You have to live under a rock if you haven’t noticed just how fast and dramatically the retail environment is changing.

The competition only keeps on getting more diverse and hostile, the shoppers are now easily able to compare elasticity of price on every channel, and the global discount community is only continuing to grow.

In addition, retailers are now have so much more detailed information about their customers, therefore, they can’t make any mistakes when it comes to identifying their top customers or signals from competitors.

What’s more, is that shoppers are now demanding retailers to offer pricing and promotions that are both relevant and targeted.

So, how do you succeed in this turbulent environment?

The only way is to take advantage of the functionality offered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) to ensure that the right prices and offers are being placed on the products that customers actually like in a manner that will also help companies get back their margin so that they can maintain a functioning business in the long run.

Research recently conducted by Forrester Consulting uncovered some crossovers and some divisions that occur between what retailers think about both their customers and their shoppers versus what their impressions actually are.

In order to get a global understanding, they surveyed five retailers from the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Germany, and France.

Then, they compared what retailers thought their customers preferred and how the behaved to what the customers actually said.

For instance, they found out that 17% of customers require price matching while 76% of retailers are vigorously market price matching.

Where you aware of the fact that not many customers actually want price matches?

As you can see, a significant number of retailers make sure that they let customers know both when and where they offer price matching.

I really wonder who these retailers are going after with all of their hoopla surrounding price matching when, on the contrary, shoppers are really just looking for a fair and sensible price.

What’s more, is that 78% of customers claim that they believe in the power of pricing that is based on science.

The guest presenter Brendan Witcher, who is the Forrester Vice President and Principal Analyst, discussed this point of disconnect along with various other points in a recent webinar.

If you would like to take a listen to him as well as the Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer Cheryl Sullivan at Revionics, you can listen in the on-demand reply.

We promise that you’ll find it very illuminating and a quick way to gain some constructive information.

What’s interesting is that science is also able to help retailers keep harmful margins from leaking right away simply by understanding the things that they shouldn’t do.

During the webinar, Sullivan had discussed some information from a study conducted in October 2018; it outlined how 52% of customers get promotional offers on either a weekly or monthly basis on items that they would have gladly paid the full price for.

Thankfully, with the help promotion efficiency analytics, which is based on science, retailers are able to figure out which promotions are unnecessary.

By putting an end to promotions that aren’t effective, retailers can save a lot of money with ease.

We suggest taking a listen to these influential presenters or, if you prefer, giving the entire study a read. You’ll find that every piece of information is essential to your understanding of the bigger picture!