Source: masable.com, October 29th, 2009
German company Apnoti indexes real-time pricing for consumers in the U.S and Germany. The primary benefit of their service is to help consumers find dramatic price fluctuations and to take advantage of pricing errors on various ecommerce sites. But this is really quite elementary compared to what is possible. For true real-time pricing to occur, there needs to be real-time inventory management, which will depend on major infrastructure companies such as EDS or IBM to build out those systems. As retailers move closer to real-time inventory management, they’ll improve on their pricing and sales efforts since they will be able to create more efficient price equilibrium adjustments.
For consumer facing applications, real-time pricing can be a competitive advantage for perishable goods. For example, the grocer with fresher fruit can theoretically charge or sell more by providing real-time freshness data. With the growth of smart energy grids, real-time pricing of solar energy and electric power provides tremendous cost-savings for consumers. Generally within ecommerce, real-time inventory information that is accessible through the web is valuable for both the consumer and company. What are the other areas of high impact? Travel? Off-season luxury goods? Event tickets? Let us know in the comments below.
