B2C Pricing

Rich data and innovative pricing models are creating great opportunities for B2C companies. But mastering pricing means orchestrating an array of capabilities and functions. BCG develops the enablers and ways of working that unleash the power of B2C pricing.

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B2C pricing isn’t a moving target—it’s many moving targets. A company needs to match the right customer with the right price while behaviors, demand, and preferences evolve. And it needs to consider how pricing contributes to, or even defines, its brand’s image. It also needs to work across silos, leverage rich sets of data, and deliver quick wins and long-term impact.

Getting all of this right requires many capabilities—often new ones. It calls for speed, precision, and a careful choreography between technical enablers, such as advanced analytics, and human expertise. By providing a unique blend of business strategy, analytics, tools, and enablement, we build a foundation for mastering B2C pricing. Our B2C pricing consultants help each company work across the organization as a team to develop innovative pricing models, seize new opportunities, and unlock the pull potential—and value—of its B2C pricing strategy.

How We Work with B2C Pricing Clients

We view B2C pricing not as a project but as a journey. Yet paths will vary, depending upon the specific goals and circumstances of any given business. That’s why we take the following industry-focused approach to designing and executing a consumer pricing strategy.
Consumer Packaged Goods

Consumer behavior and willingness to pay are shifting more frequently, and often more dramatically, than ever before. Meanwhile, increasing competition—from e-commerce, hard discounters, and small, growing brands—and pressure from retailers are squeezing margins for CPG companies. We deliver bottom-line impact, quickly, through net revenue management (NRM): actions applied along key pricing levers, such as promotion management, pack price architecture, channel mix, brand portfolio pricing, and trade terms optimization. We leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and data science to create sophisticated pricing models and solutions, including a promotional-effectiveness tool that forecasts the impact of prospective promotions. And we develop the processes, governance, technology, and organization that make NRM stick, becoming integrated in, and integral to, day-to-day operations.

Retail

Few industries have as much transaction data as retail, and we show retailers how to unleash its full power. That means identifying and prioritizing use cases that deliver a high impact quickly and ensuring that the right data is available to fuel them. We take a holistic approach, focusing on the five key pricing levers that can drive—and sustain—growth in retail: shelf price, promotions, personalized offers, in-season pricing, and markdowns (which, for nonfood retail, generate immediate cash by calibrating where, and when, to adjust margins to move excess inventory). By leveraging AI, advanced analytics, and proprietary tools, such as our promo effectiveness tool, we help companies model different scenarios, predict customer response, and automatically adjust pricing. Crucially, we also help clients develop the agile processes, test-and-learn culture, and change management that put retail pricing strategies into action fast—so they can create value and competitive advantage right away.

Travel, Tourism, and Airlines

As travel operators across sectors—including airlines, hotels, cruise lines, passenger railways, and tour operators—prepare for a rebound following the COVID-19 crisis, they must manage unprecedented volatility in demand. Our revenue management programs and advanced demand-forecasting capabilities enable companies to quickly identify shifts and deliver more value—to their customers and themselves—via personalized offers, bundling, competitive pricing, and other key pricing levers. Through our Center for Revenue Management in Travel, our experts help clients leverage new data sources, advances in machine learning, and an array of BCG tools to optimize pricing and promotions, more profitably manage inventory, and identify new opportunities to increase revenue. We also help them combine agile processes and business judgment to react quickly to new shifts and insights. So even in uncertain times, pricing in travel, tourism, and airlines can spark growth—and resilience.

Technology, Media, and Telecom

Accelerated trends in the TMT industries—such as remote work and the rise of digital channels—have created new spikes, drops, and uncertainties in demand. At the same time, subscription pricing is gaining traction in a broad array of businesses, including video streaming and cloud-based infrastructure. We help companies reimagine pricing in technology, media, and telecom and build a foundation for profitable growth. We transform pricing models as well as skills, processes, and KPIs, so clients can detect changes in demand, adjust pricing and promotions accordingly, and determine what works—quickly and in a more granular way, matching the right price with the right product by geography, segment, or even individual customer.

Automotive

In Europe and the US, new-vehicle sales are not expected to rebound to prepandemic levels until 2023. This has put pressure on automotive pricing strategies—and increased the temptation to cut prices. Yet while discounts can boost sales volume, they also destroy margins. We help car companies develop a dynamic, margin-preserving pricing strategy: one that lets them control discounts while rapidly identifying—and adapting to—changes in consumer demand and behavior. It’s a data-driven approach that stresses personalization, matching the right incentive with the right customer. And it’s agile and responsive, enabling automakers to apply the levers that resonate in today’s market, such as innovative financing solutions and online direct-to-consumer pricing. It makes profitable growth a priority—and a reality—even in times of crisis.

Our B2C Pricing Capabilities and Tools

We combine a deep knowledge of industry-specific pricing with technical expertise in analytics, AI, and digital and data platforms. Our B2C pricing consultants also draw upon BCG’s unique tools, resources, and methodologies to help companies create a foundation for long-term, sustainable impact.
Book

Game Changer: How Strategic Pricing Shapes Businesses, Markets, and Society

It’s time to look at pricing decisions in a new light. Game Changer: How Strategic Pricing Shapes Businesses, Markets, and Society not only exposes the flaws in current pricing models, it also explains how the right pricing strategy can change the trajectory of your business, your industry, and in many cases, society as well. A Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling book.

Explore Our Insights on B2C Pricing

Meet Our B2C Pricing Consulting Experts

Managing Director & Senior Partner

Alberto Guerrini

Managing Director & Senior Partner
Milan

Managing Director & Senior Partner

Nick Goad

Managing Director & Senior Partner
Washington, DC

Managing Director & Partner

Jean-Sébastien Verwaerde

Managing Director & Partner
Paris

Campus Manager

Sophie Gebel

Managing Director & Partner
Paris

Managing Director & Senior Partner

Javier Anta Callersten

Managing Director & Senior Partner
London

Managing Director & Senior Partner

Arnab Sinha

Managing Director & Senior Partner
Philadelphia

Senior Advisor

Jeff Robinson

Senior Advisor
Atlanta

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