Dynamic Pricing has caused meteoric explosions in the pricing world. It has quickly become one of the most effective revenue-maximizing strategies of the 21st Century! This meticulous pricing method emphasizes on price flexibility of goods and services based on the fluctuations in the market. It also considers other factors like consumer insights, availability of inventory, competitive prices, seasonality, location and more.

With the expansion of the global village, consumers have become hyper-aware of their shopping habits. This is why adopting a dynamic pricing technique has become vital for companies.

The Advent of Dynamic Pricing

Influenced by the airline industry, other industries have swiftly adapted to the fast-paced market changes and infused dynamic pricing strategies into their long-term business plans. 

Brands like Google, Airbnb, Uber, and Amazon have turned real-time pricing into their primary pricing strategy. This means everyone with a smartphone has experienced the core essence of dynamic pricing in real life. Whether it is booking a cab, ordering electronic goods online or purchasing a flight ticket, consumers have seamlessly adapted to the AI-powered pricing strategy.

Some consumers have acclimatized to real-time pricing, while others have been left with a bad taste in their mouth.

Either way, companies have made the most of real-time pricing and skyrocketed their sales to the next level! 

So how do they do it?

Science Behind the Art

Well, the answer is ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE! The advent of technological evolution has given birth to intelligent machine learning and AI-powered algorithms that have made smart repricing a possibility. By automating the pricing process, companies can leave the manual number crunching to machines while they focus on building their business. One of the best examples of artificial intelligence in pricing is by Viaje.ai. It is an automated pricing tool that sold a bus ticket for $121, a feat that would be impossible if the pricing was done manually. Only an intelligent machine can increase the price to that level, something a human can never imagine.

Initially, pricing was done manually and required an entire team of pricing experts who constantly monitored the market, competitors and consumer behavior. After scrutinizing and computing all the data, they would decide on a certain price. In order to change this price, they had to replicate the entire process, which is extremely time-consuming. Also, by the time they came up with a new price, the market dynamics had already changed, and the repricing had become redundant. 

Birth of the Bots

In order put an end to price decay, brands began adapting to the technological advancements that enabled them to use dynamic pricing. One such crucial step was building intelligent, intuitive and quick bots. These bots, or spiders, are coded by high-end full-stack developers who customize each bot for a specific scrapping task. Every scrapper is then released onto the web, where it pulls out all the historical data from the web. This data is then cleaned, computed and analyzed at the granular level.

Then Come the Data Scientists…

After spiders scrap the data, the data scientists begin working their magic. They engineer the data and pull out user insights that help identify customer segments and improve customer experience. The data also provides market trends, availability of competitors’ inventory and competitive intelligence. Based on all the information, the scientifically designed scrappers provide insightful information to companies. This information enables them to reprice their products or service accordingly. But this is not where it ends! After gathering, analyzing and computing the data, it is fed into automated AI-powered pricing tools. 

BRIO, an automated AI-powered tool for retailers, enabled one of Mumbai’s largest fruits and vegetables sellers reduce their manual effort by 70%. The artificial intelligence tool cognizes real-time market trends, sets automated strategies and reduces repetitive human control. When AI bots manage pricing, business owners can focus on increasing assortments and improving the quality of customer service along with the quality of products.

Automated AI-Powered Pricing Tools

Technology has enabled full-stack developers to create high-functioning robust machines that design pricing strategies based on market movement, competitor pricing and customer insights. BRIO is one such AI-powered automated tool that makes smart pricing simple and scientific. With just a few clicks, business owners can get access to high-revenue generating strategies. These pricing plans are automatically created by the AI tool. This means retailers can focus on scaling their business while the machine takes care of their pricing needs. 

BRIO scans thousands of SKUs on a daily basis and does close to 5 billion optimizations every day. Price optimization has never been this simple. Whether it is static pricing or dynamic pricing, BRIO does it all. It also generates automated reports and performs automated mapping with more than 99% accuracy. Revenue maximization, lead conversion, Omni channel segmentation and competitive intelligence are other powerful advantages of using automated AI-powered tools. It also helps identify MAP violations and enables business owners to maintain correct prices in the market. Companies no longer need to invest into manpower that manually prices their products. 

Now that we have understood the science behind AI-powered pricing tools let’s look at some brands and e-commerce companies that use these tools to price their products.

E-commerce & Brands that Use Dynamic Pricing to Drive Revenue 

With the digital revolution, companies realized the simplicity of adopting automated repricing tools, which lead to profit maximization, inventory management, and smart repricing based on market movements and competitor intelligence. Let’s look at some of the brands that built a strong fiscal foundation with the support of automated AI-powered pricing tools.

Amazon

As of 2021, Amazon had generated up to $470 billion in sales, and one of its major focus strategies was dynamic pricing. Since Amazon has a product catalogue of up to 1.5 billion products, it might be next to impossible to apply the dynamic pricing strategy to each product. This is why it uses automated tools that study the market and reprice millions of products daily. 

As of 2013, Amazon used to change its prices 2.5 million times a day, which means it changes prices every 10 minutes, this number will be much higher in 2023.

Amazon also provides automated dynamic pricing tools for its sellers. This means retailers can constantly track their competition and change prices accordingly. By hacking the repricing strategies, brands can focus on revenue maximization by keeping their prices competitive. Dynamic Pricing has helped Amazon boost its sales by 25%. It is one of the first e-commerce brands to dig into big data and enhance their pricing strategies according to customer insights.

Airbnb

With a whopping 300 million bookings in 2021, the total revenue generated by Airbnb was $5.9 billion. After taking a hit during the pandemic, the company’s sales decreased by 31%, but by 2021 their sales increased by 73%.

Just like Amazon, Airbnb also provides dynamic pricing tools to its four million hosts. It prompts predictive prices for profit maximization. The smart repricing tool backed by artificial intelligence enabled the brand to get 300 million bookings in 2021. 

When hosts adapt to the predictive pricing prompts, they can secure four times more bookings than usual. Airbnb is one of the first hospitality brands to use a rigorous dynamic pricing strategy to improve their revenue by keeping in line with market movements and customer insights.

Uber 

Uber single-handedly changed the face of taxi services in the world. It has become one of the biggest cab companies without owning a single cab. And one of the major reasons behind its extraordinary fiscal growth is dynamic pricing. According to Uber Investor, the operating cash flow for the third quarter of 2022 was $432 million, while the free cash flow was $358 million. 

The AI-powered dynamic pricing tool used by Uber takes several factors into consideration. Time and distance, geographical locations, availability of resources, length of the routes and the demand in the market are processed and analyzed based on which it reprices their rides. 

Uber also hikes the prices of its ride during peak hours, on the weekends and during massive events.

Google 

Google uses dynamic pricing to constantly optimize the prices of its ad words and shopping ads. In 2021 alone, Google made $209.49 billion through their Google Ads platform. This platform allows brands to list their products, place display ads on relevant websites and provides a platform that lets them offer their services.

Retailers also have the option to optimize their Google Shopping Ads based on their competitors’ prices. In fact, Google places the product with the lowest price on top of the page. Automated AI-powered dynamic pricing tools compute big data and predict high revenue-generating pricing techniques. By using these tools, brands can get a higher return on ad spends and maximize the ROI on their ad budgets.

Other Brands that Use Dynamic Pricing

Automobile brands like Ford and General Motors have been using dynamic pricing tools to sell their spare parts since 2014. Even theme parks like Walt Disney World and Disney land take advantage of AI-powered smart repricing, which hikes the prices on peak days and reduces them on normal weekdays. The airline industry has pioneered this technique, which has now been adopted by the bus industry, train industry and so on.

Dynamic pricing has changed the way companies maximize their revenue, manage their inventory, accumulate customer insights and study market fluctuations. From plugging revenue leaks to improving operational efficiency, dynamic pricing tools can help them do it all.

To know more about dynamic pricing and pricing strategies backed by artificial intelligence, book a free demo with us or email our pricing consultants at ayesha@sciative.com.