Client Type
Independent Retailer
Engagement Length
6 Weeks
Service
Pricing & Margin Optimisation
Result
4.7× More Profit
The Problem
This retailer was selling well, but margins kept shrinking. Their instinct was to raise prices across the board to compensate — a 5% increase on everything, applied evenly.
The real issue wasn’t visible yet: pricing had never been structured by category. Some products were underpriced relative to demand, others were overpriced and losing sales, and heavy discounting habits were quietly eroding profit on the products that should have been most profitable.
The Approach
Rather than raising every price by the same amount, we ran a full range margin audit — reviewing cost price, landed cost, and true margin by category, not just by product.
From there, we built a category-based pricing architecture: higher-demand categories absorbed a larger increase, price-sensitive categories stayed flat or moved slightly, and a clear markdown and clearance framework replaced the ad-hoc discounting that had been quietly cutting into profit.
The Result
The category-based approach delivered 4.7 times more profit than the blanket 5% increase would have — without the customer pushback that an across-the-board price rise typically creates, since increases were concentrated where demand could support them.
