Looking back to look ahead: How 2024 (quite a year for retail pricing) will help us in 2025

It’s been an interesting year to be in the retail pricing technology business. The aftereffects of two years of historic inflation continue to haunt consumers, retailers and suppliers around the globe. Supply chain disruptions are apparently part of our new normal, with panic buying always lurking around every corner. New entrants in every category continue to put more competitive pressure on everyone. And oh, by the way, geopolitical conflict is a looming threat to supply lines in several regions of the world.

It is with this backdrop that I joined my Revionics colleagues for our annual end-of-the-fiscal-year Town Hall meeting last week. I was eager to hear from senior leadership how our performance, investments and accomplishments in FY24 will help our clients thrive in the year ahead.

Here are a few highlights from 2024 that I think will make a real difference to retail pricing in 2025:

First and foremost, we doubled down on our product investments, with significant development spend across our platform, science and solutions.

The product teams capitalized on that R&D investment with a long list of innovations and product capabilities that directly impact our clients’ abilities to succeed amid all this turmoil. If you’re a retailer and haven’t had a chance to see some of the value-driving enhancements we made to our Promo Optimization module, now is the time to take a look (no contact info required!), because this solution brings the value, every day, to every phase of the promotion lifecycle.

And in this tumultuous era, how promotions perform will make – or break – the ability to succeed for the vast majority of retailers. Simply repeating last year’s promotions (as so many retailers in so many categories often do) is a high-risk gamble in a high-stakes game. When so many market variables have changed, we can’t expect the same promotions for the same items to have the same results. With our newly updated, data science-driven promotion optimization tools in hand, it will be much easier to rethink every promo, every week, in every channel to ensure retailers maximize the outcomes of every offer.

We also expanded our commitment to GenAI. After first creating our infrastructure and baseline capabilities of GenAI, this year we moved to expand those capabilities to make it possible in 2025 for pricing teams to talk to their data. For example, we understand the critical importance of understanding the financial impacts of accurate forecasts, and we know your confidence in our forecasts will determine how you act. With our latest GenAI tools, investigating the accuracy of every forecast – and the factors that affected them – is as easy as entering your questions into a prompt:

A simple “Tell me more about my forecasts” prompt will bring back insights into how each forecast was developed, with actionable options offered directly within the conversation. As a result, finding answers to the most challenging pricing questions retailers face will be easier, more efficient and more effective than ever before.

In addition to next-gen technology investments, in FY24 we continued to invest in our team of seasoned retail pricing professionals. Experience matters in all technology, but when it comes to pricing, there are no more comforting words to hear from your technology partner than “been there, done that.” Inflation is not new. Supply chain disruptions are not new. Competitive pressures are not new. Rapidly shifting consumer tastes and preferences are not new.

That’s why we constantly invest in our team to ensure every aspect of our business is populated with people who have helped retailers overcome the many challenges they face today. People who understand the general dynamics at work, even if the specific market conditions are unique to this particular point in time. People who have the education and instincts that can only come from experience to help us develop, implement, personalize and support our solutions to ensure every client makes the most of every recommendation throughout the pricing lifecycle.

FY24 was indeed an interesting year in the world of retail pricing. And FY25 promises more intrigue and challenges, to be sure. But as I logged off the Town Hall, I couldn’t help feeling that we have a real shot at turning FY25 into an exciting year for retail pricing. And I can’t wait to see how it all unfolds.