How investing in smart pricing paid off
for a successful toner business

Case study summary

Client since
07/2019

Client's goal
Saving time, transparent pricing process

Provided services
Introduction of dynamic pricing processes, minimum margin compliance, monitoring and analysis of competition, revaluation of non-competitive goods

Results
50% FTE of senior staff members saved per month, transparent pricing, automatic pricing of their own products

TisknuLevne.cz hledalo cestu, jak snížit časovou náročnost cenotvorby. Nadměrně totiž zatěžovala nejen obchodní ředitelku, ale i ostatní členy obchodního týmu. Jejich vlastní systém byl navíc nepřehledný a docházelo k častým chybám, navíc si nebyli jisti stanovením ceny u vlastních produktů. Chtěli kompletní a chytré řešení cenotvorby, proto si vybrali Disivo. Už po prvním nastavení byly vidět výsledky v obratu, cenotvorba se výrazně zjednodušila a snížilo se časové zatížení obchodního týmu. TisknuLevne.cz se také podařilo vyjednat lepší nákupní podmínky s hlavním dodavatelem na základě dat, které jim Disivo poskytlo.

The project is led by
Martin Pěnička | founder and CEO

Online store with toners TisknuLevne.cz was founded 23 years ago by a happy accident.

From one term paper, which needed to be printed by its founder and current director Martin Pěnička, a company with 100 stores and more than 100 million annual turnover was eventually created.

The company's vision is for every one of their customers to be able to print as quickly and cost-effectively as possible.

So speed and price are the main values of the multiple finalist and winner of many e-commerce stores awards.

How TisknuLevne handled pricing before implementation of Disivo?

We mostly used the classic system: price from the distributor plus a percentage margin. It was a lot more complicated for our own products, which we manufacture, and we were never really sure if we got the price right.

Martin Pěnička adds:

"We had our own, quite complex internal system, which was programmed directly by our programmers. The problem was that its 'state' or 'setup' was always dependent on the particular programmer.

In addition, our old system was confusing and often times it happened that one pricing rule sometimes skipped another, more important rule, simply because it was not visible in our system. In addition, we thought it would be a good idea to add to the rules how much a competitor was currently offering the product for and if they even had it in stock"

Before the final decision was made on whether to choose Disivo, TisknuLevne.cz thought about other options.

There was a price comparator, a competition watchdog and even an automatic pricing tool from the agency that did their PPC.

Martin Penička explains why they didn't choose any of them in the end:

"What we saw were individual and single-purpose tools. We needed a more intelligent solution that integrated all the necessary functions. Plus, with our volume of data, I figured that even a higher investment could pay us back in a matter of months."

What were the first impressions of using Disivo?

A lot of Disivo's features were already included in the default settings and we saw the first benefits right after setting up the basic rules.

So they decided to go with Disivo and the ?implementation started.

It went relatively smoothly, and at that point the company needed to address the concerns of purchasers who were used to stable prices and were worried about the impact dynamic repricing would have on their customers.

"It was a really big project for us and a bit of a test to see how much room for margin growth we would find. I thought, the implementation is simple, so we'll just try it and see. We'll go back to the old system in a couple of months if necessary.

Even the first setup and rules were a pleasant surprise, they were trivial but made a big difference. Moreover, the fears of our purchasers were not confirmed, our customers did not feel any change and everything went smoothly," adds Mr. Pěnička.

One of the biggest pluses for the Sales Director, Mrs. Pavlína Vomáčková, was the initial onboarding process, when she regularly called our specialist and every week they discussed the possibilities and tuned the settings together.

"You should play around with the setup a bit and try different strategies. It's worth it because the time and work savings afterwards is huge. I can now focus on more important things that help the company grow," says the sales director. "Plus, you eliminate the pitfalls of not keeping a minimum margin and selling below the purchase price."

For Martin Pěnička, incorporating automatic competitor tracking was also a significant change.

What are the benefits of price monitoring?

Not only has the automation of re-pricing against competitors significantly reduced the overall time commitment for us, but more importantly, it has allowed us to figure out more often and more quickly where we can demand better purchasing terms from manufacturers. Based on the data Disivo provided us, we were able to better negotiate with suppliers, reduce purchase prices and improve our margins.

Do they consider this project a success and why?

"I calculated for myself at the beginning the increase in margin that we need to achieve, given the investment in the tool. We achieved that and even exceeded it," says Martin Pennička.

At the same time, he points out that focusing only on profit percentages and numbers in general would be short-sighted, as they are often based on the product range and the existing margin.

"It's not just about what you can count, Disivo has brought other benefits such as significant time savings, orderly pricing, correct pricing of our own products, clear and simple operation, systematic control of competition and a basis for negotiating with suppliers.

And it will help you especially when otherwise it would be unable to react to sudden situations without automatic pricing.

For example, our supply of the best-selling HP cartridges on the market went out of stock for two months - that was a big bummer. We had a large stock but If we had the old system and setup we would have sold out of stock in a day. We wouldn't have been able to react to it at all. With Disivo we were able to increase the price in accordingly.

So that's how we handled it and the price automatically increased as our stock dwindled. In the end, our customers were only out of stock for less than a week."

What advice would you give to companies facing a decision, whether to choose Disivo?

Don't be afraid and go for it. Automated pricing is a real benefit and there is no need to worry.
Pavlína Vomáčková, sales director

To have the courage to try it, from a certain volume of sales it pays off. I am personally proud that we were one of your first customers and that we were able to contribute to some of the feature changes.

Martin Pěnička, founder and CEO TisknuLevne.cz

A few numbers...

8 hours → 1 hour

We cut the sales directors revaluation work day from eight hours to one hour.

↑ 7 000 000

We have offered TisknuLevne.cz over 7 million price points so far.

1

Only one smart solution was needed to achieve the goals our customer gave us when implementing smart pricing.

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How investing in smart pricing paid off for a successful toner business