Prices reset in six categories, and shoppers kept coming.
Corvid Retail runs 300 home and lifestyle stores across Germany and Austria, selling 18,000 products in six categories. Its commercial team asked us to win back margin without losing shoppers.
+2.4 pt
Gross margin
The situation
The board asked: Is pricing leaving money on the table?
For three years, Corvid had raised every price by the same percentage to keep up with costs. Gross margin still slipped from 41.0% to 38.6%, and promotions ran in 46 weeks of the year.
Nobody knew which prices shoppers actually watched, so every change felt like a bet. The safe move was always another discount.
What we found
Shoppers compared only 400 of the 18,000 prices. Almost all of the lost margin sat in the other 17,600.
The 400 watched items needed to stay sharp. The rest had been priced on habit, and the promotions were mostly moving sales from one week to the next.
What we did
Weeks 1 to 3
We found the prices that matter
Two years of till data and loyalty-card baskets showed which items shoppers compare between stores and which they barely notice.
Weeks 4 to 6
We tested before changing anything
New prices ran in twenty stores for four weeks. We measured sales, basket size and visits every week against twenty matched stores that stayed the same.
Weeks 7 to 10
We rolled out and cut the noise
The tested prices went to all 300 stores, the 400 watched items stayed sharp, and promotions that only moved volume between weeks were stopped.
What changed
+2.4 pt
Gross margin
Gross margin rose from 38.6% to 41.0% within a year, back to where it was before the slide.
6
Categories reset
Each category got prices set on what shoppers value, not on last year plus inflation.
-35%
Promotion weeks
Promotions now run in 30 weeks of the year instead of 46, with no drop in visits.
0%
Drop in footfall
Shoppers kept coming, because the prices they watch did not move.
Who made it work
“We finally priced on what our customers value, and they barely noticed the change. The margin came back within a year.”
Client
Sofia Brandt
Commercial Director, Corvid Retail
Led this work
Elena Marsh
Managing partner
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