All right. Well, hello and thank you all so
much for tuning in to another episode of the Professional
Pricing Society podcast. My name is Terrence and we have
a great conversation ahead of us today.
Today we're going to be talking about the expert guide to retail
pricing and that is going to be spearheaded by our good friend
Kieran Gangay. Kieran is the CEO and founder of
an A I based company called Rapid Pricer and he has done a
lot of work around the globe with successful ventures in the
Silicon Valley area, Mexico City, Bangalore, Amsterdam and
New Delhi, India. Kieran, how are we doing today?
Doing great. How are you, James?
Doing well, doing well. Good to speak with you once
again. Good friend of PPS.
I was able to see you at our at our latest conference which was
back in Dallas and it seems like you had a good time while you
were there. Absolutely, absolutely.
It was a pleasure being with everybody and the session was
quite nice also as well. Good, good, good.
Now we have you on today to discuss something that's very
exciting, which is you have a new book out, correct.
And if you wouldn't mind, let us know what the name of your book
is and you know, I'll kind of, I'll kind of go into some
questions about what we can expect from the content content
of it. Absolutely, yes.
The name of the book is the Expert Guide to Retail Pricing.
It's about an analytics based approach to maximizing margins
for retailer. Nice okay.
Now how did you come about writing this book?
I know you said it was a long time in the making.
A lot of, a lot of your expertise and insights went into
this book. So how did you kind of come
about writing it? So I've been in pricing for
retail now for about 18 years, right?
So after the first few years, what I started noticing is we
were going through the same steps.
We would go to retail organizations as a consultant.
I first used to work with other consulting companies and then I
started my own company to do the same.
But time and again, Terrence, in different countries, in
different parts of the world, it's the same challenge we would
go through. Selection of data understanding
strategy. Let's fix the strategy, let's
fix the prices, and then let's leave behind the process to do
okay. And then I get bored quite
easily, right? I want new, I want new
challenges. So as much as we could, we tried
to make this into a more automated process, build
algorithms to do all of the work, so on and so forth.
And then finally, I was like, okay.
I need to, I need to do something different and I
started doing fresh produce pricing.
With all of this knowledge I had gathered with this, pricing was
still in my head and I could see that there was still a lot of
interest from retailers, from young professionals, from
startups, from consulting companies on how exactly pricing
is done. So that's when I thought about
Okay. I I do enjoy teaching.
I teach part time in many universities.
Last year I coached 103 Startups on how to expand
internationally. I love this purpose of
transferring information basically, right?
So this was in the middle of the lockdown where I was getting
bored. I I wrote a few books, This was
one of them. And then I'm really happy I
could get route list to publish it for me.
And it kind of feels good like you know, you all these years
you spent in learning and perfecting something and now
you're able to leave it behind. And it's not just me, right.
It's my colleagues, all the partners I've worked with, all
of the employees work with, we've all contributed to it.
So that was the goal is to is to kind of you know leave something
behind for the new generation of entrepreneurs, startups,
retailers to use. What we have discovered, that's
awesome, That's amazing. You mentioned that you've worked
with, you know in the past 18 years of your career, you've
worked in different countries, worked with different countries
regarding pricing. And then of course you've you've
recently coached 103 Startups, which is phenomenal in itself.
Now, when you think about those who may have interests in this
book, who is this book more suitable for or most suitable
for, if I can say it that way? And what can they expect to
learn from this piece of writing?
Yes. So this book is primarily
written for pricing professionals, more so in the
retail space. There are lots of elements of it
which is also relevant to other B to B pricing, say for example.
But it's mainly for retail and ideally it would be somebody who
has some kind of an analytical mathematical exposure or pricing
strategy exposure maybe like a pricing analyst, a category
manager or a director, VP of merchandising within these
functions in a retail establishment, right, Could be
anywhere in the world some portions of it will be more
relevant to. Let's say for example, if you
take the United States, Latin America, this book will be very
relevant in some portions of Europe.
If you see a more mature operations of a retailer, they
probably might have addressed some portions of it already.
And if you go Asia and Africa, these things which are covered
in the book have not happened yet in those countries yet.
So this might be a learning for them on what might happen in the
future. And to answer your questions,
pricing professionals from around the world, especially in
the world of retailers who this is for.
OK, good, good for retail pricer is interesting no matter what
the country. Now, can the concepts from this
book be used for B to B pricing as well?
Yeah, absolutely. So, So kind of like if you see a
book on how to. To ride a car, you will be able
to use it to ride, let's say a tractor.
Yeah, it's a lot of aspect. It's similar, but it's not
exactly the same. Okay.
So say, for example, the science behind pricing, how do you put
up a strategic framework? How do you measure the results?
How do you react against competition?
They're all the same, but there would be some modifications
you'd have to do to leverage it in A B to B environment.
Gotcha okay. Interesting now because this is
your handwritten piece and your essentially your baby cuz you
created this back during the lockdown when COVID first
started around the world. What would you say are your some
of your favorite chapters of this book?
Yeah. So I like the base pricing
chapter, right. So basically.
This is like the crux of the book.
If you, if you wish Terrence so all of the concepts you would
have gathered, all of the strategy you put together in
place, it's like it's like you know, chopping up vegetables,
dicing it up and preparing your preparing your kitchen.
But this is when you actually take your first bite and see
what it is looking like, right? So.
So I like that after it brings a lot of impact to retailers if
you can use the concepts in it. I also like Funnily, the
smallest chapter I have is the conclusion.
I like it because it talks about what could be possible in the
future, and I like. I like thinking about that too.
Good. OK, good.
Now, are there more venues to learn about pricing through the
science that you personally would recommend?
Maybe within this book? Or maybe not?
See one of the reasons why I wrote this book right when I was
learning pricing, I asked so many people, do you have any
books you could recommend that I could learn from?
Almost all of them are like wish there was one, right?
There is really not many books written about using science and
mathematics for would yourself approach for pricing right?
We have books about strategy. We have books about pure
science. But how do you use these maths
and analytics to do pricing on an everyday basis?
I didn't see any book material, but there are lots of very
useful blogs, articles written about it from pricing companies
which specialize in this space. I do really like all of the
content the Professional Pricing society puts out, attending a
workshop, meeting, meeting some of the peoples who have done
this pricing and in many cases. Actually implementing some of
these solutions, whether you do it through a complicated
software or an Excel, is the best ways to learn, right?
Is actually to jump into the swimming pool, basically.
Sure, jump into swimming pool, Swimming pool head first, if you
will. Absolutely, yes.
Well, with this book, maybe you can go feed first.
Yeah, OK, test the waters. OK, For those who are
interested, where can they look to purchase this book or just to
read more about it? So if you go to Amazon and
search this book up, there is a big sizable chapter which is
kind of like an excerpt. You can read about this book
already without having to buy. Then you can purchase this book
on any country's Amazon website. It should be in Barnes and
Noble. It's definitely also on The
Route Ledge, which is the publication Taylor and Francis
website, which you could use also as well.
Good, good. Now, before I let you go for for
today, where can people learn more about you or your story?
What the resources are that you have to offer?
Where can they learn more about you?
So I do a couple of things actually three or four things is
what I do right now. Number one is rapid pricer,
right? So we reduce prices of fresh
produce before they go bad using a eye.
We take a look at what is the color of a banana, say for
example, and those from green to yellow, we change the price from
$1.00 to $0.75 or whatever it is, right?
So that's what I do. Www.rapidpricer.com That's my
company. You could also visit.
Kirangangay.com I have more information about what else im
up to. I have another startup in India
through which we help companies grow internationally and I also
like I was saying I teach and coach startups to the Dutch base
camp. What I do turn so any of these
places or or open me up.