Understanding the Activity Feed: Change Types and What They Mean

The activity feed is where monitoring turns into intelligence. Every scan that detects a change creates an entry: a price moved, a product appeared, something went out of stock. Over time, the feed becomes a running record of everything happening across your competitive landscape.

The challenge is not getting the data. It is knowing what to do with it. A feed full of changes looks busy, but not every change is equally important. Some demand immediate attention. Some are context for later. Some are just normal store operations that do not affect your business at all.

This guide covers the six change types Bonesaw tracks, what each one typically means, and how to build intuition for which entries in your feed actually matter.

The Six Change Types

Every entry in the activity feed is classified into one of six types. Each has a distinct color and icon so you can visually scan the feed quickly.

Price Drop

A product's price decreased since the last scan. The feed shows the old price, the new price, and the percentage change.

What it usually means. The store repriced a product. This could be a deliberate competitive move, a sale, a clearance, or a price correction. Context matters: a 5% drop on a single product is different from a 25% drop across an entire category.

When it matters. Price drops on products you also sell are the highest-signal events in your feed. If a competitor cuts the price on something you carry, you need to know whether to respond, hold, or watch. The pricing signals guide covers how to evaluate whether a drop is meaningful or just noise.

When it does not matter. Price drops on products outside your market, or tiny fluctuations (under 2%) that are likely rounding or currency adjustments. If you are seeing too many small price drops cluttering your feed, consider adjusting your alert thresholds to filter out changes below a meaningful percentage.

Price Increase

A product's price went up since the last scan. Same display: old price, new price, percentage.

What it usually means. The store raised a price. This can signal supply constraints, increased costs, margin optimization, or the end of a promotion. A competitor raising prices on products you also sell is an opportunity: you can hold steady and capture price-sensitive buyers, or follow the increase and improve your margins.

When it matters. Increases on high-volume products in your competitive set are worth noting. Multiple products from the same store increasing by similar percentages often means a policy-level pricing change rather than individual product decisions.

When it does not matter. A single product going up by a small amount is rarely actionable on its own. Price increases are generally less urgent than drops because they create opportunities rather than threats.

New Product

A product appeared in the store's catalog that was not there in the previous scan.

What it usually means. The store added a product. This could be a new launch, a seasonal addition, a reintroduction of a previously removed item, or a catalog expansion into a new category. The competitor launch tracking guide covers how to evaluate new product signals systematically.

When it matters. New products that overlap with your catalog are the most important. A competitor launching a product that directly competes with yours deserves a close look at pricing, positioning, and timing. A burst of new products in a category you serve may signal a strategic push.

When it does not matter. New products in unrelated categories are worth noting for general awareness but rarely require action. Stores that constantly churn products (adding and removing inventory frequently) will generate a lot of "new product" events that are mostly noise.

Removed

A product that was in the store's catalog is no longer there.

What it usually means. The store removed a product. Reasons vary: end-of-life, supplier issues, seasonal rotation, permanent discontinuation, or a site restructure that changed URLs. Removals are the least urgent change type in most cases.

When it matters. Removals matter when a competitor pulls out of a category you both serve. If they remove multiple products from the same category, that is a strategic signal. A competitor exiting a category creates a gap you might fill. The catalog change monitoring playbook covers how to read removal patterns.

When it does not matter. Individual removals are routine. Stores cycle products constantly. Unless you are tracking specific products or see a pattern of removals in a category that matters to you, most individual removal events are just context.

Restocked

A product that was previously unavailable is back in stock.

What it usually means. Inventory was replenished. For popular products, restocks can be competitively significant: a competitor who was out of stock on a key item is now back in the game. The restock monitoring guide covers restock analysis in detail.

When it matters. Restocks on products that directly compete with yours are worth knowing about, especially if you were capturing sales while the competitor was out of stock. A restock after a long absence may come with a different price point, so check the price alongside the restock event.

When it does not matter. Most restocks are routine inventory replenishment. If you are not competing on specific SKUs, restocks are informational rather than actionable.

Out of Stock

A product that was available is now showing as unavailable.

What it usually means. The store sold through its inventory or pulled the product from sale. Extended out-of-stock periods can indicate supply chain issues, deliberate phase-outs, or seasonal stockout patterns.

When it matters. A competitor going out of stock on a product you both sell is a tactical opportunity. You may be able to capture demand, especially on marketplace listings or in paid search. Multiple products going out of stock at the same store simultaneously may signal broader supply issues.

When it does not matter. Individual out-of-stock events on low-priority products are routine. Some stores fluctuate availability constantly, especially those with limited-run or dropshipped inventory.

How to Read the Feed Effectively

Start with the filters

The activity feed supports filtering by change type, time range, store, and platform. If you are doing a focused review, filter first. Looking at all changes across all stores for 30 days is overwhelming. Looking at price drops on your top 3 competitors for the past 7 days is actionable.

Look for patterns, not individual events

A single price drop is a data point. Five price drops across the same store in the same category is a pattern. The feed is most useful when you step back and look for clusters of related changes rather than reacting to each entry in isolation.

Patterns that matter:

• Multiple price drops at the same store in the same week (repricing event)
• New products appearing alongside price drops (launch promotion)
• Restocks following extended out-of-stock periods (inventory cycle insight)
• Removals clustered in a single category (potential category exit)
• Price increases across multiple competitors simultaneously (market-wide shift)

Use the chart view

The activity page includes a chart showing change volume over time, broken down by type. This is useful for spotting unusual activity spikes. A sudden spike in price drops across your competitive set is visible in the chart even if you do not scroll through every individual entry.

Normal weeks have a relatively stable activity profile. When the shape changes noticeably, dig into what happened.

Connect to other surfaces

The activity feed shows you what changed. Other Bonesaw features help you understand why and what to do about it:

• Store detail page. Click into a specific store to see its recent changes, change counts by time window, and overall scan health. This gives you the single-store view when the cross-store feed surfaces something interesting.
• Weekly report. Aggregates activity into a summary with top movers, change counts, and trend data. Good for catching patterns you missed in the daily feed.
• Anomaly detection. Flags statistically unusual changes automatically. If something in the feed looks odd, check whether anomaly detection already flagged it.
• Intel Snapshot. When a competitor's activity suggests strategic changes (many new products, policy changes reflected in pricing), running Intel gives you deeper context on their current setup.
• Alerts. If you find yourself checking the feed daily for a specific type of change on a specific competitor, set up an alert rule instead. Let the system watch for you.

Which Changes Deserve Immediate Attention

Not everything in the feed needs a response. Here is a practical priority framework:

Act now. A direct competitor dropped the price significantly on a product you both sell. A competitor restocked a high-demand item they were out of on. Multiple price drops at the same store suggest a repricing event you should evaluate before it affects your sales.

Review this week. New products from a competitor in your category. Price increases that might create pricing opportunities. A cluster of removals that could signal a category exit.

Note for context. Price drops on products outside your market. Individual restocks or removals. Small price fluctuations under 3%.

Ignore. Out-of-stock events on products you do not compete on. Removal events for products already flagged as end-of-life. Normal inventory churn from stores with high product turnover.

Common Mistakes

Reacting to every price drop. Not every drop is aimed at you and not every drop will stick. Some are temporary promotions, some are clearance, some are errors that get corrected the next day. Wait for confirmation before adjusting your own pricing.

Ignoring out-of-stock signals. Operators tend to focus on prices and new products while overlooking availability changes. A competitor going out of stock on your best-selling category is a bigger deal than a small price cut on something you barely sell.

Not filtering the feed. Scrolling through 500 unfiltered changes is not analysis. Use the type and store filters to focus on what matters. If you monitor 20 stores, you probably care about changes at 3 to 5 of them more than the rest.

Treating the feed as a to-do list. The feed is intelligence, not a task queue. Most entries require no action. The feed is useful because it keeps you informed, not because every entry needs a response. If you feel compelled to act on every change, you are monitoring too many stores or your alert thresholds need tuning.

Missing patterns by reading entries one at a time. A single price drop is ambiguous. Five price drops from the same store in the same week is a strategic move. Step back regularly and look at the shape of activity rather than reading the feed like a news ticker.

Frequently Asked Questions

How far back does the activity feed go? You can filter by today, 7 days, or 30 days. For longer historical analysis, individual store detail pages show full change history, and CSV export (PRO) lets you pull data for deeper analysis.

What is the difference between the activity feed and the weekly report? The activity feed shows individual changes in real time. The weekly report aggregates those changes into a summary with top movers, change counts, and trend data. Use the feed for day-to-day monitoring and the report for weekly strategic review.

Why do I see a "new product" entry for a product I know was there before? If a product was removed and then re-added, it will appear as a new entry. Some stores also change product identifiers during site migrations, which can cause previously tracked products to appear as new.

Can I get notified about specific change types without checking the feed? Yes. Set up alert rules for the change types you care about most, and Bonesaw will notify you via email, Slack, or Discord when they occur.

What does it mean when a store shows zero activity for a week? Either the store genuinely had no changes (some stores are very stable), or there may be a monitoring issue preventing scans from completing. Check the Issues Center to see if the store has any active scan problems.

How do sale_start and sale_end events work? When a product's sale status changes, Bonesaw detects it. A sale starting or ending is tracked internally and can contribute to price changes in the feed. If a product's price drops because it went on sale, you will see the price drop event.

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Bonesaw is a product of MoonsLink. Monitoring capabilities described in this guide reflect publicly accessible product data collected through standard web protocols. Bonesaw does not access private or authenticated data. All data collection respects robots.txt directives and site access policies.