“Lowe’s Cos. Inc. is following the distant footsteps of chief competitor Home Depot Inc. with the purchase of retail analytics technology from vendor Boomerang Commerce.
Home Depot bought data-driven retail pricing startup BlackLocus in 2012 to bolster its pricing strategy, he says.
Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison said late last year that the company plans to spend $500 million per year through 2021 on technology and to hire more than 2,000 engineers to improve Lowes.com
Internet Retailer estimates Lowe’s had ecommerce sales of $3.97 billion in 2018, up 30.0% from $3.06 billion in 2017.”
Using AI to automatically drive sales and profit online is something that many businesses dream of. Price Edge has now turned that dream into an all-in-one reality.
Stockholm, Sweden, May 20, 2019 –(PR.com)– Price Edge, a Price Optimization & Management (PO&M) software provider, announced today the release of their latest AI solution, PriceEdge™ Optimize, which applies artificial intelligence to optimize prices & revenues for eCommerce stores.
PriceEdge™ Optimize enables eCommerce stores to get optimal price suggestions and gain insight into their products’ price elasticity, by understanding the purchase behaviour around each product in combination with competitors’ pricing. This not only enables pricing teams to save time and effort, but it also empowers them to focus more on business strategy rather than pricing administration. The solution can additionally be implemented within hours, as all data is collected via a script that’s simply embedded in the webshop code.
With this addition, Price Edge now challenges the incumbents in end-to-end pricing solutions with a broad set of solutions designed to solve any price management and optimization needs.
“Today, eCommerce businesses must stay on top of rapidly changing market conditions and customer preferences,” said Rickard Glamsjö, CEO, Price Edge. “Prices must continuously adapt to the constantly changing market dynamics and unique differences of each business to deliver pricing recommendations that drive revenue and identify hidden profit. The addition of PriceEdge™ Optimize delivers on this vision.”
To learn more about Price Edge’s pricing technology and PriceEdge Optimize™, please visit: https://priceedge.eu/optimize.
About Price Edge
Established in 2014 in Sweden, Price Edge has developed the dream pricing software – a cloud-based price optimization & management software for enterprises, which gives them access to new pricing strategies and more flexibility than ever before. Price Edge’s vision is to become and stay the leading price optimization & management solution provider by offering a more flexible and easier to use product than all other options in the market.
PriceEdge™ is already working with many of the largest brands in the world and recently started to ramp up its global growth. They are a young, energetic team pursuing the vision of building a global SaaS company that will fundamentally change the way enterprises work with pricing in both B2B and B2C.
Let me begin by acknowledging that I’m a full-fledged data geek. With that in mind, these are my favorite articles. Forbes has just published a consolidated list of 50 Retail/CX stats. Plus, the data is from top-tier sources. This is literally gold when it comes to developing a business case for capital funding.
Check out the Forbes site for the full list, but here are a few of my favorites:
“In 2018, 51% of e-commerce brands offered same-day delivery, up from 16% in 2017. Experts predict that within the next two years, 65% of retailers will offer same-day delivery. – BRP Consulting
87% of consumers begin their shopping journey with digital, a jump from 71% in 2017. – Salesforce
48% of shoppers have left a brand’s website and made a purchase from a competitor because of a poorly personalized experience. – Marketing Dive
87% of customers will abandon their online carts if the checkout process is too difficult. – PRWeb
82% of consumers consult their phones while they’re in a store deciding what product to buy. One in 10 of those people end up buying a different product than they had planned. – Think With Google
By 2020, more than 40% of data analytics projects will relate to customer experience. – Gartner”
Sunil Rao, Global Head of Consumer Goods, Salesforce
Three ways consumer goods leaders are investing in the future
“Amazon’s reach has swept the industry: 68% of CG leaders think that consumers are more loyal to Amazon’s Marketplace than individual brands.
Retailers and brands are losing the battle for replenishment: Shoppers are choosing online marketplaces 47% for repeat purchases, ahead of retailers (34%) and brands themselves (20%).
Powerful private-label brands from the likes of Tesco, Hema, Costco, Amazon, and Walmart are soaring to new heights: In 2018, Costco’s Kirkland brand earned nearly $40 billion — an 11% increase from 2017 (and more sales than Campbell Soup, Kellogg’s, and Hershey combined).”
Commerce Dept: eCommerce Sales Jump 12.4 Pct In Q1
“The Commerce Department reported Friday (May 17) that eCommerce sales were up 12.4 percent from last year to $127.3 billion, measured in terms of non-seasonally-adjusted data.
And eCommerce sales have doubled through the past five years, noted Seeking Alpha, reaching a recent threshold last year of more than $500 billion.
Walmart stated that its eCommerce sales grew by 37 percent. Management said on the earnings call”
“Planned mobile improvements in 2019 include using Groupon’s proprietary data, machine learning and AI to improve discovery, relevance and service on the platform. Mobile is also a key enabler of Groupon’s booking and voucherless initiatives that make it easier for people to use their Groupons.”
This is a head-to-head battle where we, the customer, are the real winners.Speed, personalization, satisfaction, ratings/reviews, next day deliveryare all enhanced by the power of artificial intelligence (ai) and the investments currently being made by Walmart and Amazon.
Also, keep an eye on Rakuten and Alibaba. If they are able to gain a foothold in the U.S. that would only further ratchet up the competition.
Walmart’ battle with Amazon has new fronts: Digital ads and A.I.
“CEO Doug McMillon says the company is on track to become more of a “digital enterprise.”
It surpassed Apple in 2018 to become the third-largest online retailer in the country, trailing only Amazon and eBay, according to eMarketer.
This week, the company started rolling out next-day delivery for online orders in three markets in the U.S., with plans to reach 75% of the country before the year is over.”
Walmart Acquisitions
“In February, it bought Aspectiva, a start-up that looks at a customer’s browsing behavior and helps make product recommendations
We know it bought Jet.com for $3.3 billion in 2017.
Walmart’s acquisition of plus-size fashion brand Eloquii last fall was reported to be $100 million.
A person familiar had told CNBC that Walmart’s acquisition of Art.com had cost about the same.”
“Amazon last year became the third largest ad platform in the U.S., behind only Google and Facebook.
Feedvisor, the “AI-first” optimization and intelligence platform for large sellers and brands on Amazon, today unveiled its State of the Amazon Marketplace 2019 report.
The percentage of sellers who plan to expand to Walmart (17 percent) and eBay (10 percent) declined from last year, by 8 and 9 percent respectively.
“Amazon has become the go-to shopping destination — nearly three-quarters of consumers go straight to the platform when they are ready to purchase a product,” said Dani Nadel, President and Chief Operating Officer, Feedvisor.
With Amazon’s customer-centric business model, an overwhelming majority (95 percent) of sellers said ratings and reviews are important to their business on Amazon.”
