Each day, customers' perception is flooded with new goods, brands, discounts and loyalty programs. Each day, hundreds of online stores are popping up. How to compete with all these sales outlets? How to reach your customers? And, more importantly, how to keep your customers coming back? This modern shopping environment is more like a medieval marketplace. You can call out loudly to attract your customers by spending a huge marketing budget on advertising, or, you can enter price competition by slashing product markups, and thus sacrifice gross margin and revenue. Luckily, automated
retail systems have a better solution. It's called "rules-based pricing" or "centralized price list management". People who buy your stuff still have different income levels; their spending behavior and social statuses still vary. But in shopping, there is a general trend in the air – your customers are trying to act wiser than ever. They're out for "fair price", deals and coupons. They search for best value, not just best price. Moreover, many customers keep track on shopping expenditure and indulge in competitive analyses of price offers and price thresholds. You can get competitive advantage by communicating a fair price image. Rules-based price list management means:
- An increase in customer loyalty, as your clients see your prices as well balanced and sensible. Your buyers will keep coming back, boosting your sales volume and profits.
- You set price limits for each product (min, max price), and associate the markup with time and customers groups (CRM), maintaining full control on your price image.
- A dynamic e-commerce software environment that is easy to control.
- Constant feedback, so you can build an effective price strategy. Forecast sales and adjust your stock.
- No more inept discounts that lower the gross margin. "Fair price" does not necessarily translate "cheaper than others'", consistency and overall image are what counts.
- Play by your own rules. Synchronize product group markups, tailor the effect on sales volume, and keep private label advantage without compromising brand goods that you sell.
Setting a correct price increases revenue, no matter if you manage a retail chain, department store, supermarket, shopping mall, webshop, mobile
point of sale, speciality store, boutique, or franchise network. It is estimated that 50% or big retail chains have opted for a centralized price list management. Small retail outlets are soon to follow. ERPLY Retail ERP software incorporates Centralized
Price List Management. It lets you to create as many price lists as you need, and to manage these dynamically. Automatic price lists can be associated with time periods, customer groups, or product groups, and can be turned on and off for easy re-use in the future. Rules-based pricing takes a short term effort to set up, but the benefits quickly show up in revenue and balance sheets. This has been reported both by our clients and industry wide.