Welcome to another episode of our podcast, hosted by Emmanuel Scuto, the CEO and founder of WeYield, the leading revenue management company specializing in the car rental industry.
Today, we are talking with Alexandre Devanne, a pricing strategy consultant. He has worked in tourism as well as with major tire manufacturers, a sector characterized by intense price competition.

‍

Key Takeaways from This Episode:

• When the tactic is simply to increase prices, the risk is to clash with the customer's perceived value and not achieve overall results.
• In the automotive tire market, competition is intense. However, the premium perception by the customer allows for a strong price difference compared to the competition.
• To succeed, it is essential to focus on value attributes: what differentiates from the competition but is valued by the consumer and can be converted into price.
• Testing price perception allows measuring customer price elasticity: a price change costs nothing, is easy, and very quick to implement.
• Price increases do not necessarily lead to a drop in volume when the product and brand are supported by marketing and communication associated with value attributes. Mapping these attributes takes only a few weeks and can be done internally.
• Promotion is not pricing but a commercial mechanism for temporarily stimulating demand, dressed by marketing. A pricing tool is an option to simulate price elasticity. To be effective, it must be controlled by a pricer. There is always someone who will make a pricing decision, but unfortunately, it is rarely a dedicated function.
• Price verticality allows managing fine differentiation. Decathlon's pricing is a reference in this field. Segmenting the offer allows providing more services associated with the price. The possible gain is between +3% and +8% margin.
• The skills to be a good revenue manager: love data, manipulate it, format it while knowing how to take a step back to keep in mind how the decision will be interpreted by the customer in the target market.
  
  ‍

Discussion Points:

• Perceived value: It is the key to measuring the price impact.
• Have you considered value attributes?
• Promotion is not pricing!

📌 Here's a glimpse into the enriching discussion:

• 00:00:00 Introduction of Alexandre
• 00:17:50 Staying customer-centric and the value attributes
• 00:30:10 Testing perception by playing with prices
• 00:40:10 How to conduct value attribute tests
• 00:52:40 Caution about the impact of permanent promotion
• 00:58:04 The purpose of a pricing tool
• 01:08:00 Why is the pricing function so underdeveloped?
• 01:14:00 The example of pricing at Decathlon
• 01:27:50 How to become a good pricer01:39:01 Alexandre's pricing challenge