As the wholesale distribution industry experiences widespread industry consolidation, vendor reduction programs and growth in online commerce, industry participants are finding it increasingly difficult to compete for available volume and margin. While costs have been vigorously managed by most firms and sales volume gains continue to be pursued aggressively, the hunt for margin improvement eludes […]

For wholesale distributors and many manufacturers, price setting can be a daily occurrence. A multitude of products combined with a large number of customers makes for a complicated pricing environment. You add to that complexity when you give your sales team the authority to adjust prices on the fly. Pricing becomes a highly dynamic activity, […]

High-volume, high-visibility customers know they have negotiation power. That shouldn’t stop you from initiating price increases with them when they are warranted. Suppliers tend to back down under the pressure of negotiating with their biggest customers, and who can blame them? Rocking the boat on price issues sometimes puts your company at risk of losing […]

Nothing has more impact on profit margins than pricing actions. Yet, most companies don’t measure price performance and how it impacts margins. Price performance is the difference in prices across items sold multiplied by the number of units sold in a given time period. So, an item that increased in price by $1.00 and had […]

In nearly every business there are performance goals of many varieties. Consider sales goals, cost reductions goals, margin goals, production goals, quality improvement goals and the list goes on. Rarely do we see a company with pricing goals. That is, using pricing as a strategic initiative to improve revenues and profit margins. For many manufacturing […]