Gazaro taps into consumer market with price intelligence service

Gazaro CEO Alexander Rink. (Photo by Joël Côté-Cright)

Published on October 25, 2011

Greg Markey

Gazaro provides price intelligence for retailers, resellers and manufacturers. The fee-based service lets retailers track the products it carries and see the online prices listed by other retailers.

In the case of manufacturers, market intelligence allows them to see how other manufacturers are selling similar products, as well as to ensure their products are not sold for less than the minimum advertised price.

Gazaro CEO Alexander Rink said a product's price is the single most important factor in a retail decision, especially at a time when consumers can use mobile apps to scan a product's barcode and find the retailer with the best price.

"It's now more important to have the right price all the time ... (customers) will leave and never come back" if the price isn't right, said Mr. Rink. "There is a need (for retailers) to have complete visibility into market pricing on their products so they can better compete for the customer."

Clients use Gazaro's web portal to request pricing information or to have data fed directly into a retailer's pricing system. The service also provides pricing suggestions for the retailer's own product.

To date, most of the company's clients have been retailers. Gazaro's intelligence-gathering focuses on sectors where products are comparable from store to store, specifically consumer electronics, appliances, video games, sporting goods and office supplies.

The company was started in 2008 after Apption Corp., which develops artificial intelligence for governments and enterprise users, invested "millions of dollars" to create the company.

Mr. Rink said the company markets its speed and accuracy to differentiate Gazaro from its competitors, which he estimates to be only five firms in this emerging industry.

Calling Gazaro a retailer's "secret weapon" in its competition with others, Mr. Rink declined to identify its customers. Doing so would undercut the competitive advantage Gazaro gives its clients, he said.

One local retail analyst said such pricing technology has the potential to give large chains, which can afford the service, an advantage over their less well-funded independent competitors.

Barry Nabatian, director of Shore Tanner & Associates's market research division, added that any potential advantage Gazaro clients currently enjoy will be lost as their competitors sign up for similar services.

"If (technology) is going to be really beneficial and effective, very quickly, others will just buy the same technology and it will be a level playing field again."

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Alexander Rink: - October 26, 2011 at 11:13:59

First of all, many thanks to Greg and OBJ for the coverage of our company. With respect to Barry's comment that any potential advantage that Gazaro clients enjoy will be lost as their competitors sign up for similar services, we respectfully - but very strongly - disagree. What Gazaro provides is visibility into market pricing: a retailer running their business without visibility into market pricing is like a person driving with a foggy windshield. You can certainly choose to continue to let others benefit from clear visibility, but we cannot imagine that you would not want it for yourself as well. For retailers, visibility into market pricing is invaluable information that enables them to better set their own pricing and optimize their product mix. To suggest that a company should not use a particular tactic or technology because others could potentially level the playing field if and when they adopt it does not strike us as a good reason for not adopting it. For example, if wide uncluttered aisles have been shown empirically to increase store traffic and purchases, does that mean a retailer should not redesign their stores because others may eventually do it as well? If something increases your business, it seems to us that you would want to adopt it as soon as possible, and use it to your advantage, as Gazaro's clients have done to increase their sales and margins. That strikes us as the essence of good business. Incidentally, gaining market visibility into pricing does not mean that every retailer needs to drive to the lowest price. Rather, it gives them the information they need to set the optimal price and product mix for their situation given the set of other elements that they incorporate into their offering for consumers (e.g. return policy, pre and post-sales service, location, etc.). Who could not benefit from greater visibility when running their business? As a final note, providing daily price intelligence on thousands of products across multiple competitors is not a simple issue to address for retailers, and the quality of the data that they rely on is completely dependent on the quality of the providing company's technology. At the risk of displaying a lack of modesty, Gazaro's patent-pending technology has been proven in head-to-head comparisons to deliver more and better data, faster than any company we have gone up against. As such, even if retailers adopted another service, they still would not achieve a level playing field with Gazaro's customers. Barry, feel free to contact me at ceo@gazaro.com if you want to discuss this further.

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