of units · +$45.00 net margin”.
- The result compares the sales in the days since you applied the new price, up to the first 30, with the sales of the 30 days before it, scaled down to the same number of days.
- kept N% of units is how much of its earlier selling pace the product kept at the new price.
- net margin is the profit the product made at the new price, minus the profit it would have made over the same days at the old price and its old pace. The cost is the one it had on the day you applied the test. The result can be negative: an increase that loses more sales than the extra margin makes up for shows net margin lost, in red.
In three cases, the result reads differently:
- Until a whole day has passed, it says measuring (check back in a few days).
- If the product sold too little before the test to compare with the days so far, it shows no sales before the test to compare with instead of the share of units kept. In the first days of a test, that can happen to a product that sells only a few a week.
- If the product has no cost price, it shows add a cost price to see profit instead of the net margin.
Keep the new price or go back #
- Keep leaves the new price in place and ends the test, while the test price is still the product’s regular price. The product can be suggested again later, and Outlet can discount it again.
- Revert puts the old regular price back and ends the test.
A test runs until you click one of the two.
If you change the product’s price yourself while its test runs, or put it on sale, Tendlio stops measuring it, because it can’t tell which sales happened at the test price. The row then offers only Revert, and says what it will do. If you only put the product on sale, the test price is still its regular price, and Revert puts the old regular price back. If you changed the regular price yourself, Revert only ends the test and leaves your price as it is. If the regular price is back at its price before the test, the row says that, and Revert ends the test and leaves that price.
Important: Keep or revert your tests before you turn off Experimental features. With Experimental features off, the Experimental page and its Revert button go away, and the test prices stay on your store. Settings warns you before you switch it off, and while it’s off, Help → System status shows how many products are still on a test price.
Why the price test works this way #
On a thin margin, a small increase is a big share of your profit #
Your cost doesn’t change when you raise a price, so on each sale the whole increase is extra profit. When the margin is thin, a few percent go a long way: on a product priced at $100 that costs you $90, a 5% increase takes your profit on each sale from $10 to $15. And the more a product sells, the sooner the result shows whether customers still buy it at the new price.
It measures profit, not units #
A higher price can cost a few sales and still earn you more. The result counts both the sales the product kept and the profit they made, so a test that sold a little less but earned more shows a gain, and one that lost too many sales shows the loss. It’s a rough before-and-after, not a controlled test: a promotion, a busy season or a stockout in either stretch moves the numbers too.
A cost you entered, not an estimate #
Profit is the price minus the cost. With a cost worked out from your average margin, the Margin column would show that average back to you, and the test couldn’t tell a thin-margin product from any other.
A boost and a price test don’t run together #
Both change how a product sells. If they ran at the same time, Tendlio couldn’t tell whether the change in sales came from the boost or from the price. That’s why a product in a price test can’t be boosted, and a boosted product can’t start a price test.
Outlet leaves a tested product alone #
A discount on top of a test price would mix two price changes, and the test would measure the discount. While a test runs, Outlet doesn’t discount the product, automatically or by hand, and a product with an Outlet discount isn’t suggested for a test.
Additional resources #
- How to boost a product, or hide it from recommendations: why a boost and a price test don’t run together.
- How to give Tendlio your product costs: how to enter cost prices.
- ABC class (A / B / C): which products are class A.
- Staging copies and moving your store: why Tendlio doesn’t change prices on a staging site.
- How to use the System status page
- Selling below cost
Frequently asked questions #
Does the price test run on its own? #
No. It suggests, and you apply each increase with Apply, one product at a time, with Mode set to Live. In Preview it changes nothing.
Can I test a price decrease? #
No. The test only raises prices, on best-sellers with a thin margin. To discount a product, use Manual outlet.
Why is a product I sell a lot not on the list? #
It may have a healthy margin already, a sale price or no cost price you've entered, it may sell below its cost, or it may be in Outlet or in a test. The list names only products that meet every condition.
Why doesn't Apply change the price of a product with variations? #
The test changes the price of simple products only. A product with variations can show up in the list, but Apply leaves its price as it is.