Waitrose has signed up to use Profitero as data provider for its Brand Price Match initiative in a multi-year agreement.
The supermarket’s Brand Price Match scheme pledges to match the price of branded groceries on the shelves of Tesco as it seeks to offer better value to its customers. Online competitor price monitoring like this is now widespread as supermarkets try to grow sales and maintain profit margins.
As well as providing retailers with the matching service for branded products, Profitero’s service also matches and normalises weight and volume for private-label competitor matches at scale, so that clients can benchmark own-label products against any competitor. It claims it is the only service to offer automated private-label matching of this sort for the FMCG market in the UK.
Jeremy Pattison, who is in charge of pricing and promotions at Waitrose, said: “Brand Price Match and sharper own-label prices continue to change customers’ views on Waitrose’s price position and attract more people to shop with us each week. Profitero provides us with the data we require to support our pricing strategy.”
Volodymyr Pigrukh, chief executive and co-founder of Profitero, said: “We are delighted to welcome Waitrose on board as a Profitero customer and are confident that our advanced pricing technology will enable Waitrose to remain competitive on price. In selecting Profitero, Waitrose has recognised that our technology is the most scalable solution on the market.”
Profitero was established in 2010 and today monitors over 50 million products across 4,000 websites daily. Alongside Waitrose, clients include Ocado, Tesco, Sonae Group and Walmart-owned Sam’s Club.
Waitrose now has 291 shops in the UK and Channel Islands and has been achieving sales growth ahead of the market in its branches and its online grocery service. It reckons this has been driven in part by the success of the essential Waitrose range and by Brand Price Match. In March it reported annual operating profits up 12.2% on the prior year.
