Decision: Investigate next. Price hypothesis: $149 one-time. Estimated pilot: 7–15 working days.
Problem
Prepare a reviewable report of new products, changed prices and pack sizes between supplier lists. Start with purchasing support in one segment.
Buyer
Purchasing operator at a small distributor, café group or hotel business receiving incompatible Excel price lists.
Competition and substitutes
SupplierDelta €39/comparison or €79/month; PriceListIQ advertises $39/month through search extraction; Proceny has a free comparator. Forum users solve simpler tasks with Power Query.
Monetization hypothesis
Test $149 once for two-format setup and first report, then $39/month for repeat updates. Service-plus-product hypothesis.
Acquisition hypothesis
Hypothesis: demonstrations on two anonymized price lists, ERP implementation partners and purchasing-report setup services. Acquisition costs unknown.
Risk
Direct competitors and Power Query are numerous. Wrong pack matches create false savings. Generic comparison lacks a proven advantage.
Next test
Test SKU, GTIN, volume, units, duplicates, tax and currency on three file pairs from one industry. Route ambiguous matches to review, then test a paid first report with five buyers.
When to stop
Abandon generic comparison if a Power Query template suffices for three customers without recurring support; do not automate matching when different packs are falsely merged.
Scope and uncertainty
One developer, working days; CSV/XLSX with known columns, two or three formats, approved mappings, exceptions and report export. Excludes OCR, ERP publishing, automated purchasing, global product database and guaranteed fuzzy matching.
Sources and limitations
OP18: Compare different suppliers’ price lists
Open primary source — user report. Retrieved 2026-10-13; opened page.
Thousands of products across supplier lists make copying laborious; user wants matching by product code and later reports Power Query saves hours.
Limitation: Successful resolution with an existing tool is strong counterevidence for a separate SaaS.
OP19: Compare price lists with name and price per kg
Open primary source — user report. Retrieved 2026-10-13; opened page.
User compares produce from 2–4 suppliers with different row order; needs product matching and price per kilogram.
Limitation: XLOOKUP and table normalization address the problem; frequency and budget unspecified.
OP20: Compare old and updated supplier price lists
Open primary source — user report. Retrieved 2026-10-13; opened page.
User wants new products and price reductions identified between old and updated supplier lists.
Limitation: Thread marked solved after accepting a spreadsheet answer. Not an unresolved need or willingness-to-pay signal.
OP21: Matching and comparing prices from different layouts
Open primary source — user report. Retrieved 2026-10-13; opened page.
User needs common products from two supplier lists; different names can cause a simple search to confuse Peroni 330 ml with 5 L.
Limitation: Direct evidence of pack-size matching complexity; process frequency and economic impact unknown.
OP22: Automate weekly price updates from suppliers
Open primary source — user report. Retrieved 2026-10-13; search extracted text.
Search extraction describes weekly supplier-price entry into a purchasing comparison for a hotel group.
Limitation: Search extraction only: opening failed. Very old request; historical context rather than a current buyer signal.
OP23: PriceListIQ pricing
Open primary source — vendor. Retrieved 2026-10-13; search extracted text.
Published offer states $39/month for up to 100 comparisons, analysis from $299 once, BI dashboards from $799 and managed BI from $499/month.
Limitation: Opening failed; prices came from search extraction. Recheck before commercial decisions. An offer does not establish sales.
OP24: SupplierDelta
Open primary source — vendor. Retrieved 2026-10-13; opened page.
€39 per complete comparison or €79/month for up to 10; CSV/XLSX, price changes, additions/removals, pack sizes and local processing. Saved mappings advertised.
Limitation: Strong direct overlap. Marketing claims; functionality and purchases not verified.
OP25: Proceny free supplier price list comparison
Open primary source — vendor. Retrieved 2026-10-13; opened page.
Free tool matches rows by supplier code, part number or GTIN.
Limitation: Free basic functionality pressures monetization of simple comparison; quality not tested.
OP26: Microsoft Power Query Merge queries overview
Open primary source — platform documentation. Retrieved 2026-10-13; opened page.
Official documentation describes table merging on selected columns and fuzzy merge.
Limitation: Confirms an existing substitute; accuracy for particular product identities requires testing.