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Tough Love: An In Depth Look at Retail
Pricing PracticesBenchmark 2013
Nikki Baird and Paula Rosenblum, Managing Partners
April 2013
Sponsored by:
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Executive Summary
Retailers continue to escalate the number of price changes they send to stores and other
channels. Their field human resource infrastructure groans under the sheer weight of the work
effort involved in keeping signage and tags up to date, but pressured by perceived consumer
price sensitivity and increased competitive pressures, these price changes continue.
This escalation continues despite a dearth of information about the potential impact of changes to
price and even an analysis of the actual impact of tactical price changes. We found this stunning.
Key Findings
While a majority of retailers continue to increase the number price changes they send to
stores and other channels, those who underperform in year over year price changes are
leading the charge, with fully 90% reporting at least some increase over the past three
years. Sadly, only 15% report aggregate gross margin improvements for the critical
holiday season.
The business challenges driving these price changes come from customers, competitorsand shareholders. Fifty-seven percent of respondents report increased consumer price
sensitivity as a top-three business challenge, 41% report increased pricing
aggressiveness from competitors, and 40% report the need to get a better return on
inventory investment through pricing as top issues.
It appears as though retailers have learned to live with showrooming and price
transparency. They are less worried this year about damage to their zone pricing policies
(21% this year vs. 34% last year), and a plurality (38%) believe their policies to manage
prices across channels are effective. Theyve seen and survived showrooming, and with
a few high profile exceptions, have opted to be competitive rather than price match
(38% vs. 17%).
Forty-two percent report the need for cleaner data as a top-three organizational barrierto more effective pricing practices. The same number cites resistance to change from
stores as a top-three issue. A slightly smaller percentage (40%) believes they need better
skill sets to improve execution. This is certainly credible, as a plurality report they can
neither predict the impact of price changes they make, nor truly analyze the effectiveness
of those price changes after the fact.
The top technologies currently being evaluated include markdown forecasting and
planning (24%), promotion optimization (23%), regular price optimization (20%), inventory
management/availability as a price driver (23%), and price intelligence (18%). A
significant number are exploring or budgeting for these same technologies.
BOOTstrap Recommendations
We recognize that we are unlikely to stop the seemingly endless barrage of promotional activity
retailers engage in, but we strongly recommend improving measurement tools, both before and
after the fact. That measurement should go beyond just the actual aggregate gross margin
improvement or sales lift associated with price tweaking, but also include the cost to store
operations and other personnel to execute those price changes. As in prior years, we hope to see
retailers return to what weve called the virtuous pricing cycle, Plan-Execute-Measure. This
seems overtly simplistic, yet its what the data is calling for.
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary ........................................................................................................................... iResearch Overview ......................................................................................................................... 1
Strategy vs. Tactics, and Plans vs. Execution ............................................................................. 1
Retail Winners: Why Performance Matters .................................................................................. 2Were Making Good Time, but We Might J ust be Lost ............................................................. 2
Methodology................................................................................................................................. 3
Survey Respondent Characteristics ............................................................................................ 3
Business Challenges ....................................................................................................................... 5Pressure Comes from Consumers and Shareholders ................................................................. 5
Winners Seek Brand Protection, Laggards Look Over their Shoulders ...................................... 5
Opportunities ................................................................................................................................... 8Margins, Sales, and the Economy ............................................................................................... 8
The Margin Story ......................................................................................................................... 9
Zone Pricing and Transparency - Friends at Last? ................................................................... 10
Channel Conflict and Mobile: Reining in Showrooming ............................................................. 11
The Promotions Conundrum ...................................................................................................... 12Organizational Inhibitors ................................................................................................................ 14
If Price is our Lever, Why Cant We Always Execute? .............................................................. 14
How Can We Get Past these Concerns? .................................................................................. 15
Operational Challenges Are Surprising ..................................................................................... 16
Bottom Line: A Wall of Confusion .............................................................................................. 17
Technology Enablers ..................................................................................................................... 18The Customer Data Silver Bullet................................................................................................ 18
Customer Data - A Laggards' Tale ............................................................................................ 19
Making It All Happen .................................................................................................................. 20
Technology's Performance Gap ................................................................................................ 21
A Note About Hosted Solutions ................................................................................................. 23
BOOTstrap Recommendations ..................................................................................................... 24Resisting Discounting's Siren Call ............................................................................................. 24
Measure the Impact of Price Changes ...................................................................................... 24
Corollary: Measure the Customer Impact of Conflicting Channel Prices................................... 25
Faster and More is Not Better - Measure the Cost to Stores .................................................... 25
Appendix A: RSRs Research Methodology .................................................................................... aAppendix B: About Our Sponsors.................................................................................................... bAppendix C: About RSR Research .................................................................................................. d
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Research Overview
Strategy vs. Tactics, and Plans vs. Execution
Why would RSR use the term Tough Love as part of the title of its seventh annual Pricing
Benchmark? Because the data tells us that while some retailers have succeeded at high stakes
promotion wars driven by the self-fulfilling prophecy of consumer price sensitivity, others are
failing sometimes spectacularly even as the shopper becomes more and more accustomed to
ever more dramatic and frequent promotions.
And heres the real kicker: Those who over-perform on year-over-year comparable sales are
far more likely to stay the course in their pricing strategy than their competitors . Their
competitors continue to up the promotions ante, yet as well see, they dont get the sales or
margin kick that they crave. Well explain the difference between Winners, Average Performers
and laggards shortly, but in the meanwhile lets take the following data point as an example:
staying the course on pricing strategy vs. becoming more promotional (Figure 1)*.
Figure 1: Chasing Low Price vs. Staying the Course
Source: RSR Research, April 2013(*Figures do not add up to 100%)
Of course, just deciding to avoid promotions doesnt guarantee success. At least one high profile
failure has shown that simply announcing an end to promotions without adequate explanation and
preparation is doomed. But thats not a strategy failure: its a series of tactical miscues.
Similarly, plans to execute a high-low pricing strategy, hallmarked by ever-increasing pricechanges, create operational issues in stores and other channels and confuse and frustrate
consumers.
With that as backdrop, well take a look at the state of the pricing union, based on responses from
more than 100 retailers around the world. Some of what we say may be hard to hear, which is
why weve called this report Tough Love: An In-Depth Look at Retail Pricing Practices. For
many of us, its time to stop competing on other companies turf, and focus on finding our own
niche. As we said last year, No one wins in a race to the bottom. Thats still true.
24%
32%
40%
9%
40%
15%
We have become more promotions driven Our strategy has not changed
How has Your Pricing Strategy Changed Overthe Past Three (3) Years?*
Retail Winners Average Performers Laggards
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Retail Winners: Why Performance Matters
Our definition of Retail Winners is straightforward. We measure retailers by year-over-year
comparable store/channel sales improvements. Assuming industry average comparable store/
channel sales growth of three percent, we define those with sales above this hurdle as
Winners, those at this sales growth rate as Average, and those below this sales growth rate as
laggards or also-rans. Throughout much of RSRs research we find that Winners dont merelydo the same things better, they tend to do different things. They think differently. They plan
differently. They respond differently.
Laggards also tend to think differently. They may have spectacular vision, but often fail on
execution. They may forget the power and breadth of choices todays customer has. They may
fail to re-invent themselves when it becomes obvious their existing business model is no longer
working. They dont change their business processes in an effective manner, and so they either
eschew technology enablers, or dont gain expected Return on Investment on those they DO buy.
So lets take a look at some additional differences between Retail Winners and their peers when it
comes to pricing practices and their outcomes. Weve already established that laggards have
been more likely to increase their promotional activity than Retail Winners. What has the outcomebeen, particularly for the all-important holiday season?
Were Making Good Time, but We Might Just be Lost
As well see later in this benchmark, retailers hope to achieve two primary objectives through their
pricing practices: improving top line results, and improving selling gross margin. How did our
respondents fare during the all-important holiday season?
Figure 2: Were Moving Quickly, But to What Purpose?
Source: RSR Research, April 2013
The data is clear. Even as laggards continued to ramp up their promotional activities, for at least
half, their margins have declined, and their sales have failed to improve (again: this is our
definition of laggards).
27%
58%
15%
32%
50%
18%15%
40%45%
Gone up (improved) Remained the same Gone down
Thinking of Holiday 2012, How Has Your SellingGross Margin Changed?
Retail Winners Average Performers Laggards
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And while all retailers continue to ramp up the sheer number of price changes they send to stores
and other channels, we can see from Figure 3 that laggards accelerate at a faster pace.
Figure 3: Act ivi ty Continues to Escalate
Source: RSR Research, April 2013
Fully 90% of laggards continue to increase the number of price changes they send to stores and
other channels. This adds increased burdens to already overtaxed store operations personnel
and still hasnt achieved the desired goals1.
Methodology
RSR uses its own model, called the BOOT, to analyze Retail Industry issues. We build this
model with our survey instruments.Appendix Acontains a full explanation of the methodology.
The BOOT model helps us better understand the behavioral and technological differences that
drive sustainable sales improvements and successful execution of brand vision.
Survey Respondent Characteristics
RSR conducted an online survey from January - April 2013 and received answers from 134
qualified retail respondents. Respondent demographics are as follows:
J ob Title:
Senior Management (CEO, CFO, COO) 36%
Middle Management (VP, Director, Manager) 44%
Individual Contributor 49%Other 4%
2012 Revenue (US$ Equivalent)
Less than $50 Million 37%
$50 - $249 Million 19%
$250 - $999 Million 11%
1Add reference to WFM or Merch report on payroll to sales figures here
36% 36%
24%
3%
46%
28%24%
2%
40%
50%
5% 5%
Increased significantly Somewhat increased Stayed about the same Decreased
How Has the Number of Price Changes Changed
Over the Past Three (3) Years
Retail Winners Average Performers Laggards
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$1 - $5 Billion 15%
Over $5 Billion 18%
Products sold:
Fashion / Short Lifecycle/Seasonal 31%
Durable Goods / Consumer Electronics 27%
Basics/Replenishment Goods 27%Perishables 15%
Geography (Headquarters vs. Retail Presence):
Region HQ Operate
USA 59% 67%
Canada 7% 27%
Latin America 2% 15%
UK 2% 15%
Europe 16% 26%
Middle East 3% 13%
Africa 2% 9%
Asia/Pacific 9% 20%
Headquarters/Retail Presence:
USA 56% 64%
Canada 10% 35%
Latin America 3% 20%
UK 2% 15%
Europe 19% 30%
Middle East 4% 14%
Africa 0% 8%
Asia/Pacific 6% 21%
Year-Over-Year Sales Growth Rates (assume average growth of 3%):Better than average (Double digit growth) 17%
Better than average (Single digit growth) 29%
Average 39%
Worse than average (laggards) 15%
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Business Challenges
Pressure Comes from Consumers and Shareholders
Last year we expressed a certain befuddlement at retailers fears of consumer price sensitivity
without a lot of statistical data to support it. This remains our point of view, and has been
supported by numerous consumer surveys.2 Yet it remains the most frequently cited business
challenge among our retail respondents (Figure 4), and retailers react accordingly.
Figure 4: Year over Year Pr ic ing Chal lenges A Focus on Inve ntory Investment
Source: RSR Research, April 2013
Having said that, we find retailers are almost equally concerned about satisfying shareholders.
Adding an answer option that focused on return on inventory investment yielded strong results.
Forty percent of respondents highlight this as a top-three concern, clearly trumping consumer
price sensitivity, competitor pricing aggressiveness and price transparency. This concern is
consistent across retailer performance levels, revenue or retail sub-vertical. Pricing is used as a
lever to boost sales, gross margin and clearly, turn.
Other business challenges vary significantly depending on retailer performance, however.
Winners Seek Brand Protection, Laggards Look Over their Shoulders
One key difference between Retail Winners and laggards is often found in their perceived
business challenges. Winners tend to look within, while laggards tend to constantly scan the
competitive landscape. The world of pricing is no exception (Figure 5).
2Insert reference to Daymon study here
18%
9%
27%
22%
47%
42%
51%
67%
13%
21%
25%
25%
33%
34%
40%
41%
57%
Respond to segment blurring (competition comingfrom unexpected places)
Need to provide more localized pricing
Need to provide consistency in price acrosschannels
Increased promotional intensity of competitors
Increased price transparency the impact ofcomparative price shopping
Need to protect our brands price image
Need to get better return on our inventoryinvestment through pricing
Increased pricing aggressiveness from competitors
Increased price sensitivity of consumers
Top Three (3) Strategic Pricing Business Challenges
2013 2012
N/A
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Figure 5: Winners Look Within, Laggards Look over Their Shoulders
Source: RSR Research, April 2013
Winners are far more concerned about protecting their brands pricing image, whether they think
of themselves as the low-price or premium product leader. Laggards, on the other hand, worry
about competitor pricing aggressiveness and new competitors emerging in unexpected places.
Dollar Stores growing investment in food and their increasingly direct competition to
supermarkets and Mass Merchants clearly comes to mind in that regard. So does the Mass
Merchant investment in Consumer Electronics, as both online and brick and mortar retailers
challenge the category killers. Yet its interesting to look at the most significant differences across
product sub-verticals (Figure 6).
Figure 6: Surprising Differences in Concerns by Sub-vert ic al
Source: RSR Research, April 2013
28%
39%
56%
11%
17%
13%
39%
45%
29%
29%
6%
22%
25%
28%
47%
Respond to segment blurring (competition coming
from unexpected places)
Increased price transparency the impact ofcomparative price shopping
Increased pricing aggressiveness from competitors
Need to provide consistency in price acrosschannels
Need to protect our brands price image
Business Challenges - Differing by Performance
Retail Winners Average Performers Laggards
64%
44%
67%
53%
24%
56%
38% 40%
48%
24%29%
40%
Fashion/Seasonal Basics/Replenishment Durable Goods &Consumer Electronics
Perishable goods
Top Three (3) Difference by Sub-vertical
Increased price sensitivity of consumers Increased pricing aggressiveness from competitors
Need to protect our brands price image
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One would think that those selling durable goods and Consumer Electronics would be
most concerned about The Amazon Effect. Enough retailers have certainly highlighted this
issue in their Quarterly financial reports. Yet, they are as concerned about consumer price
sensitivity as retailers selling fashion merchandise, who are clearly threatened by fast
fashion retailerslike H&M, and Forever 21 on the one side, and Mass Merchants like Target on
the other.
Given all this, its somewhat surprising that when asked about their position on commoditization
and margin erosion, 55% report We have to operate within an extremely price competitive
environment far more than any other issue including the impact of price transparency.
Within this context, lets take a look at the opportunities retailers seek to leverage from their
investments in price and supporting tools and processes.
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Opportunities
Margins, Sales, and the Economy
The top three opportunities for pricing to contribute to retailers' business success come from
improving margins, improving top-line sales, and increasing market share in key categories.
However, clearly margin beats all (Figure 7).
Figure 7: Back to the Future: The Margin Opportunity
Source: RSR Research, April 2013
Year over year, "create more profitable promotions" has been on a relative decline as an
opportunity since 2010. The opportunity peaked at 45% in 2011, down to 29% today. The
conflicted relationship between retail pricing and promotions only grows more complicated - as
we found in the business challenges section above, retailers feel strongly that they must operate
in an extremely price sensitive environment, but even though they are sending more price
changes to stores without knowing the impact of those changes, they somehow feel more and
more confident about promotions overall.
The importance of a price competitive image as a pricing opportunity is also on the decline, from
41% in 2010 to 28% today. However, using price as part of creating a seamless cross-channel
experience is growing in importance from 12% in 2010 to 26% today. This is still a relatively lownumber, placing it near the bottom of the list of opportunities. Winners put the most value on a
seamless cross-channel experience - 28% vs. laggards' 18%.
Digging deeper into the details:
Winners also place more value on price as an opportunity to better match demand
to supply, with 38% of Winning respondents vs. 19% of average performers and 24% of
laggards.
23%
25%
26%
26%
28%
29%
31%
39%
60%
Gain margin advantage through more dynamicpricing
Better matching of demand and product supply
Provide a more seamless cross-channelexperience to customers
Provide more localized offerings to customers
Create a more price competitive image for ourcustomers
Create more profitable promotions
Increase market share for key categories orproducts
Improve top-line sales
Improve margins
Top-3 Pricing Opportunities
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On the other hand, 35% of laggards value price as a way to present a more
competitive image to customers vs. 22% of Winners.
On the vertical front, Fashion retailers drive the interest in price's role in better
matching supply and demand - not surprising, considering their overriding interest in
managing sell-through. Grocers, also no surprise, are most interested in driving
profitable promotions.
The largest retailers are most interested in using price as part of their localization
strategy, which is another theme - that retailers in t his study seem to think they have
a handle on the channel conflicts created by zone pricing . But while 56% of $5B+
retailers say they value localized pricing as an opportunity, only 38% say that price
creates an opportunity within a seamless cross-channel experience.
The Margin Story
The margin story by no means begins in 2013. To fully understand the relationship between
margin as an opportunity and price's role in driving margin, you have to go back to the dark days
of the economic downturn. As the business environment grew more challenging, retailers
increasingly looked to price to shoulder the dual burden of margin and sales - with that interest
peaking in 2010.
Since then, retailers' interest in using price to drive top-line sales has been on the decline, falling
from 58% in 2010 to 39% in 2013 (Figure 8).
Figure 8: Margin as the Winners' Story
Source: RSR Research, April 2013
According to survey respondents, everyone seems to have an interest in using price to improve
margins. But much more so than Winners, laggards are the respondent pool that drives
interest in also using price to increase top-line sales . Laggards aren't thinking that they have
the market power to raise prices - this is about finding ways to cut prices further: 41% cite
growing market share as a top-3 opportunity (vs. 22% of Winners) - clearly a hope that if they
lower prices they can grab market share and drive revenue as a result.
58%
49%45%
39%
82%
51% 52%60%
2010 2011 2012 2013
Top-3 Pricing Opportunities:Year over Year
Improve top-line sales Improve margins
65%
36%
28%
59% 56%
66%
Laggards Average Winners
Top-3 Pricing Opportunities:The Winner's Perspective
Improve top-line sales Improve margins
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Additional trends related to margin:
By vertical, everyone wants to improve margins, but top-line sales are a
basics/replenishment story.
The smallest retailers (
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Additional perspectives:
Winners and laggards play out the larger story on a smaller scale - 17% of Winners
believe zone pricing has been damaged by transparency vs. 31% of laggards.
Conversely, 47% of Winners believe they have effective price conflict policies vs. 13% of
laggards.
From a vertical perspective, fashion is the extreme of the figure above - 14% believethat zone pricing plans have been damaged by transparency, and 45% believe they have
effective policies in place to manage price conflict across channels.
Perishable goods retailers are most afraid of impact to their zone pricing strategies,
mostly because they least agree that they have policies in place to manage conflicting
prices.
Channel Conflict and Mobile: Reining in Showrooming
Part of the reason for retailers' resurging confidence around zone pricing may be their shifting
opinions about mobile price comparison or "showrooming" practices. Retailers definitely report
seeing it - 43% of respondents reported that they had never encountered showrooming in 2011,
and only 27% reported the same this year (Figure 10).
Figure 10: Showrooming Ain't What It Used To Be
Source: RSR Research, April 2013
But as more and more retailers encounter the behavior, their confidence in what to do about it
seems to increase. In the news we saw more and more reports of retailers like Walmart and
Target adjusting their price-match policies in stores to include certain online retailers likeAmazon.com. But the biggest differences in approach are revealed when looking at the results by
performance:
Laggards drive the "Ignore it" category - 18% vs. 9% of Winners. Laggards are also
more likely to pri ce match - 24% vs. 16% of Winners.
Average performers are most likely to be competitive - 42% vs. 38% of Winners and 29%
of laggards.
9%11%
43%
26%
7%
12%
39% 39%
14%17%
27%
38%
Ignore it Price match We haven't seen ityet
Be "competitive"
Mobile Price Comparison Policies
2011 2012 2013
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Winners are most likely to say they haven't seen any showrooming yet - 34% vs. 18% of
average performers and 29% of laggards. The average performers appear to be
getting squeezed - they are not necessarily positioning themselves against
laggards as low price competitors, but they don't necessarily have the service or
message elements that help them justify not price matching.
By revenue and vertical:
The smallest retailers choose to ignore price comparisons - 24% ignore it vs. only
7% of largest retailers, and 10-13% among middle revenue bands.
Middle revenue bands are most likely to respond by being competitive. - 56% of $50-
249M and 50% of $250-999M retailers.
Largest retailers are most conflicted - 33% say they aim to be competitive, but another
27% say they price match (highest among revenue bands). This does reflect the trend we
saw in 2012 where the largest retailers adjusted their competitive position in stores to
include price matching against online retailers.
By vertical, perishable goods retailers are the least impacted by mobile price comparison,
which, given the nascent online grocery business, is no surprise. And absolutely no
durable goods retailers report that they ignore it , vs. 14-26% of peers - a reflection of
the near-crisis state of some category-killing retailers as they get picked off on breadth of
assortment online, and depth of assortment in small specialty.
Even from industry participants, we have heard many a tale of woe of a retailer-shopper
relationship destroyed by channel conflicts and the retailer's subsequent failure to resolve that
conflict in any rational (to the consumer) manner. Retailers seem to feel that their advertised
policies around mobile price transparency are enough to avoid further damaging their credibility -
or conversely, that the practice doesn't happen often enough that it's worth changing their whole
price strategy over.
Will this conclusion hold? It depends in large part on consumer behavior - if continued price
transparency takes a toll, or if the showrooming "freak out" of 2012 ultimately fades into
insignificance.
The Promotions Conundrum
While retailers have expressed a lot of ambivalence about their promotions capabilities in the
past, in 2013 their confidence has grown, particularly around the level of granularity of their
promotions, where 15% agreed they achieve the appropriate level of granularity in 2012 vs. 30%
in 2013 (Figure 11).
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Figure 11: Promotions Should Be Gett ing Better
Source: RSR Research, April 2013
Overall, respondents express the most confidence in being able to react to competitors, rather
than customers. And despite their confidence in their promotions capabilities holding steady or
improving, as well see later in this document, clear examples of places where retailers expressed
issues specifically around managing and measuring promotions.
Promotions, like margins, is also a Winners' story:
43% of Winners feel confident in their promotional effectiveness vs. 25% of laggards. And
47% of Winners have a process in place to coordinate promotions across internal
organizations vs. 20% of laggards. 50% of Winners vs. 38% of laggards are confident that they can respond quickly to
competitors' price changes.
Winners and average performers are 3 times more confident in their ability to
target promotions (32-38% vs. 13% of laggards)
The biggest challenge with promotions is breaking corporate myths. Retailers think they are good
at promotions because mass promotions have worked so well in the past, and because you can
see the lift after a promotion runs. But in today's fragmented marketing world, where "mass"
becomes more and more difficult to achieve, and the retail industry is growing less and less
dependent on store traffic over time, the idea of what a promotion is and what it's supposed to
accomplish is ultimately going to have to change.
There is absolutely no way a retailer can say they are doing promotions well if they can't
coordinate promotions across multiple organizations or channels, and especially if they
have no way to measure the impact of promotion decisions . And in terms of customer
centricity, promotions is the first point in the business where the rubber meets the road - where
the desire to be more customer centric should theoretically manifest itself in some kind of
execution. From this research, retailers clearly aren't there yet.
30%
45%
34%
34%
51%
38%
39%
46%
20%
17%
26%
20%
My company currently targets our promotions at theappropriate level of granularity
We have the ability to respond quickly to competitors'price changes
We have processes in place to manage promotionalplanning across the various organizations within our
company (marketing, category mgr/buyer, forecaster)
My company feels confident that our promotions areeffective overall (improving margin, growing basket,
driving traffic, etc)
Promotions Opportunity
Agree Neutral Disagree
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Organizational Inhibitors
If Price is our Lever, Why Cant We Always Execute?
Weve already established that the number of price changes continue to escalate across the
board, but most sharply among those who under-perform. As we intimated earlier in this
document, this has had profound internal impact.
In aggregate, much like last year, the need to get clean data on past prices, competitor prices and
customer purchase data is a serious constraint. Stores and other channels are becoming more
resistant to change and the skill sets to actually do this right are lacking (Figure 12).
Figure 12: Whats Preventing Us from Being More Effect ive ?
Source: RSR Research, April 2013
When we look at the details, though, we see significant differences in opinion:
Impressions based on Performance:
Not surprisingly (given their relatively higher number of price changes) laggards meet
primary resistance from within. Sixty-nine percent of laggards report resistance tochange from stores as a top-three organizational inhibitor, vs. 41% of Winners. Similarly,
even the merchants are resistant, with 44% of Laggards reporting this as a top-three
concern vs. 31% of Winners.
For their parts, Winners are most concerned about skill sets and lack of
coordination with marketing (45% apiece).
Average performers are most concerned about their lack of clean price, competitor and
purchase data (47%).
29%
31%
31%
34%
34%
40%
42%
42%
The possibility of negative customer reaction tochanges in our pricing strategy
Resistance to change from Merchandising
We cant execute at the level of granularity thatpricing solutions provide
Lack of coordination with Marketing
Channel organizational structure makes it difficultto coordinate pricing strategies across channels
Lack of the right skill sets
Resistance to change from Stores or otherchannels
Lack of clean price, competitor and purchase data
Top Three (3) Organizational Barriers ImpactingAbility to Implement More Effective Pricing
Practices
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Impressions based on Sub-vertical:
Retailers selling Fashion/Seasonal merchandise most frequently report lack of
coordination with marketing (50%) and possibility of negative customer reaction to
changes (41%) as top-three inhibitors.
Retailers selling basics/replenishable items are challenged by both lack of clean price,
competitor and purchase data and difficult channel organizational structures (42% each).
Retailers selling durable goods and/or Consumer Electronics overwhelmingly cite a
lack of clean price, competitor and purchase data (67%). They also frequently cite lack of
skill sets (43%).
Finally, retailers selling perishables cite three primary internal challenges: executing at a
granular level (62%), a lack of skill sets (also 62%), and resistance to change from stores
(54%) in their top-three internal issues.
Impressions based on Retailer Size:
The smallest retailers ($5 billion) are relatively evenly split on theirtop three concerns, with lack of coordination with marketing and channel organizational
structures (43% apiece) narrowly edging out other concerns.
How Can We Get Past these Concerns?
On one level, there is also not a lot of unanimity among respondents about ways to overcome the
organizational inhibitors they face, but there is one item that is consistently on the top of
everyone's list: the need for improved technology integration tools. This is a bit counter-
intuitive, given that the internal barriers they perceive are all about culture and execution. We can
only tie this to their professed inability to execute at the granular level their systems could
provide, but it still surprising.
Figure 13 shows how this issue has grown just since last year. Clearly, as we said last year,Pricing is no longer an island.
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Figure 13: And What Can We Do About It?
Source: RSR Research, April 2013
Operational Challenges Are Surprising
No discussion of organizational inhibitors would be complete without at least mentioning
operational challenges in setting prices, and here as well, we found ourselves stunningly
surprised.
How can it be that we continue to increase the number of price changes we send, we rely
on pricing to manage our margin and top lines, and yet almost half of us report we canneither forecast what impact potential pricing decisions will have, nor can we measure the
actual impact those decisions have? Strange as this may sound, this is clearly the state our
retail respondents report (Figure 14).
15%
21%
26%
33%
23%
28%
41%
44%
33%
14%
19%
24%
28%
32%
35%
42%
44%
51%
Best practices for managing channel conflict of prices
Line of business leaders to help change our business processes
Pilot programs in specific stores or regions
Better communication and education of resistant parties ororganizations
Better training to improve pricing skill sets
Tailor a technology solution to my business process and needs
Business process analysis for pricing process improvement
Build up progressively more sophisticated pricing capabilitiesover time
Improved integration technology tools
Top Three (3) Ways you Believe you can Overcome these Barriers
2013 2012
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Figure 14: Were Making Good Time, but We Might Wel l Be Lost
Source: RSR Research, April 2013
Bottom Line: A Wall of Confusion
The net of all this data comes down to several short bullet points:
Our problems are organizational, but we perceive our solutions as technical We continue tweaking and changing prices while flying blind
Were not quite sure how to use the tools and techniques we have at our disposal
And finally, we may not have the data we need to actually change the outcomes weve
described above
Within that context, lets take a look at how Technology enablers can, have, and will help solve
this difficult situation.
15%
17%
19%
20%
24%
27%
35%
37%
45%
48%
Keeping up with promotional deals btwn buyers &manufacturers
Keeping up with pricing and packaging changes bymanufacturers
Managing promotions across channels
Inability to effectively manage all pricing rules and/orunderstand impact of rule violations
Coordinating with marketing on promotions and offers
Getting access to robust competitive price data
Making sure that stores change prices accurately andtimely
Maintaining visibility into promotional profitability
Measuring the impact of executed pricing decisions
Forecasting the impact of potential pricing decisions
Top Three (3) Operation Challenges in Setting Prices
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Technology Enablers
The Customer Data Silver Bullet
In terms of data elements valuable to a pricing capability, there have been some big shifts over
the last year. Clean demand at a store level, competitors' prices, and clean promotion history
remain at the top of the list, but almost everything based on customer in some way jumped
significantly (Figure 15).
Figure 15: The Customer Bump
Source: RSR Research, April 2013
Customer purchase history shot to the top 5 on the list, moving from 37% of respondents whorated it as very valuable in 2012, to 54% in 2013. Even customer sentiment gathered from social
media benefited - improving from 17% in 2012 to 25% this year.
Is it a coincidence that in the organizational inhibitors section we identified clean data as one of
the top organizational barriers? We think no. Customer data is typically much "dirtier" than
product data, and notoriously difficult to clean. With this rising importance of all data customer-
related, it's no surprise that retailers also feel the need for stronger tools and skill sets related to
getting and keeping this data clean. Conflicting prices may break trust, but personalization run
13%
27%
35%
44%
49%
29%
32%
28%
38%
26%
49%
37%
25%
37%
38%
38%
39%
40%
46%
49%
54%
55%
60%
62%
Customer sentiment gathered from social media
Regional or store demographics
Planned inventory levels
Clean demand at an aggregate level
Current inventory levels
Customer demographics
Customer segmentation
Market basket data
Customer purchase history
Clean promotions history (mechanisms,placement, media, dates, etc.)
Competitors prices
Clean demand at a store level
Pricing Data Elements: Value vs. Use
Very valuable Major role
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amok, or even out of context or outside the bounds of what a customer expects from you will
destroy trust.3
Additional details by revenue:
Mid-size retailers show the most interest in market basket data - 75% vs. mid-40%'s for
peers. (Note, in our 2012 merchandising benchmark, no mid-sized retailers reportedactually using market basket analysis at all)
The smallest retailers show the most interest in customer demographics - 57% vs. 33%
of the largest retailers. This is unusual because the largest retailers usually track with the
smallest when it comes to anything that helps build a sense of customer intimacy.
Mid-size to large retailers ($250-999M and $1-5B) have the most interest in customer
segmentation. For mid-size retailers it may very well be the case that the customer base
has grown to the point where it's worth segmenting as a management and targeting tool.
The smallest retailers are most interested in competitors prices - 71% vs. low 50%'s for
peers. This is interesting because the smallest retailers weren't the ones most interested
in building a competitive price image - they cede that territory to the largest retailers (31%
of $5B)
Customer Data - A Laggards' Tale
Laggards jumped on the customer data element as part of pricing whole-hog this year, placing
disproportionately more value emphasis on nearly every customer data element we asked about
(Figure 16).
Figure 16: Jumping On The Customer Bandwagon
Source: RSR Research, April 2013
Laggards drive most of the interest across the board around customer data . Historically it
has been Winners who have expressed the most interest in using customer data elements as part
of their pricing capability. That has changed. Laggards consistently rated customer purchase
3The most recent example involves Target and a pregnant teen:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/
41%
56%
59%
63%
65%
81%
22%
23%
27%
33%
46%
48%
16%
38%
39%
48%
56%
65%
Customer sentiment gathered from socialmedia
Regional or store demographics
Customer demographics
Customer segmentation
Customer purchase history
Clean demand at a store level
Customer Data Elements in Pricing - "Very Valuable"
Retail Winners Average Performers Laggards
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/7/27/2019 In Depth Look at Retail Pricing Practices-Pricing_2013-RSR
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history, demographics, segmentation, even social media sentiment as highly valuable, in some
cases doubling down over Winners. The biggest difference came from customer social media
sentiment, where laggards outstrip Winners' interest in this data element by more than 2 to 1.
Winners appear to be more cautious in embracing some of these data elements.
It seems that cus tomer data has become the new magic bullet for laggards. The only catch -
as we'll see below - is that Winners are actually using this data to make pricing decisions.Laggards are not. This becomes clear when we look at the deltas between "very valuable" and
"plays a major role" (Figure 17).
Figure 17: Al ignment: Using What You Value Most
Source: RSR Research, April 2013
Winning retailers do a much better job of matching data elements' expected value to their
current use - their biggest gap in customer data elements is a 23% difference between the
number of Winners who value clean demand at a store level and the number who say it currently
plays a major role in their pricing strategy. For laggards, no data element has less than a 29%
gap - a clear difference between intentions and execution.
Making It All Happen
When it comes to actually translating intentions into execution, customer and product data
warehouses top the list in terms of adoption (Figure 18). These are important foundational
elements - the repositories of all of the data elements that retailers say they value and
occasionally use, noted above.
0%-1%
-4%
-17%
-10%
-23%
-29%
-38%
-29% -29%
-35%
-50%
Customersentiment
gathered fromsocial media
Regional orstore
demographicsCustomer
demographicsCustomer
segmentationCustomer
purchase historyClean demandat a store level
Gaps Between Value & Use of Data Elements(a negative number indicates higher value than use)
Winners Laggards
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Figure 18: Foundations Laid
Source: RSR Research, April 2013
In the near-term, retailers plan to make the most progress against customer data warehouse,
regular price planning, forecasting, and management, and promotions planning, forecasting, and
management. However, key differences emerge by performance.
Technology's Performance GapWinners outstrip their peers in current deployments almost across the board. They outpace
laggards the most around customer data warehouse, regular price optimization, inventory
management (availability as an input to price), and end-to-end price lifecycle management
(Figure 19, below).
Laggards have at least achieved parity with Winning retailers when it comes to promotions
planning, forecasting, and management, markdown planning, forecasting, and management,
promotion optimization, and markdown optimization. However, for promotions in particular, we
question how well laggards can make use of these tools considering how far behind their peers
they are in both implementing a customer data repository and making use of customer driven
data elements as part of their pricing capabilities.
10%
10%
12%
13%
16%
18%
19%
23%
26%
29%
30%
33%
22%
16%
15%
12%
18%
12%
15%
13%
21%
22%
15%
19%
21%
15%
23%
18%
24%
19%
23%
20%
17%
13%
15%
12%
16%
13%
16%
24%
18%
15%
12%
20%
17%
15%
12%
11%
31%
46%
35%
34%
25%
36%
32%
24%
19%
21%
27%
26%
Markdown optimization
End-to-end price lifecycle management
Promotion optimization
Price intelligence
Markdown planning, forecasting and management
Rules-based pricing engine
Inventory management - availability as a price driver
Regular price optimization
Promotions planning, forecasting, and management
Regular price planning, forecasting, and management
Product movement data warehouse
Customer data warehouse
2013 Pricing Technology Adoption
Fully Deployed Piloting/ In Rollout Evaluating/ Selecting Exploring/ Budgeting No Plans
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Figure 19: Fol lowing Winners' Lead
Source: RSR Research, April 2013
When it comes to adoption plans, the near term picture looks set to shift in the next 12-18
months. Winners have the most aggressive plans when it comes to markdowns - both planning
and optimization - and promotion optimization. Laggards, on the other hand, are focused on - no
surprise - customer data warehouse, alongside several capabilities that will improve the product
side of their pricing capabilities (Figure 20).
Figure 20: Adoption Catch-Up
Source: RSR Research, April 2013
7%
13%
13%
0%
6%
25%
6%
6%
13%
19%
25%
25%
7%
11%
11%
15%
16%
22%
22%
26%
27%
32%36%
42%
Markdown optimization
Promotion optimization
Markdown planning, forecasting and management
End-to-end price lifecycle management
Price intelligence
Promotions planning, forecasting, and management
Inventory management - availability as a price driver
Regular price optimization
Rules-based pricing engine
Regular price planning, forecasting, and management
Product movement data warehouse
Customer data warehouse
Solutions "Fully Deployed"
Winners Laggards
25%
50%
25%
25%19%
31%
31%
31%
13%
25%
20%
31%
4%
8%
8%
8%
11%
12%
15%
15%
19%
22%
30%
33%
End-to-end price lifecycle management
Rules-based pricing engine
Customer data warehouse
Price intelligence
Regular price planning, forecasting, and
Product movement data warehouse
Regular price optimization
Inventory management - availability as a price
Promotions planning, forecasting, and
Promotion optimization
Markdown optimization
Markdown planning, forecasting and management
Solutions "Evaluating/Selecting"
Winners Laggards
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A Note About Hosted Solutions
One of the peculiarities of pricing has been its early focus on hosted solutions. Call it what you
will, all of the terms apply: Software-as-a-Service, On Demand, Hosted, Cloud-Based. In terms of
overall industry interest in such solutions, pricing has long been a leading indicator. How did it
fare in this year's survey?
Currently, 38% of respondents are neutral about it, and only slightly more are positive than
negative. Winners are the most opinionated, splitting roughly 1/3-1/3-1/3 between positive,
neutral, and negative. Average performers are most positive. Given all of the recent attention and
buzz that cloud-based solutions have generated, and pricing solutions' early entry into this kind of
solution architecture, it's clear that hosted solutions do not necessarily provide perceived benefits
to retailers one way or another. Unfortunately, this may have more to do with the conservative
nature of retail IT departments than anything related to the solution architecture itself.
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BOOTstrap Recommendations
Resisting Discounting's Siren Call
Pricing is both one of the most strategic and also tactical retail demand levers. The right price
strategy is a critical part of a retailer's brand promise to customers. The appropriately targeted
and focused price change can save sagging sales or move distressed inventory. It can, as
retailers rightly identify in this research, drive sales or improve margin - or both.
But pricing, just like every other aspect of retail, is being fundamentally transformed by omni-
channel retailing. It is lives at the intersection of customer and product. We've already seen
customer behavior change radically thanks to digital channels and ubiquitous smartphones. And
in 2012, there was near panic in the streets over how consumers were using those smartphones
to cut retailers' carefully constructed pricing strategies to shreds.
While overall the same process that has driven pricing in the past drives pricing today, the details
have changed significantly. Retailers still set corporate objectives, plan their price strategy,
execute it, and measure results (theoretically - as we saw above, these ideals do not always
translate into practice). But it doesn't help that all of this change - showrooming, price
transparency, more targeted promotions across more digital channels - occurred in an economic
downturn. This has led to consumer price sensitivity that retailers cannot seem to leave behind.
At a time when retailers should be transforming their pricing strategies and practices for the omni-
channel age, they are caught in a downward spiral of deeper and deeper discounts.
We're never going to persuade retailers to abandon the siren call of cutting prices to stimulate
sales - we're not even going to try. What we hope retailers will consider, instead, are some key
ways they can turn pricing into a strategic advantage, whether a luxury retailer or a deep
discounter, whether caught in the throes of showrooming or safe and sound in a brand that just
can't be copied.
What needs to happen to make pricing a fully contributing strategic solution for retailers? The
theme is MEASURE:
Measure the Impact of Price Changes
Yes, this requires data - clean data - and it requires discipline. But having a specific problem to
solve often creates focus that helps an entire company understand what's important, and
identifies critical gaps that need to be filled. Bad data is better than no data, if it gets you closer to
good data in the end. And there is so much more data available out there than there used to be.
Records of promotion histories and campaigns, detailed digital measurements of responses,
complete transparency into competitors' prices and availability.
The virtuous pricing cycle of plan - execute measure falls apart if you ignore any point in the
circle. And retailers have been ignoring Measure. If you can't measure, how can you plan to
correct for the last cycle's mistakes? How do you know if you executed the way you needed?
Measurement should be a priority, even if it isn't clean or easy - sometimes the journey is just as
valuable as the destination.
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Corollary: Measure the Customer Impact of Conflicting Channel Prices
This year a surprising number of respondents reported that they believed they had overcome
their zone pricing challenges. But given the lack of measurement that occurs around the impact -
current or future - of pricing decisions, forgive us if we're skeptical.
Retailers need to make 100% sure that their zone or channel pricing strategies are not damaging
their credibility with consumers. This isn't about watching sales, or listening for anecdotal tales
about angry customers from store staff. This is about measuring reliably how often mobile price
comparisons are happening in your stores (a question practically designed for video analytics),
testing specific response policies, and following up to explicitly understand how customers
perceive your response to them.
Our take, from listening to retailers and listening to shoppers, is that retailers don't fully
understand how much they damage their customers' trust when pricing conflicts are not
handled smoothly. Or even how often a customer walks away, or abandons her cart without
telling the retailer anything about why.
Retailers seem to believe that having a policy is all they need to reassure customers about
different prices across zones or channels. But we've already seen that especially when it comes
to change, consumers need a LOT of communication. Be specific. Be repetitive. Make them sick
of your message - then you'll know that it's been received.
Faster and More is Not Better - Measure the Cost to Stores
Stores are already set back on their heels by the impact of digital channels. Many retailers are
struggling to define the strategic role of stores, let alone how prices in stores should be handled.
Digital channels, because of the ease with which price changes can be made, move at a much
different speed than stores.
But while changing a price on the website is virtually free, changing a price across hundreds of
stores can cost an enormous amount - not just in labor and signage, but in selling opportunitycosts. Trying to prod stores into moving as fast as online by inundating them with price changes
is an exercise in store confusion and customer disillusionment (refer back to the corollary above).
As you build your measurement strategy, include a look at the impact of price changes on stores.
Are they able to effectively implement all the price changes you intend? What's their capacity
before things fall apart? How much does a store price change cost? Really cost - in labor, in
supplies, and most importantly in the opportunity cost of a sales associate who isn't selling. Does
that sales lift pay off when stores have to bear the brunt of execution?
So we can see that the corollary to the virtuous pricing cycle (plan-execute-measure) also applies
to those perceived as most recalcitrant to pricing practices, the in-store workforce. Plan the labor
required to execute expected price changes, execute on those changes, and finally measure the
effectiveness of that execution. As we said earlier in this benchmark, its not enough to measurewhether or not were making good time. We also need to know that were headed in the right
direction.
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a
Appendix A: RSRs Research Methodology
The BOOT methodology is designed to reveal and prioritize the following:
Business Challenges Retailers of all shapes and sizes face significant external
challenges. These issues provide a business context for the subject being discussedand drive decision-making across the enterprise.
Opportunities Every challenge brings with it a set of opportunities, or ways tochange and overcome that challenge. The ways retailers turn businesschallenges into opportuni ties often define the difference between Winners and also-rans. Within the BOOT, we can also identify opportunities missed anddescribe leading edge models we believe drive success.
Organizational Inhibitors Even as enterprises find opportunities to overcome theirexternal challenges, they may find internal organizational inhibitors that keep themfrom executing on their vision. Opportunities can be found to overcome theseinhibitors as well. Winning Retailers understand their organizational inhibitors andfind creative, effective ways to overcome them.
Technology Enablers If a company can overcome its organizational inhibitors it
can use technology as an enabler to take advantage of the opportunities it identifies.Retail Winners are most adept at judiciously and effectively using these enablers,
often far earlier than their peers.
A g raphical depic ti on of the BOOT fo llows:
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b
Appendix B: About Our Sponsors
360pi, a global leader in retail price intelligence, delivers online competitive monitoring solutions
that give retailers complete visibility into their competitors' prices. Top retailers use 360pis
industry-leading match and accuracy rates made possible by its proprietary artificial intelligence
and cloud-based, big data capabilities to enhance their pricing strategies and enable margin
and revenue increases of up to 80%. For more information, please visit:www.360pi.com
Revionics delivers the industrys most powerful End-to-End Merchandise Optimization solution,
enabling retailers of all sizes to execute a fact-based omni-channel merchandising strategy
utilizing the most comprehensive set of shopper demand signals to enhance financial
performance with improved customer satisfaction. Revionics solutions leverage advanced
predictive analytics and demand-based science to ensure retailers have the right product, price,
promotion, placement and space allocation for optimal results across all touch points in the omni-
channel shopping episode online, in-store, social and mobile. Revionics has been recognized
as a 2012 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 company and has more retail locations under
optimization management than any other vendor. Visit us atwww.revionics.com.
With SASs 35 years of advanced analytics and industry expertise, retailers choose SAS to
improve business results with solutions for merchandise planning, size optimization, localized
assortment optimization, space planning and optimization, price optimization, cross-channel
campaign management, customer insight, social media analytics, and advanced forecastingacross the enterprise. Retailers turn to SAS because SAS drives better results.
Used at more than 55,000 sites in 131 countries, including 90 of the top 100 companies on the
2011 Fortune Global 500
list, SAS is proud to give our customers THE POWER TO KNOWFor
further information, visithttp://www.sas.com/retail/.
http://www.360pi.com/http://www.360pi.com/http://www.360pi.com/http://www.revionics.com/http://www.revionics.com/http://www.revionics.com/http://www.sas.com/retail/http://www.sas.com/retail/http://www.sas.com/retail/http://www.revionics.com/http://www.360pi.com/7/27/2019 In Depth Look at Retail Pricing Practices-Pricing_2013-RSR
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c
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Appendix C: About RSR Research
Retail Systems Research (RSR) is the only research company run by retailers for the retail
industry. RSR provides insight into business and technology challenges facing the extended retail
industry, providing thought leadership and advice on navigating these challenges for specific
companies and the industry at large. We do this by:
Identifying information that helps retailers and their trading partners to build more
efficient and profitable businesses;
Identifying industry issues that solutions providers must address to be relevant in the
extended retail industry;
Providing insight and analysis about a broad spectrum of issues and trends in the
Extended Retail Industry.
Copyright2013 by Retail Systems Research LLC All rights reserved.No part of the contents of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the
permission of the publisher. [email protected] more information.for more information.
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