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Strictly Increasing Prices Query
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Strictly Increasing Prices Query

HardSQL · PostgreSQL

Problem

Nielsen pricing analysts want to identify products with consistently rising observed prices in the Nielsen product catalog. Write a PostgreSQL query that returns product names whose non-null monthly prices strictly increase over time.

Requirements

  1. Join the product catalog to its monthly pricing records.
  2. Use a window function to compare each price with the previous observed month for the same product.
  3. Return products with at least three non-null monthly prices, where every subsequent price is strictly greater than the previous one.
  4. Sort the resulting product names alphabetically. Missing calendar months do not invalidate a product; compare the available non-null observations in chronological order.

Schema

nielsen_products
ColumnTypeDescription
product_idPKINTUnique Nielsen product identifier
product_nameVARCHAR(150)Nielsen product name
categoryVARCHAR(80)Product category
nielsen_monthly_prices
ColumnTypeDescription
price_idPKINTUnique pricing record identifier
product_idINTReferenced Nielsen product identifier
month_startDATEFirst day of the pricing month
priceNUMERIC(10,2)Observed product price
Tablesnielsen_productsnielsen_monthly_prices
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