News Feature | May 8, 2014

Dynamic Retail Pricing Platform Launched

By Hannah Ash, contributing writer

Dynamic Retail Pricing

Prices Becomes Responsive With Help From Boomerang Commerce

As both retailers and shoppers know, when it comes to online shopping, price disparities loom large today. Without the personalized experience a brick-and-mortar can offer, online brand and store loyalty is not particularly high; product surfing from one shop to another has never been easier and the price difference between one store and another can make or break a sale, and a retail commerce strategy. Pricing is more important than ever; a recent report on what motivates the generation born between 1980 and 2000 shows that 4 in 10 millenial shoppers choose the store brand regularly, citing value as their primary reason for doing so. The balance between offering the lowest prices and making a profit is a challenging endeavor in today’s highly competitive retail climate. Innovations from e-commerce solutions providers can pick up where the online store leaves off by delivering greater value and convenience to the omni-channel shopper while also delivering retailers big results.

One provider of e-commerce solutions, Boomerang Commerce, is doing just that. The company just announced the launch of Dynamic Price Optimizer, a data price optimization solution for online retailers. Working with such high-volume clients as Groupon Goods, Sears and Radio Shack, Boomerang Commerce understands retail’s need for pricing solutions that consider both shopper desirability and the bottomline. On the launch of its dynamic pricing solution, Guru Hariharan, CEO at Boomerang Commerce, comments, “with showrooming and online price comparison, the industry is irreversibly moving towards 100% price transparency. Online retailers are faced with the opposite goals of pricing aggressively to beat competition while pricing smartly to increase profits. Balancing competitiveness and profitability is the key to success.”

The Dynamic Price Optimizer works by accessing retailers’ online catalogues and adjusting pricing based, in part, upon the prices set by competing retailers. The platform will also track the profitability of each product’s price point and will strike a smart balance between competitive and profitable pricing. According to Vamsi Vutukuru, Vice President of Products, “the Dynamic Price Optimizer leverages both competitor and profitability intelligence to make pricing decisions at a SKU level, while optimizing overall business goals.” The focus on retail data is sharpening - in 2012, true omni-channel retailer Home Depot acquired the retail pricing startup BlackLocus while just this month Google acquired retail data company Rangespan. Data-driven retail is a logical result of the wealth of information generated from integrated shopping; as shopping becomes more and more integrated, data-focused solutions such as dynamic pricing are poised for greater growth.