Pricing strategies that survive a growing catalog

Every store starts with prices chosen one at a time. That works until the catalog outgrows the memory of whoever chose them, at which point the only strategies that survive are the ones that can be written down as rules.

Cost-plus, done properly

The simplest rule: price equals cost plus a margin, rounded. Its weakness is obvious — it ignores what customers will pay — and its strength is that it is auditable and re-runnable when costs move.

Applied per category rather than store-wide, it stops being blunt: accessories can carry a wider markup than the products they accessorise.

Price bands

Uniform percentage changes fall apart across mixed catalogs. A 20% cut is a rounding error on a 4 item and a serious concession on a 400 one. Running separate tasks per price band keeps the rule proportionate.

Endings and rounding

Whether .99 outperforms .00 depends on your market and your positioning — but consistency is not optional either way. A catalog with three different ending conventions reads as careless, and that perception is expensive.

Markdown ladders

Clearance works best as a sequence decided in advance: −20% now, another cut in three weeks, a final stage after that, then archive what is left. Because percentage cuts compound, calculate the final stage from cost if you have a margin floor.

Reference prices

Compare-at price is a promise about what the product used to cost. Snapshot the real price before discounting rather than inventing a higher one — it is honest, it is defensible in the markets that regulate reference pricing, and it makes restoring prices trivial.

The test of a strategy

Can you state it in one sentence, apply it to the catalog in one task, and re-apply it when costs change? If not, it will drift back into per-product guesswork within a year.

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