10 New Year’s Resolutions for Distribution Pricing Managers

Happy New Year to our valued readers and sponsors of the Distribution Pricing Journal. As we enter a new year, now is the perfect time to reflect on our successes from last year and set new goals for the coming year. We’re grateful for your continued support in helping us build an industry-leading resource focused on pricing best practices within the wholesale distribution industry.

Here are 10 New Year’s resolutions for distribution pricing managers:

1.  Each month, work on a new area to take a more holistic view of the market and customer profiles to identify new pricing strategies that will generate more profits. Not every branch has the same demand patterns or customer types. Not every product line can generate the same margin. Different offerings have different costs-to-serve. Make it a priority this year to learn one new area in your business that affects pricing each month.

2. Identify high-value customers and develop tailored pricing models that maximize their value. There is a lot of low hanging fruit in your house accounts; however, don’t forget that your high-value customers are the biggest drivers of success in your business.

3. Analyze competitor pricing strategies to ensure your prices remain competitive in the marketplace. Don’t assume that a competitor knows what they are doing, but you don’t want to be caught unaware of sudden promotions or shifts in the market.

4. Consider using variable pricing tactics such as time-based discounts to encourage customers to act quickly and capitalize on offers with limited availability.

5. Explore regional strategies to capture new markets and create localized pricing models that cater specifically to local needs and preferences.

6. Utilize customer segmentation analysis to create tailored prices for different customer types based on their buying behaviors or purchase histories. This can be difficult to do unless you are using distribution-specific price optimization solutions, but with the right tools in place, customer segmentation is a big driver of new profit.

7. Invest in new technology to approach the marketplace with greater precision. Obviously, you should look at price optimization, but distribution CRM and other AI data solutions can help as well.

8. Develop loyalty programs or loyalty cards that reward repeat customers with special deals, discounts or other incentives while encouraging ongoing engagement even if they don’t make frequent purchases. Frequency is an important element of profitability as it raises profitability per order, lowers your cost of sales and increases your inventory turn rate.

9. Monitor data from customer surveys, reviews and feedback mechanisms regularly to stay up to date with changes in the marketplace and adjust pricing where appropriate accordingly.

10. Stay in the loop with your stakeholders. Utilize analytics tools to assess the success of your current pricing models and identify areas for improvement in terms of profitability or customer satisfaction levels. Over-communicate your pricing vision. Poor communication and lack of vision was one of the main reasons given by our readers when we asked them, “why did you fire your pricing manager?”

This year, let’s resolve to continue exploring innovative strategies for setting profitable prices for customers, create tailored pricing models that offer maximum value for consumers and leverage data insights to gain a better understanding of customer buying behaviors. Together we can work towards enhancing profitability in wholesale distribution through improved pricing tactics.

Happy New Year from everyone at the Distribution Pricing Journal!