Posts

How to simplify pricing and optimally align it strategically, is conveyed by pricing expert Professor Dr. Hans-Christian Riekhof in this two-day intensive seminar. Practical, addressing individual questions. Only a few places left!

Pricing Seminar with Prof. Riekhof on 20/21.02.2025 in Hamburg

/in /by

When it comes to their pricing policy, many companies still act relatively unsystematically, in fact a well-thought-out sustainable pricing strategy is often lacking. This is evidenced by our regular empirical pricing studies. The daily handling of pricing processes, not least intensified by current economic developments such as inflation, supply bottlenecks and increased procurement costs, is often perceived as very complex and often leads to a lack of consistency.

When applied correctly, the marketing tool Pricing has considerable potential for sustainable value creation. How to simplify pricing and optimally align it strategically, is conveyed by the renowned pricing expert Professor Dr. Hans-Christian Riekhof in this practice-oriented two-day intensive seminar. Practical, clear and easy to understand, he provides a solid methodological framework and thus helps companies to increase their pricing competence.

In addition to theory, practice also plays a major role in the intensive pricing seminar, with Professor Riekhof addressing specific questions from the seminar participants’ everyday work. Participants are therefore advised to bring their own company-specific topics.

The seminar on 20/21. February 2025 in Hamburg is aimed at executives and specialists in marketing and sales who are confronted with pricing questions in their daily work and who are looking for a pragmatic way to embed price decisions in a long-term pricing strategy and thus increase value creation.

Anyone who wants to participate should hurry. There are currently only a few places left.

Read the impressions of previous seminar participants here
https://www.unicconsult.com/pricing-seminar/teilnehmerstimmen/

More information at
www.unicconsult.com/pricing-seminar

 

How to formulate and implement a long-term pricing strategy. What is the profit lever? A free online lecture on 29.08. by the IHK Lüneburg-Wolfsburg with pricing specialist Prof. Riekhof provides information.

29.08.2024 – Pricing Model – a potential profit lever? Free Online Event

/in , /by

How can a long-term pricing strategy be formulated and implemented – and what is the profit lever? Interested parties can find out on August 29 from 9 to 10 a.m. at a free online lecture by the IHK Lüneburg-Wolfsburg. Pricing expert Professor Hans-Christian Riekhof illuminates the building blocks of a well-thought-out pricing policy, explains pricing processes and what constitutes effective price controlling.

The topic of costs plays a very important role in many companies. The same does not apply to the price or pricing, this topic often receives significantly less attention, as empirical studies by Riekhof have shown. The potential that the sometimes considerable profit levers enable is therefore often unused.

Questions on the topic and the event are answered by Thomas Rekowski, IHKLW business development consultant, Tel. 05141 9196-22, thomas.rekowski@nullihklw.de.

Date:
29.08.2024

Time:
9:00 a.m.

Duration:
approx. 50 minutes

Registration requested at:
https://www.ihklw.de/PricingModell

Further information:
https://www.ihk.de/ihklw/service/presse/presseinfos/pricing-modell-6227676

In a current article, Wirtschaftswoche examines the pricing of companies that are perceived by consumers in a survey as Germany's cheapest service providers. Among those interviewed was pricing expert Prof. Riekhof, who has specific strategic recommendations for companies.

Wirtschaftswoche on Germany’s Price Favorites 2024: Pricing Expert Riekhof Recommends More Price Flexibility

/in , /by

Which service providers from various areas of life offer the cheapest prices? For the second time, people were asked this by the analysis and consulting company ServiceValue and WirtschaftsWoche, a total of 213,000 people. The leaders in a ranking of “Germany’s Price Favorites 2024” according to the evaluation are the drugstore chain dm, closely followed by the discount chain Lidl.

In their current article “Germany’s Price Favorites 2024 “Cheap can anyone”: What really makes traders customer favorites” (06.02.2024), Wirtschaftswoche asks what makes these companies so popular in terms of pricing and what other companies can learn from them in this regard.

Pricing specialist Hans-Christian Riekhof advises companies to have more price flexibility

Interviewed by Wirtschaftswoche, Professor Hans-Christian Riekhof, expert for strategic pricing, points to the factor of price flexibility. Companies should learn to act much less generally when adjusting prices. Top performer dm provides a good example of differentiated pricing, explains the pricing specialist, who has developed and conducted numerous pricing studies.

The drugstore chain dm announced in 2019 that it would control its own prices for each store individually from now on, depending on its location and the competition on site. This means that if there is competition nearby, dm has the cheapest prices – in regions with less direct competition, the prices are then also gladly higher. The drugstore chain, according to Riekhof, takes advantage of the fact that consumers’ objective knowledge of prices is much lower than is usually assumed.

Although such pricing practiced by dm requires expensive resources such as personnel and IT, which smaller companies do not necessarily have at their disposal, it is also worthwhile for these companies to pursue more intensive pricing policy within their means, according to the pricing strategist in Wirtschaftswoche.

Read the full article of Wirtschaftswoche, in which he provides further detailed recommendations, under the following link:
https://www.wiwo.de/unternehmen/handel/deutschlands-preisfavoriten-2024-billig-kann-jeder-was-haendler-wirklich-zu-kundenlieblingen-macht/29627844.html

Learn more about the pricing studies:
https://www.unicconsult.com/publikationen/forschungsberichte/

 

Amazon has now excluded around 4,000 traders from its online platform because they have called for far too high and therefore unfair prices during the Corona crisis. However, specific exclusion criteria were not mentioned.

How Amazon is combating unfair prices during the Corona crisis

/in /by

“Readers of our Pricing Newsletter know what unfair prices are (see Newsletter No. 23 – Unfair Prices): they are at the expense of the customer relationship. This seems to be Amazon’s motivation at the moment. The online retail giant has excluded almost 4,000 traders from their platform because they are calling for disproportionately high and therefore unfair prices from Amazon’s point of view during the Corona crisis”, says Pricing Expert Prof. Hans-Christian Riekhof. “What Amazon unfortunately does not reveal are the specific criteria that lead to exclusion”, Riekhof criticizes.

On its own homepage, Amazon has announced that the group has blocked thousands of seller accounts for price gouging during the coronavirus pandemic. The operator of the largest US online marketplace said it had obtained well over half a million offers and blocked more than 3,900 sales accounts in the US for violating its fair pricing policy. A dedicated team was used to identify and investigate “unfairly priced” products that are in high demand, such as protective masks and hand sanitizers.

The online medium Bloomberg quotes an Amazon statement that was issued on Monday: “We also proactively exchange information with the attorneys general and federal authorities about sellers we suspect have committed an outrageous price robbery on products related to the COVID-19 crisis.”

Since the outbreak of the coronavirus has escalated, there has been a rush on hand sanitizers, toilet paper, paper towels, meat, and canned soups, among other things. Some people have tried to sell cleaning products and other accessories at inflated prices on Amazon, EBay Inc., and other websites.

The original message at Amazon / company news:
https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/price-gouging-has-no-place-in-our-stores?tag=amazon-sso-21?tag=amazon-sso-21?tag=amazon-sso-21

The message at Bloomberg:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-23/amazon-suspends-almost-4-000-seller-accounts-over-price-gouging

Photo: Amazon Homepage

Until now, dm relied on permanently low prices. Now the drugstore market leader is changing course and raising the prices of many of its products. The background is a change in pricing strategy. In an industry dominated by fierce price competition, the price swing is causing surprise, but also irritation.

dm surprises with changed pricing strategy

/in /by

The Lebensmittelzeitung reports (Paywall) that surveys have shown that the price of more than 1000 products has been increased in the past three weeks. This applies especially to the online shop, but adjustments have also been made in some stores. This includes popular products like Balea soap, Kneipp shower gel, and Ariel detergent. The extent of this surprises, writes the Wirtschaftswoche. Although prices at dm have never been static, there have usually only been occasional shifts.

Until now, dm relied on permanently low prices. Now the drugstore market leader is changing course and raising the prices of many of its products. The background is a change in pricing strategy. In an industry dominated by fierce price competition, the price swing is causing surprise, but also irritation.

Unlike competitor Rossmann, who drastically cuts prices on branded products and own brands every week to attract customers to the stores, the drugstore giant operated with “permanently low prices”. Also, to keep other aggressively acting competitors at a distance. Aldi, Lidl and Co. have been poaching in the territory of the drugstore markets for some time and offer well-known products like Nivea, Pril, Pantene and Pampers at discount prices. Online giants like Amazon and Zalando are turning the market upside down – the fiercely contested market is becoming more difficult.

dm goes on the offensive in a fiercely contested market

“With the new pricing policy, dm is moving away from its claim to price leadership”, explains an unnamed trade manager. The decision was made to realign the pricing strategy in-store and online, confirmed CEO Harsch to LZ. The new pricing strategy means different price levels depending on the location of the stores and the competitive situation on site. Depending on which dm store customers shop in or whether consumers order online, they will find different prices in the future. Stores that are close to discounters or other direct competitors are supposed to offer lower prices than stores that have little competition. The individual markets should decide independently about the pricing in the regional environment.

Uniform prices are not always the optimal strategy

For pricing expert Professor Hans-Christian Riekhof, this is not really a surprising step. “That uniform (and thus undifferentiated) prices are economically anything but optimal, readers of our Pricing Newsletter have known for a long time. Some may also remember their own business studies, where a long time ago there might have been talk of price differentiation.

If the drugstore chain dm now moves away from the strategy of uniform prices, then obviously the realization has prevailed that the willingness to pay of customers is obviously not always the same. “Regional differences in purchasing power, temporally different preferences or even superficial product modifications can be used to implement price differentiations”, says Riekhof. “But what should be kept in mind: the increasing complexity of pricing must be reflected in internal processes and systems. Complexity to the outside is ok, to the inside rather not.”

Photo: Kettler Communication

Further links:

Wirtschaftswoche:
https://www.wiwo.de/unternehmen/handel/neue-strategie-dm-verabschiedet-sich-vom-einheitspreis/24960714.html

Fokus
https://www.focus.de/finanzen/news/unternehmen/konkurrenz-koennte-nachziehen-drogeriekette-dm-aendert-preisstrategie-mehr-als-1000-produkte-werden-jetzt-teurer_id_11091617.html

Stern
https://www.stern.de/wirtschaft/news/dm-erhoeht-die-preise—das-steckt-hinter-der-neuen-strategie-8882910.html

Chip.de
https://www.chip.de/news/Viele-Produkte-ploetzlich-teurer-Drogerie-Riese-dm-aendert-die-Preisstrategie_172673785.html

Lebensmittel Zeitung (Paywall)
https://www.lebensmittelzeitung.net/handel/Kurswechsel-dm-aendert-Preisstrategie-142296?utm_source=%2Fmeta%2Fnewsletter%2Flzammorgen&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=nl4709-basic&utm_term=dc7d39d780fb1e3ac6d007ebfe83e0cc