Competitor Product MatchingCompetitor Product Matching › Matching vs mapping
Product matching vs product mapping: side by side
The short answer: Product matching finds the same product in other stores so you can compare prices. Product mapping links your products, or a supplier's, to a target structure: your own SKUs, a marketplace's categories or a feed's fields. Matching answers “is this the same item?”; mapping answers “where does this item belong?”
Updated 10 November 2026 by the ScrapeWise team.
For competitor prices
Product matching (our product)
Pairs of identical products.
For marketplace listings
Product mapping
Categories and required fields.
For supplier feeds
Both
Match to your SKUs, then map attributes.
| Product matching | Product mapping | |
|---|---|---|
| Question it answers | Is this the same product? | Where does this product belong? |
| Compares | Two listings from different sources | A product with a category, SKU or schema |
| Typical use | Competitor pricing, MAP monitoring | Marketplace categories, feeds, supplier catalogues |
| Output | Pairs with a confidence score | Assignments to categories or fields |
| Done with | Barcodes, text and image matching | Rules, attribute mapping, classification models |
When you need each
- Comparing prices
- Matching, because you need the identical product in each store.
- Listing on a marketplace
- Mapping, because each marketplace has its own category tree and required attributes.
- Adding a supplier
- Both: match their items to yours, then map their fields to your catalogue.
Frequently asked questions
Is product mapping the same as product matching?
No. Matching finds the same product in another source; mapping assigns a product to a category, SKU or field structure.
Which do I need for price monitoring?
Product matching, because you have to compare the identical product in each competitor's store.
Can one tool do both?
Some catalogue and pricing platforms do both. Scraping tools like ScrapeWise focus on matching competitor products and cleaning the data for your own systems.