Armature helps retailers increase accuracy and speed of pricing with the launch of Retail Price Desk

Armature, a world leader in providing integrated solutions to the retail industry, is launching its Retail Price Desk solution this month. As part of the Merchandising Office element of Armature`s A SERIES range, Retail Price Desk enables the retailer to make more intelligent, more competitive pricing decisions in real time. Taking into account market and product variables, Retail Price Desk recommends the optimal price changes.

Retail Price Desk focuses on the three principal areas that dictate fluctuations in retail pricing. The first area involves managing the variables that effects price. These include measuring the performance of stores within each market in order to minimize the number of times a products price changes in a year. The second area focuses on the impact a pricing decision makes on profit margins and sales, across individual categories and stores. The third area concentrates on developing policies and procedures that automatically adjust prices in line with anticipated daily variants, allowing retailers to focus their attention on exceptions.

"Retail Price Desk integrates pricing with strategic merchandise planning to bridge the gap between the demand chain and the supply chain" explains Miguel Ganose, merchandise systems product manager. "Research conducted by Armature showed that retailers using Retail Price Desk can expect to achieve as much as a 6% increase in sales and a 25% increase in net profit".

Retail Price Desk incorporates a triggering mechanism that identifies business events that may require a price change response. The system consolidates several rules, which follow the company`s strategy, and bases the recommended price on all of the related issues. The rules include product relationships such as bulk buying and family pricing, category strategies corresponding to competitive and margin pricing, value perception and a control that enables a comparison between the cost of change to the actual price change.

Armature is implementing its Retail Price Desk solution at some of the world`s largest retailers including European cooperative retailers Sperwer and Grounwoudt.