Dynamic Pricing in Retail: Dos and Don’ts

Dynamic pricing doesn’t have to be incredibly complex and confusing, but it does need to be strategic and streamlined. Over the past year, as consumers shop online for everything from groceries and soap to yoga mats and laptops, many people have been reminded of how easy it is to compare prices online. With just a few clicks, a shopper can find out which retailer is selling a specific item at the lowest price.

Simply put dynamic pricing is the fully

or partially automated adjustment library shop of prices. It’s a staple of the travel industry: dynamic pricing is the norm for airline tickets, hotel rooms, and car-sharing. In e-commerce,  has long been a leader in dynamic pricing; the company changes the prices of millions of products every few minutes. But dynamic pricing isn’t just for travel companies or e-commerce giants, and it doesn’t necessarily require cutting-edge software that changes the price of every item multiple times a day. Even traditional retailers can benefit greatly from algorithms powered by merchant data that recommend price changes on select products at regular intervals.

Despite the competitive advantage that dynamic pricing can provide, few omnichannel retailers are taking advantage of this opportunity. Some are only now beginning to explore the potential of dynamic pricing. Other retailers have conducted short, poorly designed pilots that, unsurprisingly, had little impact and thus have failed to fully implement dynamic pricing across the company.

What to do:

Retailers who successfully implement dynamic pricing typically follow these rules: focus on the final price of the product, consider consumer expectations, test and refine your strategy, and plan your path.

1. Focus on the final cost of the product, not the retail price

Shoppers don’t just look at the ស្វ័យប្រវត្តិកម្មលំហូរការងារជាមួយហត្ថលេខាអេឡិចត្រូនិក price of the item they want to buy. Instead, they base their purchasing decisions on the total final price, which includes taxes, shipping, handling fees, and any additional fees added to the total final price. So your dynamic pricing strategy should reinforce the value proposition you’ve chosen. That means making smart choices not only about prices, but also about promotions, bundles, custom offers, and shipping times and additional fees.

For example, a furniture retailer

tested lower shipping prices and longer by lists delivery times, based on the hypothesis that shoppers don’t necessarily want their new furniture delivered right away, but would rather have a new dining table delivered on a Saturday than midweek. The retailer found that the longer wait didn’t significantly impact conversion rates and gave the company the opportunity to optimize deliveries based on capacity and