Pricing actions are a pivotal part of the pricing workflow in Sniffie. Carefully defining your pricing actions will allow you to achieve your desired pricing outcomes. This article will get you acquainted with what pricing actions are and how to use them.
Contents:
What are pricing actions?
Pricing actions are the parameters which define, overall, how to execute a pricing strategy for a given product or group of products. We have created pricing actions to perform different functions for you, such as just changing the price, matching the price to competitors, setting a target value, and so on.
What pricing methods are available for pricing actions?
There are a number of different pricing methods which you can define through pricing actions. The availability of different methods depends on your enabled modules. The functional availability of pricing methods is described below
Methods available to all pricing workflows except AI workflows:
Add or subtract
Change price
Set to static value (internal)
Set a desired value
Set to base price
Methods available to pricing workflows when the price monitoring module is enabled:
Match competitor by rank
Match competitor price
Set to a target value
Methods available for all pricing workflows, including AI workflows:
Rounding rule(s)
Methods available for AI workflows:
Set to AI suggested price point
In-depth descriptions of all available pricing methods and their operators
Add or subtract: With this operator you can add, subtract or do both based on any value found in your custom column informations or in the additional data fields provided.
Change price: changes price. The available operators are "as percentage", which changes the price as a percentage value, and "as absolute value", which changes the price with an absolute value. In the value field, you need to manually enter the value of the change. For example, if the operator is "as percentage", entering -10 into the value field will decrease the price by 10%.
Set to static value (internal): sets your price to a target value, which is based on your internal data. Available operators are "match margin target", "set price to RRP", "set price to internal RRP", and "set price to purchase price".
Set a desired value: sets your price to a desired value for example: 70.95
Set to base price: Set a preferred margin % for the items. The desired value should be set in % format example. 25
Match competitor by rank: matches your price to the competitor that has the nth lowest price. This action has no operators, but a value field. In this value field, you enter the rank of the competitor. For example, entering number 7 will match your price to the 7th lowest competitor regardless of who they are. If there are fewer prices to rank than the one you define, the highest rank price is selected. For example, with only 5 prices "Match competitor by rank 7" will take the 5th lowest price.
Match competitor price: matches your price to a specific competitor. In the value field, you define what competitor you want the price to be matched against. The value input field has an autocomplete feature, so it's easy for you to select your desired competitor.
Set to target value (internal): sets your price to a target value, which is based on competitor data. Read this comprehensive article for more information about this action.
Rounding rule(s): rounds the price to a desired decimal place. The available operators include "closest valid,” which selects the closest value within the safeguards, "round up", which rounds the value up regardless of safeguards (i.e. may exceed maximum safeguard), and "round down", which rounds the value down regardless of safeguards (i.e. may be lower than minimum safeguard).
In the value field, you enter your desired rounding rules. The * character represents a wildcard (any number). For example, *.90 represents a rounding rule where all prices have to end with 90 in the decimal place. A rounding rule of *.*5 considers all prices that end with 5 in the decimal place (.05, .15, .25, .35, etc.). You can enter multiple rounding rules in the same expression with one rule in each line and the closest one according to the operator is selected when performing rounding.
Defining pricing actions as part of your pricing workflows
Select one or more products from the Product Catalog.
Assign a pricing action to the selected products by clicking on the pricing action icon at the top right of your toolbar (represented with a dollar sign icon)
Select any pricing workflow type from the selection list. Depending on the modules you have access to, only some may be available for you and some may be disabled.
This opens the pricing workflow editor modal where you can select and define pricing actions from the list on the left.
You can now add a pricing action from the plus button. An overlay opens where you can select the method, operator, and possible value for the action. Available methods, operators, and value fields are described above.
You can cancel the overlay by clicking Cancel at the bottom. You cannot apply any action unless all required fields are filled. If any of the fields are not present, the "Apply" button is gray.
Once all the fields are filled, you can apply the pricing action when you click Apply. In the image below, a pricing action Change price -10% is being applied.
After you have defined a pricing action and clicked Apply, the action will be visible as a chip under the pricing actions tab. You can edit the action by clicking on the action chip. You can remove the action by clicking X at the end of the action chip. You can add another action by clicking the + sign again.
Actions are performed in the order they are created. Sometimes you may have actions that are redundant (i.e. they don't do anything). For example, having two actions where you set a price to a target value means that the first action is redundant since the latter action will override the setting of a target value to the former action.
When one action makes another action redundant, the redundant action will become colored red. This is illustrated below, where the price is first set to the market average and then to the market maximum. Setting the price to market average before setting it to market maximum is a redundant action since you can just set prices to market maximum from the start.
When you are finished defining your pricing actions, you can save your pricing workflow and continue as normal.
How to add pricing actions to your pricing workflows in your Pricing Matrix
Select one or more rows in the Pricing Matrix from the checkboxes to the left of the rows.
Click the Assign a pricing action to selected button at the top left of the Pricing Matrix.
A modal opens. Select the desired pricing workflow. Not all workflows may be available for you, as available modules depend on your enabled modules.
Select your desired workflow and the workflow editor modal will open. This modal view is the same when creating a pricing workflow via Product Catalog. Continue according to steps four through seven as given in the above section on Defining pricing actions as part of your pricing workflows.