Michaels crafts responsive merchandising strategy

Michaels Companies Inc. is tailoring its promotions, markdowns and prices to current customer demand.

The arts and crafts retailer is deploying Revionics merchandising solutions including the vendor’s promotions, markdown and price suites.

A very real challenge for retailers — who now market to the most technology-enabled, in-control shoppers ever — is to avoid the promotional downward spiral vortex and sidestep the vicious “race to the bottom” on competitive pricing. These traps severely erode margins, profits and brand image.

By leveraging Revionics’ solutions, Michaels hopes to be able to proactively listen, sense and shape demand in response to its customers. As a result, the arts and crafts retailer intends to deliver high-impact pricing, promotions and markdowns.

“Revionics stood out with their ability to manage the entire pricing, promotion and markdown processes, from analysis and planning through execution and measurement,” said Chris Abell, VP of pricing and promotion analytics for Michaels. “We are very impressed with Revionics’ proven science, intelligent and actionable analytics, transparency and what-if scenario planning, which will help us implement more customer-centric campaigns across all channels."

Without a thorough and timely understanding of what customers are willing to pay for which products, retailers can wind up “racing to the bottom” with overly competitive price discounts. This negatively impacts margins and profits and can even affect consumer willingness to pay full price at a particular retailer.

Michaels is creating a strategy to make sure its prices entice consumers and move merchandise — without leaving an ugly mess to clean later.