Pricing Strategies and Promotion Best Practices

By:  Susan Boyme, Vice President of Marketing, Revionics, Inc.

As Revionics announces the release of Collaborate, our new supplier portal for retailers, it causes me to reflect on  the web-based trading exchanges, marketplaces, and other “one-to-many” and “many-to-many” models I have bumped into over the past 15 years.  Regardless of model, the most successful initiatives have one thing in common – the party sponsoring the initiative must be the buyer.  Supplier-driven models are well intentioned, but don’t get traction.

The promise is consistent – improve the supply chain by creating an automated, seamless way for buyers to communicate with their suppliers.  Industry-sponsored initiatives stall is when standards are created or enforced, business models are debated, and when the key buyers don’t lead the charge.

At Revionics, our blood bleeds retail, so our perspective is that exclusively of the retailer.  Collaborate, therefore, reflects a rather retailer-centric view of the world.  Within our community of over 100 retail clients, we consistently heard:  Help me create efficiencies by improving the way I do business with MY suppliers.  Help me automate the collection of data from my smallest, least efficient suppliers.  Help me collect my deal information and integrate it into my promotions planning platform.  Help me to know if a deal is good or not before I ink it.  Help me to share information with my supplier community in a way that is controlled, but helpful to my business…

Collaborate’s strength is in its blend of simplicity and sophistication.  For the retailers ready for on-demand promotional modeling of deal monies offered by suppliers, Collaborate can act as a hub of negotiations and deal management.  On the other hand, if a retailer simply needs a central repository for hosting data for their smaller, less sophisticated suppliers, Collaborate can do this too.  Collaborate provides a comprehensive suite of capabilities that are adaptive to the needs of each individual retailer.

Revionics has proven scalability for web based applications – we host and manage pricing for over 20,000 stores each week.  Collaborate leverages the same SaaS platform and creates a private, portal experience for each retailer.   With our deep expertise in systems integration, we have the ability to receive a variety of inbound data types (XML, EDI), and pass information to existing retail environments for the least possible disruption.

Yes, I’ve bumped into many initiatives with the intent of solving supply chain initiatives in the past.  In the end, the buyer wins with Revionics Collaborate.  Collaborate gives the retailer the power to insist on better standards from all suppliers, regardless of size.  I encourage retailers out there who are struggling with disparate ways of managing inbound data from their suppliers to investigate Collaborate.  For more information, visit www.revionics.com/raps-collaborate, or email us at info@revionics.com.

By: Jim Sills Ph.D., CTO, Revionics, Inc.

“Another bad UPC from a vendor!  Why are we still using pen and paper to manage vendor deals?” This is a real quote from a retailer I was working with last year on a promotion planning project.  This retailer was depending on vendor’s hand-written information. The UPCs entered on deal sheets were frequently in error. “There must be a better way!”

Yes there is a better way and help is on the way. Revionics is on schedule to release RAPS Collaborate in April this year.  This vendor collaboration portal is a common platform for retailers and their vendors to exchange information, plan deals, and execute reporting.

Vendors submit a deal thru the retailer’s branded portal—by either electronic data feed or via manual entry.  RAPS Collaborate is integrated with the retailer’s item master, so all UPCs entered by vendor are validated against the item master.  Exceptions are flagged to prevent errors at the point of entry.

And that’s just the beginning.  Vendor deals that are submitted can be reviewed by the retailer for approval, or rejection with comments. There is a full audit trail, so no more after-the-fact debates about miscommunications with the vendor.

It is easy to set up new vendors or update vendor information in the Vendor Management screens.  This includes setting up vendor user accounts and security.  Once the vendor logs in, they can view the retailer’s master promotion plan.  It is very easy to submit a deal by specifying begin and end date, UPC, incentive information, order information, terms, and special instructions.  The full range of incentives is included such as bill back, scan down, lump sum, off invoice, and layered deals.  Finally, the vendor can submit the deal, which creates an email alert to the retailer.

Next time the retailer access the portal, they see an alert indicating there is a vendor deal to review. Clicking on the alert brings up the vendor’s deal information.  The retailer can approve or reject the deal, which creates an email alert to the vendor.

RAPS Collaborate is fully integrated with Revionics’ solution suite, including RAPS Promotion, and RAPS Replenishment.  With this new module, items on deal are clearly documented and can be easily added to a promotion event such as a circular. The incentive is accounted for in recommending items and offers—including long term price reductions such as TPRs.  Reports display the impact of the incentives on the category.   RAPS Replenishment is aware of incentives and will recommend forward buys.

Vendor privileges can be managed so that vendors are limited to only their categories and stores. They can be given access to the forecast of their items, or in the case of trusted vendors, the store-level forecast for all the items in the category.

Both the retailer and the vendor can see total trade funds by week, quarter, year, and year-to-date.

There are additional features for managing item master data. For example, the vendor can upload nutritional information and item attributes. The vendor can even propose a new item for the item catalog, which the retailer can approve or reject.

As you can see, Revionics is offering a compelling solution that will improve the way retailers communicate with their vendors.  Sharing information in a more timely, accurate fashion will introduce new efficiencies and create clear advantages for participants.  For more information, please email info@revionics.com, or reach out to your account manager for a demonstration.