> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.sellermagnet.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.sellermagnet.com/inventory-and-operations/alerts-notifications.md).

# Competitor Tracker & Notifications

Track any ASIN you do not sell - a competitor's - for Buy Box changes, price moves, rank, stock, listing changes, rating drops, and negative reviews, with your own thresholds. Plus the Notification Ce

{% hint style="info" %}
**Difficulty:** 🟡 Intermediate · **Reading time:** \~12 min
{% endhint %}

{% hint style="success" icon="rocket" %}
**Open this page in your dashboard:** [**Go to the Competitor Tracker →**](https://dashboard.sellermagnet.com/alerts)
{% endhint %}

## 📋 Overview

The **Competitor Tracker** lets you **track any ASIN - usually a competitor's - and set your own thresholds on it**. Point it at a product you do not sell and it tells you when the Buy Box changes hands, when the price moves, when the rank shifts, when stock runs low, when the listing changes, or when the rating drops.

{% hint style="warning" %}
**Watching your own catalogue? Use Offer Watch instead.** [Offer Watch](/inventory-and-operations/offer-watch.md) covers **every ASIN you sell automatically** - new sellers, Buy Box changes, price undercuts, and suppressed listings - with no setup per ASIN. The Competitor Tracker is for the ASINs you **do not** sell. The page itself says so in a strip at the top, with an **Open Offer Watch** button (or **Join the waitlist** while Offer Watch is in early access).
{% endhint %}

{% embed url="<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-c64tthEpU>" %}

This page also covers two things that are **not** trackers: the **email notifications** you can opt into under Settings → Notifications, and the **Notification Center bell** in the top bar.

## 🔍 Where to find it

**Competitor Tracker** is in the sidebar with a **bell** icon, at the bottom of the Amazon tools group, just below **Fee Audit**. Its URL is still `/alerts`.

***

## 📋 Page anatomy

### Activity chart and stat cards

The top-left card is a **Competitor Tracker activity chart** with an "{n} total" tag. Beside it, three stat cards give a quick status - click any of them to filter the table below:

| Card                | Description                                   |
| ------------------- | --------------------------------------------- |
| **Active**          | Trackers currently monitoring                 |
| **Paused**          | Trackers that have been temporarily suspended |
| **Triggered Today** | Trackers that have fired today                |

### Quick actions

| Action           | Description                                                                             |
| ---------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Create Alarm** | A dropdown of quick templates plus **Custom Alert** (opens the full wizard)             |
| **Start All**    | Reactivates every paused tracker                                                        |
| **Pause All**    | Pauses every active tracker                                                             |
| **Refresh**      | Reloads the table                                                                       |
| **Export**       | Downloads your trackers as **CSV or Excel** (see [Exporting](#exporting-csv-and-excel)) |

### Priority Log

A side panel listing the most recent trigger events. Each row shows the tracker name, timestamp, status, and ASIN, and a **Logs →** link that opens that tracker's log modal. Rows have a read / unread state with an unread count badge, plus **Mark all read** and **Refresh** buttons. Empty state: "No priority logs found." / "Alerts that fire will show up here."

***

## Tracker types

The wizard offers **ten** types. Each is built the same way: pick a type, enter the ASIN, set one or more trigger conditions.

| Type                | What it watches                                                                                                               | Parameter(s)                                      |
| ------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------- |
| **Buy Box Owner**   | The Buy Box on the tracked ASIN changing hands - the single question a competitor tracker exists to answer                    | Buy Box Holder (changes)                          |
| **Price Change**    | The Buy Box price, the lowest offer price, or a percentage price change                                                       | Buy Box Price, Lowest Offer Price, Price Change % |
| **Bestseller Rank** | Best Sellers Rank movement                                                                                                    | Bestseller Rank                                   |
| **Seller Count**    | The number of sellers / offers on the listing                                                                                 | Number of Sellers                                 |
| **Stock Level**     | The tracked ASIN no longer purchasable in quantity - Amazon caps the add-to-cart dropdown at what is left once stock runs low | Units Purchasable                                 |
| **Listing Down**    | The listing becoming inactive, suppressed, or unavailable - a competitor's outage is your opening                             | Listing Status (Down)                             |
| **Listing Change**  | The tracked ASIN's title or main image changing - a relaunch or repositioning, confirmed over two checks before you are told  | Listing Content (changed)                         |
| **Rating Drop**     | The average star rating falling                                                                                               | Average Rating                                    |
| **Negative Review** | New reviews landing while the average rating falls                                                                            | Negative Review (detected)                        |
| **Seller Feedback** | The seller's positive feedback percentage                                                                                     | Positive Feedback %                               |

{% hint style="info" icon="circle-info" %}
**Two older types were retired.** **Hijacking** and **Buy Box (loss)** can no longer be created - Offer Watch now covers new sellers and Buy Box won / lost / suppressed across your whole catalogue, and neither type made sense on an ASIN you do not sell (every foreign seller read as a hijacker, and the Buy Box always read as lost). Existing trackers of those types keep running, still appear in the table, and can be edited or paused - opening one shows "Offer Watch now covers this alert across your whole catalogue. You can still edit or pause this one, but not create another."
{% endhint %}

{% hint style="info" icon="circle-info" %}
**Seller Count and Offer Watch overlap.** The Seller Count type card always carries a note that Offer Watch already reports this catalogue-wide on the ASINs you sell, and suggests pointing the tracker at a competitor instead. It is a standing reminder on the card, not a check against the ASIN you type in.
{% endhint %}

***

## 🚚 Late-Shipment Alert (FBM)

Separate from the trackers above, SellerMagnet offers an **opt-in late-shipment alert** for your **FBM (Merchant Fulfilled)** orders. It lives in **Settings → Notifications**, not in the wizard, and is configured with a single toggle.

### What triggers it

Once enabled, SellerMagnet watches your FBM orders and notifies you when orders are still **pending shipment past their handling window**, flagged at the **12-hour** and **24-hour** marks. You're emailed and notified up to **twice per day** so a slipping order doesn't go unnoticed.

### Why it matters

{% hint style="warning" %}
**Late dispatch hurts your seller rating.** Amazon's Late Dispatch Rate and On-Time Delivery Rate are account-health metrics, repeated late shipments can suppress your Buy Box eligibility or, in severe cases, put your selling account at risk. Catching a pending order at the 12-hour mark gives you time to ship before it counts against you.
{% endhint %}

### How to enable it

1. Open **Settings → Notifications**.
2. Find **"Get notified about late FBM shipments."**
3. Flip the toggle **on**.

{% hint style="info" icon="circle-info" %}
**Opt-in and project-scoped.** The toggle is **off by default**, you'll never get surprise emails. It applies to the **current project**, so enable it per project if you run several. A confirmation toast appears when you switch it on or off.
{% endhint %}

***

## 📧 Email Notifications (Settings → Notifications)

The late-shipment alert above is one of several **email notifications** you can opt into under **Settings → Notifications**. These are separate from the tracker wizard and from the bell, they are periodic reports and account emails sent to your inbox. Each is a simple on/off toggle.

Most are configured **per connected Amazon account** (so if you have several stores connected, each one has its own set of toggles). A couple are scoped differently, as noted below.

| Email notification      | What it sends                                                                                                                      | Scope                 |
| ----------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------- |
| **Weekly Overview**     | Weekly summary of your account activity                                                                                            | Per Amazon connection |
| **Lost & Found Report** | Reimbursable inventory discrepancies (lost, damaged, or fee errors)                                                                | Per Amazon connection |
| **PPC Overview**        | Weekly summary of your Amazon Advertising performance (only delivered when an active Amazon Advertising connection exists)         | Per Amazon connection |
| **Out-of-Stock Report** | Alerts when products in your inventory go out of stock                                                                             | Per Amazon connection |
| **New Seller Review**   | Notifies you when a new review is received on that marketplace                                                                     | Per Amazon connection |
| **Late FBM Shipments**  | Emails you up to 2× per day when FBM orders are pending past 12h / 24h (see [Late-Shipment Alert](#late-shipment-alert-fbm) above) | Per project           |
| **Promotional Emails**  | Exclusive offers, discounts, and product promotions from SellerMagnet                                                              | Per account           |

{% hint style="info" icon="circle-info" %}
**Inventory Alerts are configured per product.** The Notifications settings panel links out to the **Products** page for inventory-level alerts (low-stock and out-of-stock thresholds), those live on each product rather than as a single account-wide email toggle.
{% endhint %}

{% hint style="info" %}
**Email opt-ins are independent of the bell.** These toggles only control which **emails** land in your inbox. They do not change what appears in the Notification Center bell (see below) or which **trackers** you have configured in the wizard.
{% endhint %}

***

## ➕ Creating a tracker

Click **Create Alarm** and pick **Custom Alert** (or a quick template - see below). The modal is titled **"Track a new ASIN"** - *"Set up monitoring on any ASIN, yours or a competitor's"* - and walks through four steps: **Type**, **Product**, **Conditions**, **Notify**.

{% stepper %}
{% step %}

### Type

Choose one of the ten types above. Each card carries a one-line description of what it watches.
{% endstep %}

{% step %}

### Product

**"Which ASIN do you want to track?"** - pick the **Marketplace** and enter the **ASIN** (exactly 10 characters). It does not have to be one of yours; anything that is not a valid 10-character ASIN is rejected.
{% endstep %}

{% step %}

### Conditions

Add one or more conditions in the form *"Notify me when \[parameter] \[operator] \[value]"*. The operators are **drops below**, **rises above**, **equals exactly**, and **changes from**; the parameters depend on the type (see the table above). Some types have a fixed trigger - Listing Down fires on **Down**, Listing Change on **Changed**, Negative Review on **Detected**, Buy Box Owner on **Changed**.
{% endstep %}

{% step %}

### Notify

Delivery is by **Email** (pre-selected) - every trigger also lands in the **Notification Center bell**. An **Alert Summary** on this step recaps the type, ASIN, and conditions before you create the tracker.
{% endstep %}
{% endstepper %}

{% hint style="info" icon="circle-info" %}
**Delivery and frequency.** Trackers notify you by **email** and in the **bell**. There is no webhook, SMS, or Slack channel on this page (the only webhooks in the product are the PPC Slack / Teams webhooks under PPC Settings). Checks run on a **fixed schedule set by SellerMagnet** - there is no per-tracker interval to configure.
{% endhint %}

### Quick templates

**Create Alarm** offers ready-made starting points:

| Template                | Type            | What it does                                                                                       |
| ----------------------- | --------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Buy Box Owner Alert** | Buy Box Owner   | Know when it changes hands                                                                         |
| **Stock Level Alert**   | Stock Level     | Catch a rival running dry                                                                          |
| **Ranking Alert**       | Bestseller Rank | Monitor bestseller rank                                                                            |
| **Inventory Alert**     | -               | Shortcut to the **Products** page, where low-stock and out-of-stock thresholds are set per product |
| **Custom Alert**        | Any             | Opens the full wizard                                                                              |

***

## The trackers table

![SellerMagnet Competitor Tracker](https://4139654583-files.gitbook.io/~/files/v0/b/gitbook-x-prod.appspot.com/o/spaces%2Fih2knSvVpBcq5rIeXVjM%2Fuploads%2Fgit-blob-9b4b873d956a6ae76129532d1658424ebb5fe89b%2Falerts.png?alt=media)

| Column          | Description                                                       |
| --------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Marketplace** | Country flag                                                      |
| **Product**     | ASIN and product details                                          |
| **Type**        | The tracker type badge                                            |
| **Conditions**  | The configured condition, as "parameter operator threshold"       |
| **Status**      | **Active**, **Paused**, or **Error**                              |
| **Actions**     | **Pause / Start**, **Send test notification**, **Edit**, **Logs** |

A **Columns** button ("Show or hide columns") next to the search box saves your own column view.

### Filtering the table

| Filter           | Options                                                                                                  |
| ---------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Filter chips** | **All**, **Active**, **Paused**, and **Issues** (each with a live count) narrow the table to that status |
| **Search**       | Free-text search ("Search alerts…") by ASIN or product                                                   |
| **Stat cards**   | Click **Active**, **Paused**, or **Triggered Today** to filter to that status                            |

Empty state: **"Nothing tracked yet"** - *"Add your first tracker to watch a competitor's ASIN for price, rank, stock and listing changes."*

***

## Logs modal

Click **Logs** on any tracker to see its history: **Log ID**, **Status**, **Triggered**, and **Timestamp**, paginated.

***

## ⬇️ Exporting (CSV and Excel)

The **Export** button is a split menu - pick **CSV** or **Excel (.xlsx)**:

| Column          | Description                                    |
| --------------- | ---------------------------------------------- |
| **ASIN**        | The tracked ASIN                               |
| **Alert Type**  | The tracker type                               |
| **Status**      | The raw value: `ACTIVE`, `PAUSED`, or `FAILED` |
| **Marketplace** | The Amazon marketplace it watches              |

The export always contains **every** tracker on the account - the search box and the status chips do **not** narrow it.

***

## Managing trackers

### Editing

Click **Edit** in the Actions column, change the type, ASIN, or conditions, and save.

### Pausing and starting

* **Pause:** the tracker stops monitoring but keeps its configuration.
* **Start:** monitoring resumes.

Use **Pause All** and **Start All** in the quick actions for bulk operations.

### Sending a test notification

Click **Send test notification** in the Actions column to drop a sample into the **Notification Center bell** - "This is a test notification for your alert on ASIN {asin}. Delivery works - when this alert triggers you will be notified here." A toast confirms "Test notification sent - check the bell icon at the top right." The test exercises the bell only, not email.

### Deleting

There is no per-row delete. Tick the checkbox on one or more rows and click **Delete** in the bulk toolbar, then confirm. The tracker and its log history are permanently removed.

***

## 🎯 Realistic Example

**Scenario:** You sell a premium desk lamp on Amazon.de. A rival brand launched a near-identical lamp last month and keeps winning searches you used to own.

**Setup:**

1. **Buy Box Owner Alert** on the rival's ASIN - notify when the Buy Box changes hands, so you know when a new seller (or Amazon Retail) has stepped in.
2. **Price Change** on the same ASIN - notify when the Buy Box price **drops below** your price point.
3. **Stock Level** on the same ASIN - notify when Units Purchasable **drops below** 5.

**Day 9:** An email arrives: the rival's Buy Box price dropped below your price. You open the tracker's **Logs**, confirm the drop, and adjust your own price in the [Repricer](/selling-tools/repricer-overview.md).

**Day 23:** The Stock Level tracker fires - the rival can only sell 3 more units. You raise your ad budget on that keyword for the week and pick up the demand they cannot serve.

Without trackers you would have noticed the price cut days later, and the stockout not at all.

***

<details>

<summary><strong>⚠️ Common Mistakes to Avoid</strong></summary>

| Mistake                           | Why It Hurts                                                                          |
| --------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Tracking your own ASINs here      | Offer Watch already does that catalogue-wide, with no per-ASIN setup - use it instead |
| Setting rank thresholds too tight | You get flooded with noise from normal daily fluctuations                             |
| Ignoring triggered trackers       | The tracker only works if you act on the notifications                                |
| Never opening the logs            | The Logs modal is where you confirm what actually happened before reacting            |

</details>

## ✅ Best Practices

1. **Point trackers at competitors, not your own products** - your own catalogue belongs to Offer Watch.
2. **Start with Buy Box Owner and Stock Level** - they answer the two questions that move revenue fastest: who is winning, and who is about to run out.
3. **Set rank thresholds at 15-20%** to filter daily noise while still catching real trends.
4. **Review the Priority Log daily** - two minutes each morning, and mark it read.
5. **Combine with the Repricer** - when a competitor's price drops, your repricing strategy should already be responding.

***

## ❓ FAQ

<details>

<summary><strong>Can I track my own products here?</strong></summary>

You can, but you should not need to. [Offer Watch](/inventory-and-operations/offer-watch.md) monitors every ASIN you sell automatically - new sellers, Buy Box changes, undercuts, suppressions. The Competitor Tracker is designed for the ASINs you do **not** sell.

</details>

<details>

<summary><strong>What happened to the Hijacking and Buy Box alert types?</strong></summary>

They were retired because Offer Watch now covers new sellers and Buy Box changes across your whole catalogue. Trackers you already created of those types keep running and can be edited or paused, but new ones cannot be created. For a competitor's Buy Box, use **Buy Box Owner**.

</details>

<details>

<summary><strong>Can I receive alerts via webhook, SMS, or Slack?</strong></summary>

No. Trackers are delivered by **email** and in the **Notification Center bell**. There is no webhook channel on this page. (The product's only webhooks are the PPC Slack / Teams webhooks under PPC Settings.)

</details>

<details>

<summary><strong>How often are tracked ASINs checked?</strong></summary>

On a fixed schedule set by SellerMagnet. There is no per-tracker interval to configure, and check frequency does not depend on your plan.

</details>

<details>

<summary><strong>Is there a limit to how many trackers I can create?</strong></summary>

Limits depend on your subscription plan. Check your plan details for the maximum number of active trackers.

</details>

<details>

<summary><strong>How far back do logs go?</strong></summary>

The Logs modal shows that tracker's recorded history, newest first and paginated. SellerMagnet does not publish a fixed retention window for tracker logs, so copy out anything you need to keep permanently.

</details>

***

## 🔔 The Notification Center (Bell)

Separate from the **Competitor Tracker** described above, every dashboard page has a **bell icon** in the top bar that opens the **Notification Center**, a slide-out panel listing recent activity from across SellerMagnet.

{% hint style="info" icon="circle-info" %}
**Notification Center vs. Competitor Tracker, what's the difference?** The **Competitor Tracker** (this page) is something you *configure*: you create trackers that watch specific ASINs. The **Notification Center** is a *passive inbox* that collects events SellerMagnet generates for you across the whole product, no setup required. Some of those events come from your trackers; many come from other features (inventory, sales, reviews, PPC, system messages).
{% endhint %}

### Notifications, Changelog and Help

The bell cluster in the top bar gives you three top-level surfaces:

| Tab               | What it shows                                                |
| ----------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Notifications** | The Notification Center inbox described here (the bell icon) |
| **Changelog**     | The latest SellerMagnet product updates and release notes    |
| **Help**          | Page-specific help and links into the Help Center            |

Changelog and Help open in a companion drawer alongside the bell, so you can jump between what happened, what is new, and how to use a page without leaving the dashboard.

### Category tabs

Within the Notifications view, the panel groups notifications into tabs so you can focus on one area at a time:

| Tab                | Covers                                    |
| ------------------ | ----------------------------------------- |
| **All**            | Every notification, newest first          |
| **Tools**          | Product/system messages and tool events   |
| **Orders**         | Order- and sales-related notifications    |
| **Products**       | Stock and product notifications           |
| **Review Request** | Review-request and feedback notifications |
| **PPC Manager**    | Advertising notifications                 |

### Working with notifications

* **Scroll to load more.** The list loads additional notifications automatically as you scroll to the bottom, so older items are always within reach.
* **Mark all as read.** A **Mark all as read** control at the top clears the unread state in one click.
* **Open for detail.** Clicking a notification opens a detail view inside the panel; a back arrow returns you to the list.

{% hint style="info" %}
**The New FBM Refund card leads with what the return costs you.** Its detail view shows the order and return status, then **"Your cost so far"** - only the part you carry, with each line attributed "you pay", "buyer pays", "Amazon pays", or "payer not stated" - then the return shipment (carrier, tracking, a **Track parcel** link) and the item with "{returned} of {ordered} returned". Reasons are written as sentences, and the A-to-Z flag reads "A-to-Z claim filed" or "No A-to-Z claim". If Amazon reported the refund as 0.00 because it has not settled yet, the card says so - the figure can still change.
{% endhint %}

### Notification Preferences

A **sliders** icon in the panel header opens the **Notification Preferences** modal, where you can toggle individual notification types on or off. They are grouped into six sections: **Inventory Alerts**, **Listing Changes**, **Sales & Orders**, **Repricer**, **Account & Performance Alerts**, and **Reviews**. Turn off the types you don't want to see and click **Save Preferences**, or use **Reset to Default** to restore all of them. When one or more types are disabled, the panel shows a small reminder with a **Manage** shortcut back into this modal.

The full set of toggleable bell notification types:

| Section                          | Notification type         | Triggers when                                               |
| -------------------------------- | ------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Inventory Alerts**             | Out of Stock (FBA)        | Your FBA inventory runs out                                 |
| **Inventory Alerts**             | Out of Stock (FBM)        | Your FBM inventory runs out                                 |
| **Inventory Alerts**             | Low Inventory (FBA)       | FBA stock is running low                                    |
| **Inventory Alerts**             | Low Inventory (FBM)       | FBM stock is running low                                    |
| **Listing Changes**              | Listing Now Buyable       | A listing becomes buyable again                             |
| **Listing Changes**              | New Listing Detected      | A new listing appears on your account                       |
| **Listing Changes**              | Listing Deleted           | A listing is deleted                                        |
| **Listing Changes**              | Listing Content Changed   | Amazon serves different listing content than your last scan |
| **Sales & Orders**               | New FBM Refund            | A new FBM refund is detected                                |
| **Sales & Orders**               | Amazon Fee Promotions     | Amazon offers you a fee discount                            |
| **Repricer**                     | Repricer Status Updates   | Repricer activity or status changes (e.g. a SKU is paused)  |
| **Repricer**                     | Buy Box Lost Alerts       | The Repricer detects you have lost the Buy Box              |
| **Account & Performance Alerts** | Low On-Time Delivery Rate | Your On-Time Delivery Rate (OTDR) drops                     |
| **Account & Performance Alerts** | High Order Defect Rate    | Your Order Defect Rate (ODR) is high                        |
| **Account & Performance Alerts** | Account Status Alerts     | An important seller-account status change occurs            |
| **Reviews**                      | Review Request Automation | Review-request automation runs or updates                   |
| **Reviews**                      | New Reviews               | A new product review is received on any marketplace         |

{% hint style="info" %}
**These preferences only affect the bell.** Toggling a notification type off in the Notification Center's preferences hides it from the bell panel. It does **not** change which **trackers** you've configured or whether they send email, those are managed in the trackers table above and in **Settings → Notifications**.
{% endhint %}

***

## ➡️ What's Next?

{% content-ref url="/pages/NMPh69cRJYksKhS1nlQe" %}
[Offer Watch](/inventory-and-operations/offer-watch.md)
{% endcontent-ref %}

{% content-ref url="/pages/XxiOnXmNvAunjLWPxJPP" %}
[Repricer Overview](/selling-tools/repricer-overview.md)
{% endcontent-ref %}