Wiser’s Pricing Expertise Highlighted in Software Advice’s Pricing Report

Aside from policies and rules set by manufacturers, retailers have full authorization to price and sell their products in whatever fashion they see fit. It all just depends on what kinds of products you are selling and what kind of shoppers you are selling to.

There are plenty of pricing strategies that online retailers have been using, but one has really been gaining a lot of buzz lately. That strategy is known as dynamic pricing. A recent report by Software Advice, an online review site for point of sale systems, showed the top ten pricing strategies used by retailers. It also featured Wiser’s insight on automated repricing with a dynamic pricing strategy.

What does it mean to reprice online?

Repricing online doesn’t have to be hard. As a matter of fact, it’s as easy as three parts. The article reads, “Min-Jee Hwang, marketing director for pricing intelligence company Wiser, says the process of price intelligence and management can be separated into three parts: ‘awareness’, ‘automation’ and ‘analysis.’”

When you’re trusting a cloud software with the process of repricing your store’s products online, you’re going to want to make sure that these bases are covered. If you’re going to adopt a dynamic pricing strategy, you’re going to want to make sure you’re doing it right. Here’s what it means to nail all three A’s:

• ‘Awareness’ keeps the retailer informed of how goods are being priced by their competitors across the entire marketplace.
• ‘Automation’ helps set prices for retailers. Automation can be dynamic with an algorithm to continuously change prices, or rule-based, where retailers set criteria for repricing, like traffic rates or competitor prices.
• ‘Analysis’ provides analyzed results to understand which pricing rules and strategies are improving your bottom line, and which ones aren’t doing it any favors.

There are plenty of other pricing strategies retailers can use as well. Take for example a high-low strategy, where a product’s price is set high, and gradually lowered through discounts and promotions. Made most popular by JC Penney, the pricing strategy can help customers feel like they got an incredible deal on a valuable product.

According to the report, the most popular pricing strategy for online retailers was a discount strategy. The reason for this is straightforward: “everyone loves a bargain.” Other popular strategies include bundle pricing and odd pricing.

The reason why retailers use more than one pricing strategy is because all of their customers are not the same. Different products deserve their own strategies because they are almost always directed at unique customer segments. Software Advice’s report showed that 52% of retailers actually use more than ten different pricing strategies. The eight highlighted in the report are:

1. Discount
2. Bundle
3. Below competition
4. MSRP
5. Odd pricing
6. Price lining
7. Dynamic
8. High-low

Want to learn more about more price strategies? Check out the rest of Software Advice’s report here.

Contributing Writer: Brian Smyth