Product Linkage: Automatically Link Prices to One Another
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Do you lose your price history every time the EAN changes?
Schedule a meetingDiscover our product matching solutionProduct chaining involves linking successive SKUs of the same product over time, despite changes in packaging, EAN codes, names, or internal SKUs. It reconstructs the product’s complete history to analyze its prices, sales, and performance over time.
The Essentials in 6 Questions
Link an old and a new part number for the same product.
Pricing teams, product data teams, and category managers.
With every reformulation, packaging change, or ERP migration.
Especially in the fashion, high-tech, cosmetics, food, and personal care industries.
Maintain a continuous history of trends and elasticities.
Cross-reference attributes, dates of birth and death, volumes, and prices to identify estates.
Why Chain-Indexed Prices Are Essential for Price Analysis
Because without it, every time the reference number changes, the product history is erased.
- Analyze long-term trends, even if the benchmark has changed in the meantime.
- Calculate reliable elasticities, which require a continuous history.
- Oversee product launches and redesigns while monitoring the shift in sales toward the new version.
Real-world example: two EANs, a single history
A reformulated laundry detergent gets a new EAN; the product linking system causes it to inherit the entire history of the old SKU.
Two EAN codes, a single price history
Laundry Detergent · Reference Series, Before/After Reformulation
Discontinued item · includes price and sales history
New reference · chained to inherit the entire history
“X Laundry Detergent 2L” (EAN 123) is being replaced by “X Eco Laundry Detergent 2L” (EAN 456). The system identifies the succession (same brand, same size, launch coinciding with the discontinuation of the old product) and links the data: the retailer compares performance before and after and adjusts its price accordingly.
How does product chaining work?
Algorithms cross-reference attributes, launch dates, volumes, and prices to identify logical sequences.
It is particularly critical when product lines are frequently updated (fashion, high-tech, cosmetics), when manufacturers change their packaging (food, personal care), or when a retailer migrates its product database (ERP, merger). This should be distinguished from product matching, which links products across catalogs at a given moment: chaining creates a lasting link over time. Both are at the heart of our product matching, cloning, and chaining solution, which also ensures the reliability of our competitor price reports. See also:competitive monitoring and product matching.
3 Mistakes to Avoid in Product Chaining
Linking different products, ignoring overlaps, or failing to document anything.
- Grouping different products: “X Laundry Detergent 2L” and “X Sensitive Laundry Detergent 2L” are not the same product, even though their names are similar.
- Ignore overlaps: The old and new products sometimes coexist for a few weeks.
- Do not document the chains of reference: keep a record so you can audit and correct them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Short answers to the most frequently asked questions about product chaining.
What does product chaining do?
Product traceability involves linking successive product SKUs over time—despite changes in packaging, EAN codes, trade names, or internal SKUs—to reconstruct the product's complete history.
What is the difference between matching and product chaining?
Matching identifies identical or equivalent products across multiple catalogs. Chaining creates a lasting link to track a product's evolution over time, even when it is replaced, renamed, or repackaged.
How does a product chaining engine work?
It analyzes EAN codes, brand names, product descriptions, features, packaging, weight, images, release dates, and volumes. Advanced solutions use AI to recognize product lines even when descriptions differ.
What are the benefits for pricing teams?
It automates a time-consuming task, improves the quality of analyses, reduces reconciliation errors, and allows users to focus on decision-making rather than data preparation.
Key Takeaways
- Product chaining links successive versions of the same product.
- It preservesthe historical data essential for identifying trends and elasticities.
- It must be rigorous and well-documented to avoid false positives.
Would you like to track the price of a product even if its product code changes?
Booper tracks a product's price history across its successive versions.
Let's talk about your product history →Discover our product matching solutionYou might also be interested in these articles
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