如何使用电子商务数据优化定价策略（英文版）.pdf

Not to be distributed without permission.CONNECT WITH US 2019 Euromonitor International How to Optimise Your Pricing Strategy Using Ecommerce Data Mark Omfalos, Matt Schutzius and Lee Linthicum Euromonitor International 1 Introduction 3 How to Build a Successful Pricing Strategy Price benchmarking Build an effective promotional plan Align pricing to product attributes Align pricing to market and retail landscape 10 Conclusion Organisation Accuracy Research expertise 11 Our Solution 12 How Can Euromonitor International Help? Contents Euromonitor International The growth of e-commerce across the global retail environment cannot be ignored. Global brick-and-mortar retail sales experienced a decline between 2013 and 2018, while e-commerce more than doubled to reach over $1.7 trillion in 2018 with an expectation to double again to $3.4 trillion by 2023. As more and more businesses go online to find their consumers, this creates unprecedented opportunities to gain deeper, actionable and real-time insights into their product assortment and pricing mix at a category, brand owner, brand and individual product level. According to a Euromonitor International consumer insights survey of professionals across nine key industries, digital presence is a very important component of their companys value proposition. However, the majority do not see themselves as digital frontrunners and in most cases feel that they are falling behind other organisations. As the shift to digital retail accelerates, organisations face a multitude of challenges to stay ahead of their current competition and fend off new threats from new companies and brands entering the market. The immense amount of product selection online not only gives consumers more options but increases the need for organisations to monitor and track the products being sold generally, and through the e-commerce channel specifically. Factors Influencing Digital Initatives in 2018 Source: Euromonitor International Digital Consumer Industry Insights Survey Q3 2018 Introduction 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% My company is setting the pace for digital transformation against industry peers My company is exploring emerging business models as a new way to reach consumers My company believes delivering a positive digital consumer experience is critical to success My company views having a digital presence as an important component of its value proposition Agree Somewhat agree Neither agree nor disagree Somewhat disagree Disagree E-commerce sales to reach $3.4 trillion by 2023 2 IntroductIon Euromonitor International Using e-commerce data to monitor pricing and product assortment also provides significant benefits compared to traditional brick and mortar channel research. As more store-based retailers adopt a multichannel strategy and move online, technology can be used to automatically capture and organise their full product assortment item by item and from one day to the next. E-commerce data extraction and data science solutions allow companies to quickly monitor dynamic price changes and promotional activity, spot early product trends, track new products and benchmark their own business against their competitors without having to leave the office. The rise of e-commerce means that businesses are consuming more detailed and frequent data than ever to inform their strategy. Making sense of all that data remains an enormous challenge. No one solution works for everyone, but applying the right technology and data structure can deliver the insights necessary to better understand both the e-commerce space and increasingly fluid and fragmented product assortments. This white paper highlights a few ways that a business can use e-commerce data and solutions to implement different strategic initiatives, both online and in-store, and leverage the ever-changing digital landscape. Euromonitor International How to Build a Successful Pricing Strategy Building and managing an effective pricing strategy is critical to the successful sales and marketing of any product. Companies that price their products appropriately are typically rewarded with healthy profits and revenues. Conversely, those companies that fail to devise, implement and adjust pricing strategies typically suffer from declining sales, margins and market share. So how exactly do companies create successful pricing strategies? And how does e-commerce data enable the process? Several key metrics are essential to effective pricing strategy and tactics. Lets begin an exploration of the most obvious measurethe price itself. Price benchmarking Companies often struggle to set pricing for their products due to a lack of visibility over the entire range of prices on offer within a category and, more importantly, where their pricing sits in comparison with competing products. Failure to benchmark ones price in this way can lead to products being over- or under-priced relative to comparable competitor brands and Stock-Keeping-Units (SKU s). As a result, shoppers may opt to purchase from a competitor whose pricing is more in line with what they expect to pay for the product. 4 How to BuIld a SucceSSful PrIcIng Strategy Euromonitor International E-commerce data can visualise how the prices of all SKU s within the category are distributed (see Figure 1) and where the prices of each companys SKU s fall within this distribution, either relative to the category median price or relative to specific reference SKU s (see Figure 2). Figure 1 Categories by SKU count and SKU price distribution SKU Price range (USD ) Category Number of SKU s Low Median High Category 1 100,657 9.50 18.50 30.00 Category 2 93,156 12.25 25.00 49.00 Category 3 82,733 24.95 44.99 77.49 Category 4 76,488 12.99 26.00 39.99 Price benchmarking is particularly useful as a first step for international business development teams or companies looking to enter new markets. Finding answers to pragmatic questions such as “what price will this new market pay for my product?”, or “how do I price my products competitively in this category?” should be fundamental due diligence for any market entry strategy. Setting prices is not just a one-time task. Companies need to effectively plan for and react to the ever-changing pricing landscape by adapting their prices in relation to the broader market pricing trends and relative to competitors pricing tactics. Revenue Management teams work with large volumes of product and pricing data to create and optimise profit- and revenue-driving pricing strategies. Gathering and harmonising data from different sources into a single truth from which data-driven decisions can be taken can be a challenge for Revenue Management teams. E-commerce data if effectively extracted, categorised and visualised updates in real time and enables pricing teams to react quickly based on daily (or in some cases hourly) price movements across the assortment. Shifts in how prices are distributed and move over the course of a week, month or quarter can inform broader pricing strategy across a companys assortment and across categories (see Figure 2).How to BuIld a SucceSSful PrIcIng Strategy 5 Euromonitor International Figure 2 Suppliers SKU count, median price and median price growth by category Supplier Category Number of SKU s Daily Supplier median price (USD ) Daily Supplier Median Price Growth (%) Supplier 1 Category 1 39,883 19.50 +20.5Category 2 10,692 26.00 -5.75Category 3 10,231 15.34 +10.15Category 4 9,265 18.00 -30 Supplier 2 Category 1 24,909 14.75 0Category 2 10,899 20.00 -13.45Category 3 8,396 37.56 +2.5Category 4 5,328 28.00 +4.98 Another key question for Pricing and Revenue Managers is where to play. This is also vital for the commercial teams they support (e.g. Channel Managers, Key Account Managers) who often lack sufficiently detailed data on product and pricing mix per retailer for effective negotiations with existing and prospective retail partners. Companies that provide hard evidence of their prices relative to those of their competitors (at supplier, brand and individual SKU level) and relative to the broader category are better equipped to drive the agenda with retail partners. The same data informs choices of whether to vary the pricing of individual SKU s or whether to make changes to the assortment on a store by store basis. Build an effective promotional plan Along with pricing benchmarking, e-commerce data enables companies to distinguish between those products which have a consistently low price point, those which are seeing their prices being steadily or rapidly discounted, and those products which are going on / off sales promotion such as “buy one, get one free” or “two for the price of one”. Knowing when, where and how often a competitor runs promotions is valuable insight when it comes to building a promotional plan. Sales promotions can be a great way to make a product stand out from the crowd and acquire new customers. This is especially true when they are tied to major holidays such as Chinese New Year, Ramadan or Labour Day, or events such as Super Bowl, Oktoberfest or the Olympics. 6 How to BuIld a SucceSSful PrIcIng Strategy Euromonitor International Figure 3 Number of SKU s on promotion, average promotional markdown and promotional price by brand by retailer Brand Retailer # SKU s on promotion Daily average promotional markdown (%) Daily average promotional price (USD ) Brand 1 Retailer 1 7 -33.3 42.56Retailer 2 0 Retailer 3 9 -50 39.75 Brand 2 Retailer 1 10 -23.5 53.22Retailer 2 5 -8.75 62.15Retailer 3 1 -25 50.00 At the same time, brand owners and retailers must be careful not run too many promotions. This can devalue brand equity or lead consumers to wait until a product goes “on sale” before making a purchase. The continuous pricing and promotional tracking offered by e-commerce data can help Pricing and Revenue Management teams, Brand Managers, Category Managers, (E-commerce) Merchandisers and other types of marketers avoid excessive promotion by providing detailed metrics on frequency, timing and depth. Promotional frequency: How often a specific SKU or set of SKU s belonging to a given brand goes on sale / offer Promotional timings: When a specific SKU or set of SKU s belonging to a brand tend to go on sale / offer Promotional depth: The level of promotional discount for a specific SKU or set of SKU s in percentage (e.g., “50% off”) or absolute monetary (e.g., “Save 1 dollar”) terms Promotional pricing information can be evaluated and compared on an individual store-by-store basis, or it can be aggregated across multiple online retailers to provide more strategically holistic insights for a given SKU , brand or brand owner (see Figure 3). Understanding the full scope of what both brands and retailers are charging for their products and when they go on promotion provides industry benchmarks on which to build robust pricing strategies. Align pricing to product attributes Low price guarantees, discounting and promotions such as those mentioned above are used to drive sales volume growth. In order to grow sales value, companies need to differentiate themselves from the competition. One way to achieve this is by offering value-added attributes such as functional ingredients, specialised product claims and value-added packaging.How to BuIld a SucceSSful PrIcIng Strategy 7 Euromonitor International By capturing and organising detailed product attribute information for every SKU alongside its price, ecommerce data helps companies calculate the optimum price point based on the attributes that they carry (see Figure 4 below). Companies can use this information to evaluate how much of a premium they could charge to balance investment in developing new products, reformulating existing products or adapting supply chain and manufacturing processes. So, how can we tell which attributes are trending and how can this insight be leveraged to optimise pricing strategy? We can track if products containing certain ingredients (e.g. plant-based protein), ethical labels (e.g. vegan) or health labels (e.g. gluten free) are increasing in number and carrying a more premium retail price point that is stable or increasing over time. From this, companies can conclude that the attributes (or some configuration of attributes) are indeed trending with consumers and consumers tend to be willing to pay more for them. In this way, the price difference for these value-added attributes feeds directly into pricing optimisation strategy. Conversely, Research and Development (R&D ) and Innovations departments should consider it a red flag if products with a specific attribute or set of attributes are: Seeing a steady decline in retail prices Constantly promoted in most online retailers where they are sold Becoming less prevalent across retailers If a specific attribute cannot support at least stable if not increasing retail prices and SKU counts for the products in which it appears, then a company should explore other innovation options to bolster their bottom line. Figure 4 SKU count, median price and median price growth by category by attribute Category Attribute Number of SKU s Median price (USD ) Median price growth (%) Category 1 Fair trade 445 2.75 0Sugar free 159 3.41 +2.5Organic 75 4.24 +4.7 Category 2 Fair trade 258 3.12 -1.4Sugar free 52 3.05 +0.7Organic 174 4.94 +28 How to BuIld a SucceSSful PrIcIng Strategy Euromonitor International Align pricing to market and retail landscape What does assortment breadth and depth on a SKU -by-SKU and retailer-by-retailer basis tell us about both the overall market and individual retailer landscape? How can this intelligence support pricing optimisation strategy? To answer these questions, we need to consider additional e-commerce data points like the number of SKU s per brand, brand owner or retailer alongside retail prices. Is the category dominated by only a handful of brands with lots of SKU s or are there a broad range of brands with a more equal number of SKU s on offer? Moreover, do the brands offer depth of product choice SKU s of different pack sizes, flavours, fragrances, ingredients and other attributes or is SKU variety more limited within a given category? If the market is highly fragmented with many brands and SKU s each competing against each other, companies are typically obliged to employ a more aggressive pricing strategy to defend or grow their share of shelf. This can take the form of a long-term strategy such as “everyday low price” or short-term sales promotions. Both can be used to generate customer loyalty and grow (digital) shelf penetration and sales volume. However, if the market is h