DemandTec Launches Autonomous Pricing On Demand

DemandTec by Acoustic, a retail pricing, promotions and markdown technology firm, has launched Autonomous Pricing On Demand, an enterprise-grade, AI-powered price optimization service for fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) retailers, wholesalers and distributors. The new cloud-based service was designed to enable merchandising and pricing teams to quickly respond to market and consumer behavior changes so they can compete with larger, more tech-savvy competitors.

A recent report from DemandTec showed a wide gap in the adoption of advanced pricing technology by retailers at a time when grocers are looking to drives sales during historic inflation. The study, “Retail Pricing 2022: Bringing Agility and Precision to the Art of Pricing,” conducted by Retail Systems Research, surveyed retail executives and found that about 60% of small- to midsized retailers don’t use data-driven solutions to manage pricing.

“Competing in today’s economy — riddled with record-breaking inflation, growing consumer price sensitivity and continuing supply chain challenges — is increasingly difficult,” said Anis Hadj-Taieb, general manager for Atlanta-based DemandTec. “Retailers of all sizes need access to AI-powered capabilities to rapidly respond to changes in the market and consumer demand with intelligent pricing.”

In what the company calls “a first for the retail pricing technology market,” the simple-to-use Autonomous Pricing On Demand service is said to eliminate cost, training and IT resource barriers traditionally required, while improving price perception to grow revenue up to 3% and margins up to 5%.

“By offering key elements of our Unify by DemandTec platform ‘as a service,’ more retailers gain access to advanced data science and AI to power precision pricing and better meet the changing needs of their customers,” added Hadj-Taieb.

DemandTec touts its Autonomous Pricing On Demand service offers:

• AI-powered price optimization to apply intelligent pricing across zones and categories — down to the item level — enabling retailers to quickly respond to consumer demand and market changes, at scale.
• Weekly price optimization recommendations — based on retailer strategy and data feeds — with highly accurate consumer demand and competitive insights.
• Dedicated pricing team discusses recommendations and pricing performance, with value-added consulting to discover and share insights, including anonymized collective insights, across volumes of historical shopping data.
• Rapid time to value in just four to six weeks, versus the industry average of 12 months, thanks to Quick Start implementation and the Pricing Strategy Health Check diagnostic.
• Minimal commitment with annual subscription-based pricing that enables retailers of all sizes access to enterprise-grade price optimization.

In late 2021, DemandTec launched Unify, an autonomous unified merchandising platform. The cloud-native platform enables retailers to unite their data, systems and internal teams, and collaborate with suppliers to generate profitable revenue growth.

[To read DemandTec’s blog post, “Fear of Change Could Cost You Customers,” click here.]