Category manager
Runs one group of products: prices, assortment, suppliers
Gets the changes bigger than the limit and the products AI is unsure of, each with what AI weighed, and approves, changes or rejects them
Every price reviewed automatically each day, within the limits you set
We build this system to order for retail chains. Ordinary software keeps every price above your minimum margin and applies only changes within your limit, and AI reads sales, stock, the season and competitors’ prices, weighs them and proposes a price for each product. A bigger change goes to the category manager, and only a person takes a price under the minimum margin
Who works with it
Head of pricing
Sets how the chain prices its products
Sets the minimum margin, how far a price may change by itself and which products never change automatically. Sees every change and why
Store manager
Runs one store
Gets the list of shelf labels to change before the new prices take effect
What comes in
What the system reads every day, and where the prices go
Three ways out
The path of one price
A product, every daysales, stock, competitors
AIThe price reviewrules and AI
- Changes by itselfwithin your limit
- Category managera bigger change, or AI unsurea person decides
- Held for a personunder the minimum margina person decides
Example products
Pick a product, set your limit and see where its price goes
Made-up products of a chain that sells home goods. The limit is yours: change it and the routes change with it
Charcoal, a 10 lb bag, with three weeks of summer left
Its prices, from the minimum margin to competitors
- Today · $12.90
- Competitor B · $12.49
- Competitor A · $11.99
- AI proposes · $11.90 (−8%)
- Minimum margin · $6.80
What AI weighed AI
- LowerSales fell by half in two weeks
- LowerStock for six more weeks at this pace
- LowerSummer ends in three weeks
AI’s reading: lower the price now, so the stock sells before the season ends
Where the price goes AITo the category manager
The change is bigger than your limit, so the category manager sees what AI weighed and approves, changes or rejects it
Rule Your limit: 5%. This change: −8%
a person decidesSoftware, AI and a person
Who does which part of the work
Software and AI go through every product every day. A person gets the prices that need one
Ordinary software
Monotonous work with clear rules
- Collects each product’s cost, price, stock and sales every day, by store
- Keeps every price above your minimum margin
- Applies a change within your limit, and sends a bigger one to the category manager
- Leaves alone the products you mark as fixed and the prices on promotion
- Sends new prices to the cash registers, the site and the shelf labels, and logs each change
AI: understand, weigh and choose
The small decisions on every product
- Matches each product with the same one on competitors’ sites, by name, size and brand
- Reads demand from the receipts: what sells faster or slower, and why
- Weighs demand, stock, the season and competitors, and proposes a price for each product
- Explains each proposal in a line the category manager can check
- Says when it is unsure, and leaves the price to a person
A person
Every big change and every exception
- The category manager approves each change bigger than the limit
- A person decides whether to go under the minimum margin
- A person prices a new product until it has enough sales history
- People plan promotions, as before
- The head of pricing sets the minimum margin and the limit
How a project starts
Four stages. After each one, you decide whether to go on
First on past sales, then on one category
- Usually firstDiscovery and specification
- In
- Your assortment, how prices are set today and the data you keep: sales, stock, costs, competitors
- You get
- A written specification: which categories come first, what data the system needs, what it will cost and in what order. The document is yours whether or not we build it
- ThenTest on past sales
- In
- Past sales, prices and stock by product and store
- You get
- The prices the system would have proposed, next to the prices you set and what sold
- ThenPilot on one category
- In
- One product category you choose, in a few stores
- You get
- A proposal for each product every day. The category manager approves each one while the rules are being set
- When you decideRollout
- In
- The categories and stores you choose
- You get
- Prices within your limit change by themselves, and bigger changes go to the category manager. Your team changes the rules
Six questions we ask first
- How many products do you sell, and in how many stores? We plan the system and the pilot around it
- How are prices set today: a fixed markup, by hand, after competitors? The test on past sales compares the system’s prices with it
- Do you have a minimum margin for each category? It becomes the floor no price goes under by itself
- Do you track competitor prices today? If you do, the system starts from them; if not, it collects them
- Which ERP and cash register system do you use? The pilot connects to them
- Do you keep sales history by product and store? The test on past sales needs it
In our cases
A part of this we have built for a client
No AI there: the rules part, pricing every order line, running for a client since 2022
Manufacturing · B2B Shades · 2022 – ongoing
Every order line priced by the manufacturer’s rules as it is typed
A web application in place of a folder of Excel files. It validates and prices every line as it is typed, by rules the owner edits, and stops an invalid order before production
Tell us how prices are set today
A 30-minute call. We will say what your sales data allows and where a project would start