OVERVIEW
These days, many retailers’ brand presence involves numerous channels, spanning both physical stores as well as e-commerce. This can add complexity to the management of the brand, and create considerable difficulties, particularly when it comes to maintaining consistent pricing across all of these sellers.
Spring Footwear, a premium shoe company offering seven different footwear collections, has been in business for 25 years. In that time, the company has expanded its omnichannel presence to include relationships with specialty footwear sellers, big box department stores, chain stores and small boutiques, in addition to some of the most popular e-commerce networks.
With PriceSpider’s Price Monitoring Service, Spring Footwear is in the best position to protect the integrity of its brand while supporting its seller partners – both online and within brick-and-mortar store locations.
THE CHALLENGE
Enforcing violations proves difficult without robust monitoring
Because Spring Footwear works with so many different physical and online retailers, effectively monitoring and enforcing the company’s minimum advertised price (MAP) policy was difficult, to say the least. Steven Greenstein, Spring Footwear Vice President of Sales, explained that while the MAP policy – which included the repercussions of violation – was sent out to every retailer the brand worked with, it was a challenging process to reach out with warnings and violation notices.
As a result, Spring Footwear sought out a solution that would provide an organized, accessible look into MAP violations within a single portal. This would enable the brand to keep better track of the retailers it works with as well as any prices that fall below MAP policy standards.
Before deploying PriceSpider’s Price Monitoring Service, Spring Footwear leveraged a different solution. However, Greenstein noted that this technology fell short of meeting the company’s needs. The software the company was using only offered a twice-a-week sampling of prices, which made it possible for certain violations to fall through the cracks.
“Without eyes on it, you would definitely miss changes in price.”
–Steven Greenstein, Spring Footwear Vice President of Sales
Underselling the competition: Maintaining partnerships with retailers
Spring Footwear also ran into issues when it came to properly supporting its brick-and-mortar store sellers. Without consistent prices across every channel, customers would “showroom,” or visit a physical store to view footwear products in person before searching for the same offerings online.
When an e-commerce retailer undersells the brick-and-mortar store – especially at prices 40-60 percent less than those seen in stores – it becomes incredibly difficult for physical sellers to keep up in the marketplace.
“I would get calls all the time from retailers saying that they can’t be competitive with the online environment,” Greenstein said. “You want to make sure that prices are upheld in the marketplace so people see you as a premium brand and not a promotional brand. We needed a single, accessible portal so we could stay on top of price violations and let people know that we’re serious about maintaining our integrity online.”
And these were just the capabilities Spring Footwear found with PriceSpider.
THE SOLUTION
Constant monitoring reduces MAP violations and strengthens omnichannel relationships
PriceSpider’s solution continually monitors the top channels used by Spring Footwear, ensuring that they have the most complete picture of the brand’s omnichannel presence and pricing. With PriceSpider’s Price Monitoring Solution, Spring Footwear is able to:
1. Monitor pricing across online sellers and marketplaces.
2. Discover who violated the MAP policy first and who followed suit during a specific time frame.
3. Identify and contact sellers directly through the portal with the option of attaching a screen shot of the violation to the email.
4. Reduce the amount of time it takes to monitor and enforce the company’s MAP policy.
“I like that PriceSpider is monitoring 24 hours a day, so we don’t miss a violation.”
–Steven Greenstein, Spring Footwear Vice President of Sales
THE RESULTS
Within three months Spring Footwear dropped 89% of violations
While Spring Footwear has only had PriceSpider’s Price Monitoring Service in place for a short time, there have already been significant improvements and benefits.
“Before using PriceSpider’s solution we had over 900 violations, now we’re under 100” Greenstein said. “[Retailers] know that we’re watching and they know the information we’re delivering back to them is accurate. Once they feel like they can’t sneak by and get away with things, they start to take it more seriously.”
PriceSpider enables Greenstein and Spring Footwear to protect the company’s brand integrity across all of its channels, preventing e-commerce outlets from underselling their brick-and-mortar retail partners. Furthermore, PriceSpider provides an easily accessible dashboard to manage violation notices when they do occur.
“While Spring Footwear has only had PriceSpider’s Price Monitoring Service in place for a short time, there have already been significant improvements and benefits. “Before using PriceSpider’s solution we had over 900 violations, now we’re under 100” Greenstein said. “[Retailers] know that we’re watching and they know the information we’re delivering back to them is accurate. Once they feel like they can’t sneak by and get away with things, they start to take it more seriously.” PriceSpider enables Greenstein and Spring Footwear to protect the company’s brand integrity across all of its channels, preventing e-commerce outlets from underselling their brick-and-mortar retail partners. Furthermore, PriceSpider provides an easily accessible dashboard to manage violation notices when they do occur.”
–Steven Greenstein, Spring Footwear Vice President of Sales
