Omnichannel retailing continues to up the ante on competitive pricing and overall price transparency. Download this new RIS Roadmap report to discover how leading retailers are harnessing the power of big data to shape their pricing strategy and gain a competitive advantage.
eCommerce is expected to outpace sales growth at brick-and-mortar stores over the next five years – reaching $370 billion in sales by 2017 according to Forrester – with digital now influencing 50% of US retail sales.
As a result, a growing number of retailers now depend on accurate, daily competitive price intelligence to inform and guide their pricing strategies and put them on a more even footing with Amazon.
Big Data Fuels Next-Generation Pricing Strategies, a new report from RIS sponsored by Profitero and our partner Revionics, looks at how retailers can harness big data to pursue more competitive pricing that can differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive landscape – and optimize this information to successfully drive sales.
Strategically Managing Price
With the growth of online retail and big data, retailers are now able to collect exponentially larger competitive pricing data sets, more frequently and more efficiently than traditional analog methods which are costly and difficult to scale.
Our customer Nebraska Furniture Mart is an excellent example of a retailer who is using big data to optimize their omnichannel pricing strategy. Nebraska gets pricing intelligence from us at 4am each morning and by 8am, their in-store prices are updated via electronic shelf tags.
A growing number of our customers also integrate our competitive price intelligence with optimization solutions – such as our partner Revionics – to make these decisions even more efficiently and on the basis of even more complete information.
To prepare for the next-generation of big data pricing, Profitero’s Keith Anderson advises retailers in this report to:
1. Align the company culturally around the importance of data. Many retailers leap to the technical requirements to get started, but our experience is that a cultural shift is equally or more important.
2. Carry out a basic assessment of desired and current analytical capabilities. What insights and intelligence are desired but not currently accessible? Wherever possible, these insights should be linkable to actions to be taken by specific functions.
3. Evaluate solution providers and partners. In the field of competitive price intelligence (as in many technology areas), there are several solution providers, and the right fit depends on many factors including your objectives, requirements, and budget.
We encourage retailers to ask questions of potential providers such as:
- How frequently do you collect data?
- How do you ensure the accuracy of your data?
- At what scale can you collect data?
- What retail industry and domain expertise do you have?
Profitero is the leading global provider of eCommerce intelligence for retailers and brands, collecting online data on more than 275 million products every day.
We provide both brick & mortar and online retailers with their competitors’ prices, promotions and full product assortment information. More than 50 global retailers, including Staples, Waitrose, Ocado, Morrisons, Walmart-owned Sam’s Club and Worten, rely on Profitero’s accurate and timely competitor price intelligence to make better informed and more profitable pricing decisions, helping them to increase sales as well as margins.
Profitero also supplies brands with critical online insights, helping to enhance their online sales and market positioning. We deliver key online metrics, including share of online shelf, share of voice, pricing, brand price monitoring and new product monitoring, in any country and from any online or multichannel retailer, updated every day.