Retailers continue to feel pressure from all sides when it comes to refining their pricing strategies. As many as 55% of retailers noted increasing consumer price sensitivity as a top strategic pricing business challenge in 2015, according to research from Retail Systems Research (RSR). Additionally, 48% of retailers believe increased pricing aggressiveness from competitors is a major challenge, up from 32% in 2014.
360pi, a provider of price and product intelligence solutions, co-sponsored the report, titled: Pricing 2015: Learning To Live In A Dynamic, Promotional World. The report highlights the top strategic pricing business challenges for retailers, the pricing strategies of retail winners and laggards, and key opportunities for retailers to successfully navigate through the future of pricing. RSR surveyed 123 retail respondents online between March and May 2015 to collect data for the report.
Although having competitive prices is important for retailers across product categories, most retailers have not implemented an outsourced solution to take the heat off of their internal pricing teams. In fact, 31% of respondents still gather competitive price data manually, while 41% of retailers use in-house solutions to collect and process the data.
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As retailers optimize their pricing strategies, they’re still keeping their customers in mind. More than half (51%) of retailers admit that they worry consumers will have negative reactions to their pricing changes. This is a substantial increase over the results from 2014 (37%) and 2013 (29%).
Dynamic pricing will become a key ingredient for retailers — winners and laggards alike — as competitive pricing becomes a business necessity. One fourth of the respondents noted that dynamic pricing will eventually drive a large portion of online pricing, while 21% said they will have to develop new in-store pricing strategies to handle the trend.
