The pandemic dealt a huge blow to the Philippines’ retail industry in 2020. All forms of physical retail from supermarkets to convenience stores, hypermarkets, department stores and more faced challenges due to lockdowns and physical distancing measures.
Many customers also reduced their time in stores or stopped visiting temporarily out of a fear of contamination. Yet, Prince Retail Group of Companies, one of the Philippines’ fastest-growing retail groups, confidently invested in retail software solutions amid this challenging business climate.
Donald Felbaum, Country Sales Manager of Aptos Philippines, spoke to Prince Retail’s Chief Merchandising, Marketing and Distribution Officer, Rina Janine Go, about the company’s investment in Revionics’ pricing innovation solution and why Prince Retail’s top management made this decision amid the pandemic.
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Donald Felbaum: Can you introduce Prince Retail Group of Companies briefly?
Rina Janine Go: Prince Retail is a chain of hypermarkets carrying a wide variety of grocery, fresh and frozen, general merchandise and department store goods. Founded in 1990 and now operating under the Prince Hypermart banner, our core mission is to serve underserved Filipino shoppers, particularly those in far-flung rural and island regions around the Philippines. Better known as the “king” of the base of the pyramid, Prince is one of the fastest growing retailers among the Top 10 supermarkets in the country. We are strongly committed to offering our Filipino consumers with affordable prices with quality merchandise and outstanding services in all our retail outlets.
Donald Felbaum: Prince Retail recently made a bold investment in pricing innovation technology from Revionics, an Aptos company. Could you share with us the motivation behind this investment amid pandemic-generated headwinds?
Rina Janine Go: In line with our mission and focus, we expanded our reach throughout the far-flung regions around the Philippines in recent years, opening a significant number of new stores. As we have continued to grow rapidly year on year, we need to make sure we can scale this growth and continue to offer shoppers the best prices in each store we operate. Investing in advanced retail software solutions – in our case, technology from Revionics – to bring greater levels of data, science, and automation to our pricing function, is something deeply embedded in our mission and focus.
The way we see it, the COVID-19 pandemic brought to the forefront many challenges for Filipino people and businesses. For Prince Retail, our response is to lead through this crisis with resilience and innovation. Our investment in Revionics Base Price Optimization solution reflects this spirit of innovation.
Donald Felbaum: How do you anticipate your technology investment to make a difference to your customers?
Rina Janine Go: In an ever-changing world, our commitment to serving shoppers in rural and island regions with the most competitive prices for quality merchandise is crucial. This is in line with what our customers tell us: affordable pricing for quality goods remains a key priority for them when they shop.
By focusing on pricing innovation and rolling out Revionics’ Base Price Optimization solution, we can leverage a data-driven approach to pricing based on advanced AI algorithms that will allow us to optimize prices across every product and in every store. This is even as consumer behaviors, competitive positions and local conditions continue to shift. In terms of outcomes, what that means to our customers is that they will be able to enjoy the most competitive pricing on the items that mean the most to them. In addition, by optimizing prices across every product and every store even with the fast-changing business conditions, we can unlock pricing that achieves stronger financial results for Prince. By leveraging data science and algorithms, we are able to achieve a win-win solution for both Prince Retail and our customers.
Donald Felbaum: Digital transformation is more important today than ever, but these initiatives can be complex. What do you look for in partners to support you on this journey?
Rina Janine Go: To grow while focusing on the customer amid changing pandemic-driven headwinds and tailwinds, digital transformation is a clear imperative. For us, it is crucial that we work with a partner who understands our mission and focus and is ready to get as committed as we are, to the segments we serve, in our retail transformation journey.
Following its acquisition by Aptos in 2020, we noticed Revionics has continued to expand its customer base in the Southeast Asian market. That is key as it showed us Revionics’ commitment to building their local presence throughout the region.
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For Prince Retail to succeed in pricing innovation, we also wanted to work with partners with deep expertise in the retail industry. Revionics filled that spot easily. Trusted by retailers around the world, Revionics is a recognized leader in the retail price optimization space. Its cloud-based solutions are used by top retailers across the grocery, discount, drug, convenience, sporting goods, general merchandise, hardware, and specialty retail sectors.
We are proud to partner with Revionics, and harness their pricing, customer experience and merchandising solutions that are a direct match to our needs.
For more information on Revionics, an Aptos company, visit https://revionics.com/.
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