Challenge
An online retailer with static pricing was losing market share to more agile competitors who adjusted prices in response to market conditions. Their manual price updates were infrequent, requiring extensive analysis, and often failed to respond quickly to competitor changes, demand fluctuations, or inventory levels.
Solution
An AI dynamic pricing system using Akkio and Make.com that:
- Monitored competitor pricing across thousands of products
- Analyzed elasticity of demand for different product categories
- Considered inventory levels, seasonal trends, and product lifecycle
- Automatically adjusted prices based on configurable business rules
- Maintained margin requirements while optimizing for market position
- A/B tested pricing strategies to continually improve algorithms
Implementation
The system was implemented over 7 weeks:
- Historical sales data analysis to establish pricing elasticity baselines
- Competitor monitoring setup with automated data collection
- Business rule development with stakeholders for different product categories
- Gradual rollout beginning with non-essential product categories
- Performance monitoring and algorithm refinement
Results
- 18% increase in profit margins across dynamically priced products
- 24% growth in sales volume due to more competitive positioning
- 1.0 FTE saved in pricing analysis and manual updates
- 95% reduction in time to respond to competitor price changes
Safeguards
The system included configurable guardrails to prevent pricing errors, with human approval required for changes beyond certain thresholds.
