DAVIS, CA - In an increasingly competitive grocery retail landscape, price optimization has never been more important, and Engage3 offers a unique approach to combining data science, deep domain expertise, and innovative technology. And while the company is involved in meeting clients where they live with customized solutions to develop pricing strategy, it’s also providing content to edify readers, viewers, and listeners with insights into retail pricing.
Recently, Engage3 Founder Ken Ouimet sat down with Bill Bishop, Chief Architect at Brick Meets Click and one of the retail food industry’s preeminent consultants, at the National Grocers Association (NGA) Show in San Diego.
The two discussed one of retail's hottest topics: how to beat “hard discounters” like Aldi and Lidl on the basis of value. Without the advantage of economies of scale, without the means to offer dozens of loss leaders, what can a grocer do?
“I think the first thing to recognize is that price image occurs in the mind of each individual shopper,” Bishop tells Ouimet, in their video interview. “So a retailer’s got to start thinking about how to change the impression of their prices a shopper at a time. The one way we’ve seen that work so far, and I’m sure there are others, is to take a look at what items are in the ad, identify the items in the ad that are purchased by a particular household, and to call attention to that. When you do that, you’re likely to have a set of prices that are quite a bit lower than what the discounter’s doing with their everyday low prices.”
The two focus on the increasing individualization of promotional pricing versus mass market offers, trends toward personalization, and other ways in which enterprising merchants are able to turn tides against hard discounters and make the perception of value work in their favor.
Watch Ouimet and Bishop’s interview above, and visit Engage3’s website, here, for a complete transcript and more information on price optimization.
