Pricing Lessons From ASOS
ASOS can truly be referred to as a corporate phenomenon. They have been responsible for something of an e-commerce revolution and despite the serious and business damaging fire in the last 12 month ASOS are reporting stronger growth figures than ever before.
The growth and growth of ASOS: Where we are today!
This is a company that sees consistent growth. And following market beating performance over the past few years it seems that this is a company that isn’t quite finished with leaping over its competitors.
In fact, most recently ASOS has reported a 20% jump in sales and in this blog we take a look at the reason behind this, or at least the reason that the ASOS Boss ascribes to, with this being their price point.
Zonal Pricing: An ASOS flagship policy
Beyond mere pricing Nick Robertson (CEO of ASOS) specifically argues that it is ‘Zonal pricing’ that has been the key to ASOS’ success. This approach to pricing is far from new and it involves the setting of price based upon local market conditions. Such a structure is relatively novel within the online world, although it must be said that for a website targeting the majority of the western markets that it may well be an overly astute pricing approach.
Specifically ASOS breaks their trading markets into zones (with these being US, France, Germany, Italy and Spain); which are then subject to intense analysis which considers key economic indicators of that region’s financial health. This may include GDP, employment rates and debt per head.
Other key features of the ASOS marketing mix include: an advanced user experience when browsing the website, a collection of clothing and shops that take constant account of social media activity and an ever evolving supply chain.
The details behind ASOS Zonal pricing – Pricing Lessons from ASOS
Undoubtedly ASOS have an incredibly tough and ongoing job in having decided to adapt to varying markets through different pricing levels, so it seems relevant to wonder just how they manage such a complex task.
Whilst Mr Robertson may be understandably vague about the specifics of his successful pricing strategy, we can easily assume that the ASOS pricing and marketing team are helped along with a robust set of tools.
Our tools at Insitetrack are an example of the power of such a tool. We can take an educated guess that the following features of this tool are similar in nature to the tools and features that ASOS use in their ever successful pricing strategy.
– Intelligent reports that track key factors of each market.
– Robust analysis of the pricing of the market in a more general sense.
– Automation of the processes that would otherwise be undertaken manually in establishing prices across their thousands of ranges and millions of items.
– Automatic tracking of competitor strategy which would include thousands of prices captured within minutes. These may be monitored by the hour or day with key changes highlighted between these times and as they relate to ASOS pricing.
For many the secret key behind achieving success akin to ASOS is the vital market insider knowledge that Insitetrack provides.
