Today’s consumers are making more calculated choices based on the unprecedented amount of data available to them via smartphones, shopping comparison apps and daily deals. To help sellers optimize product and pricing strategies, Gazaro has released PriceIQ, a market intelligence service designed to provide in-depth pricing analytics and data that helps merchants keep pace with competing retailers and daily deal sites.
“Along with Amazon and comparison-shopping engines, mobile devices are adding insult to injury,” said Alexander Rink, CEO of Gazaro, a tracking, analyzing and reporting solution provider. “Shoppers can go to a store, scan a barcode, get competitors’ prices and even purchase from a competitor while in another store.”
As the 2011 holiday shopping season approaches, retailers can use PriceIQ to instantly track pricing trends and market changes and obtain optimal pricing results, Rink noted. They can increase purchase likelihood by matching inventory with competitor products to compare prices, markdowns and offers.
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“It is vital that retailers acknowledge and adapt to pricing trends,” Rink told Retail TouchPoints. “If retailers don’t have the right price at right time, they’ve lost the customer. They may have price match policies, but those are difficult to enforce and not an effective way to recover a customer.”
Currently companies in BtoB and BtoC sectors are leveraging PriceIQ to track more than 100,000 products from 20-plus competitors. They then set product pricing based on marketing intelligence provided by the solution. PriceIQ maintains approximately 1 billion pricing data points with 7 million added daily, according to Rink.
Price IQ provides match rates and analytics for price, competitor and channel monitoring, along with market and assortment analysis. Various lines of business titles can implement PriceIQ to obtain data in real time. Executives obtain access to dashboards; marketers view competitive intelligence; buyers compare brands and improve intelligence for negotiations; and pricing analysts and product managers examine products by category for optimum pricing and product mix.
PriceIQ also allows retailers to:
o Compare company price position to national and private brands;
o Optimize product price points to demand and market conditions to eliminate overstocks and out-of-stocks;
o Make effective inventory purchase decisions;
o Obtain data to support external pricing in marketing materials;
o Benefit from mobile search dynamics; and
o Ensure compliance with Manufacturer IMAP/MAP policies.
“We’re now moving out of the regular selling season and into the ‘playoffs,’” Rink said. “Shoppers will be more competitive and agile as they use data in more novel ways this holiday season. Gazaro strongly believes in the intelligence of these consumers. In response, retailers must have quick access to current market data. Their retail profitability is dependent on product mix and pricing, which in turn are dependent on pricing analytics and market intelligence.”
