Are you a start-up? Are you an established brand? Do you wish to enter the big leagues? Or trying to become a retailer brand? Are you armed up with pricing intelligence for retailers?

Online and offline prices have disparities. Online price monitoring can be done with the help of retail price optimization and competitor pricing research. But do you wish to keep tabs on offline pricing info as well? Offline pricing can be monitored and is also inevitable if your nature of business requires you to go offline as well. We will tell you why.

For instance, when we hear the name of the product, a certain range of price comes to our mind. Likewise, everybody has a price in their mind for the same product. Often, they will be different, closer but different. Wondering why that happens? Not to worry.

This blog will help you understand

• Why is there a gap in online and offline pricing?
• How retail price optimization can help you get better sales?
• That competitive pricing plays a key role in offline pricing as well
• Why is there a need for a retail management system?
• How pricing intelligence for retail can help you monitor offline prices?

Let’s dig deeper into the retail offline pricing strategy.

 1. Conduct a Competitor Research

If you are a retailer with an only offline presence, then there’s no sense in changing your pricing strategy for online buyers. Also, there’s no point in tracking the online competitors like Amazon, eBay prices. So, what should you do? Conduct competitor pricing research who has an offline presence like your business. Monitor the pricing according to the location, shop proximity, zip code, zones, province and market. And this can be easily done by companies like WebDataGuru which excel in tracking prices online and offline.

Detailed analysis can help you understand the buying behavior of your industry. While the whole world is coming online, there are still some retailers who conduct their business offline keeping an online presence for the sake of it. The markets are changing and price optimization for retail has become trickier and more complex. Online retail giants like Amazon, eBay and Alibaba conduct thorough research in the markets they have a presence. In the past decade, the aggressive marketing approach has landed Amazon into deeper pockets of distinctive cities and countries.

Moreover, they have strong retail price optimization plans in place. According to a survey, online retail buying is expected to shoot up from 14.1% to 22%. That’s really huge.

 2. Define Your Brand

If you are an offline or an online seller, the most prominent and primary step is to define your brand. Being a retailer means having an appropriate retail management system ready in place. The brand positioning will define your business strategies along the way. You need to define whether you want to sell at low prices, have an exclusive store or sell premium products to a very small niche audience. The type of business you want to conduct will help you get your prices right. Here pricing intelligence for retailers can come in handy.

Let us explain this with an example. Now, iPhone has always adopted the premium pricing strategy. Once the phone is launched the prices are too high, then with time they reduce it and soon they have another launch. Now, Apple has defined its brand as luxurious, premium and best quality. And accordingly, they price their products and services.

Basically, they want to sell a lifestyle and experiences. But, if you go to an apple store, there will be a slight difference in the prices they offer online and offline. This happens because they take into consideration the online competitor pricing research and do price optimization for retail in a different way.

So, a retail management system like PriceIntelGuru has to offer, comes into the picture here. Where you can define your target audience and nature of business. Further, you can narrow down the possibilities of better sales.

3.Pricing Intelligence

Whether it’s an online retail business or an offline one, pricing intelligence for retailers plays a prominent role.

SaaS companies like WebDataGuru have expertise in this niche. As there is a thin line between online and offline commerce. Companies bring in their experience and skill into your business. The reason is their diverse exposure to myriad types of businesses. Pricing intelligence helps in tracking offline prices too. How? Well, a database is created for offline competitors. This database is focused on the local areas and the local consumers. The database is then integrated with a retail management system with the price your offline competitors have to offer. Offline pricing can help you deliver the best in a competitive way, only if you know what their prices and offers are.

Pricing intelligence for retailers lets you do this and much more. It helps in price optimization for retail businesses may it be offline or online. Brand owners and retailers should have a pricing strategy in place for both online and offline presence. Now, to what extent can you balance the price difference will make all the difference. And yes, you guessed it right, pricing intelligence for retailers can help you here also.

Now, moving ahead let us discuss why is there a minor or drastic price difference in online and offline prices of a product.

Why is There a Price Difference in Online and Offline Retail Business?

 1. Product Movement

Pricing intelligence for retailers can not only guide you in pricing but also let you understand the product logistics. You might be wondering why is it important. For starters, the products that a consumer uses have layers of people via whom it is reached to their hands. These layers also add to the cost of the product. So, simply put lesser the layer, the lesser the cost and the lesser the price of the product. That’s why the product movement has a key part in deciding the price.

So, while we talk about a product movement in an offline business, commonly, the stages will be:

• Manufactures/retailer/owner
• Distributor
• Dealer/wholesaler
• Retailer
• Retail showroom/store
• Consumer

And for an online retail business, the stages will be

• Manufacturer/ marketer
• Online store
• Consumer

There you go. Simple and easy. The stages of a product movement in an offline business are more than that of an online business. An apt retail management system can help you manage the pricing for your business in the most effective manner.

2. Discount Offers:

Every consumer prefers a low price. So, pricing is one of the biggest buying influences for every customer. Here, as a retailer, you need to justify your pricing and the product you offer distinctively.

Now, how can you do that without compromising on your bottom line and have a powerful price optimization for retail with you all at once? The answer is competitor pricing research. Yes, competitor pricing research can open doors for new leads and sales conversions.  It can help you in tracking the online and offline pricing of your competitors. This means that you can have discount offers and promotions when your competitors are not going for one. This will help you tap into audiences who can avail the best price from only you.

Offers and discounts can be also offered when the competitor prices are changing constantly. This particularly happens only in online commerce. With PriceIntelgGuru’s pricing intelligence for retailers. You can leap ahead of your competitors.  Knowing what is sold where at what price can be great to decide your pricing strategy.

Offers and discounts also make a difference in the price difference we see in the offline and online markets.

 3. Costs:

Cost is the key to pricing. This is literally business 101. You have your costs and then you have your profit margin and then finally the price you sell your product at. Basic costs include employees, high rent locations, special value-added services and the like.

The cost also includes the expense you bear for the research, analysis and retail price optimization services from companies like WebDataGuru. But, that’s more of an investment. Marketing and research for better sales are paramount for every retail business. So, when we talk about the price differences in the online and offline market, cost also bears equal significance. One price can’t work for all markets. So, the same happens with online and offline markets. If you set your offline store or instore price like the ones on the online market, then the prices won’t work competitively for you.

Here, competitor pricing research plays an even more crucial role. The insights from your offline and online competitor pricing research will help you price your product accordingly without losing any profit margins. Now, that’s a jackpot!

4. Price Policy:

When running a retail business, pricing policies are vital. Without a competent pricing policy, your business will not have success in the long run. Having said that, the pricing policies of many companies vary according to the nature of the business. For example, a shoe business might want its customers to come online and purchase more in order to cash in the digital craze for shopping in buyers. For that, online prices have to be more competitive than their in-store prices. It’s more of a promotional tactic to get consumers to buy online.

Simply put, price optimization for retail in-store business will be different than the online one.

How? Well, a consumer will definitely prefer to get the same product from the same brand they love at a lower price from anywhere. What they don’t know is the fact that the retailer might have pushed people to get a hang of their new online store or get more website traffic for boosting their eCommerce business. Similarly, every company may have a pricing policy that defines their online and offline prices. And tracking those prices is the key to understanding the market dynamics. And that’s the only reason retail price optimization is important for competing in a market.

As we saw a few but impending reasons to which the prices are different in the online and offline markets. Let us now understand how this difference is good for a retailer and a consumer both.

Benefits of Price Difference

 1. Competitive:

Competitive prices always ensure that you are willing to invest in converting a potential buyer into a consumer. This also encourages loyalty and makes your business a top-of-mind recall for that customer. Truly said, if the prices are competitive and not identical then you have a business that has market dynamics as key for all business strategies.

Companies can utilize price optimization for retail in many ways. To begin with, price optimization for retail can provide you with valuable insights into industry standards. Every retailer has a retail management system in place. Pricing will help streamline all the uncontrollable and controllable factors of a market. Dynamic pricing is what all the eCommerce chains adapt. For that PriceIntelGuru offers retail price optimization.

So, keeping competitive prices can make the market more friendly for consumers and also drive you to up your game as a business.

2. Customer-centric Approach:

Consumer is the king in every which way. Deciding when to change your pricing strategy should be driven by the consumers. The only reason is that more consumers mean more money. It does make sense, right?

Retail price optimization helps in deriving the preferences, likes, moods, and dislikes of a consumer. Consumer behavior paves the foundation when it comes to running a business whether it is online or offline. You must understand why the consumer comes back to your brand or why they don’t. Bridging that gap is what matters the most. When you have distinctive prices online and offline, it’s not always necessary that people will go for a lower price.

Often consumers like to have the best user experience even if they have to pay a higher price. Here, the consumers are paying for getting the look and feel and the satisfaction of doing shopping. It’s an old adage that shopping is therapeutic. With advanced technology and constantly innovative AI standards, soon people will enjoy the same experience virtually.

 3. Price Adaptation:

In today’s day and age, people have access to every online eCommerce platform. A concrete and smart retail management system will be essential to deal with a smart consumer. Customers will come to your business and try to get a lower price for the same product. Here, the question is whether you match your prices with the online store. Consider this as generic competitive pricing research.

Matching the online store price means getting the consumer to buy your product without causing a dent in your prices. This can be done only if you have prior knowledge about the online ongoing prices. Competitive intelligence offered by WebDataGuru is the best in such situations. You can study the online prices and form a pricing strategy that works for you if and when a consumer wants you to match the online store price. The customer is happy and you are happy. A win-win-win situation.

Decode a pricing strategy that’s efficient, excellent and competitive

WebDataGuru is one of the leading data monitoring companies providing multiple solutions like pricing intelligence, competitor pricing research, data analysis and much more. Fine-tune your pricing strategy with insightful and automated data monitoring and competitive analysis.

So, get the best for your business-may it be an online or a retail offline business, hire only the best. Book a demo today!