Pricing for Expansion, Localization & Bankruptcy: Lessons from Three Retail Models with Seth Nieman

In this episode of Pricing Heroes, we speak with Seth Nieman, former Vice President of Pricing Strategy & Transformation at Rite Aid, and former pricing and merchandising leader at Wakefern Food Corp and Lidl US. Seth shares his journey from helping launch Lidl’s U.S. pricing strategy to leading Rite Aid’s pricing transformation during its emergence from bankruptcy. He explains how pricing can serve as the conscience of the organization, and what it takes to build scalable architecture, align cross-functional teams, and drive pricing decisions under pressure.

Key Topics:

• Developing Lidl’s U.S. assortment and pricing from the ground up
• Launching Bowl & Basket and Paperbird at Wakefern, and using pricing to scale private-label growth
• Designing a KVI- and promotional role–based pricing architecture to improve CPI and RPI scores
• Implementing localized pricing zones across 60+ ShopRite stores, accounting for customer, competitor, and ownership differences
• Leading Rite Aid’s pricing reset post-bankruptcy: reassessing optimization logic, category roles, and competitive intelligence
• Why pricing must balance art and science—and how to communicate pricing decisions across functions
• Trends in ESLs, dynamic pricing, and why personalization should come with transparency and trust

Recommended Resources:

• Trade journals: Drug Store News, Progressive Grocer, Supermarket News
• NRF Big Show
• Business journals: The Wall Street Journal

Connect with Seth Nieman:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-nieman/

----------

Get your free copy of Get Ready for the Future Of Pricing with our A-Z Guide.

For more information about AI pricing solutions, visit Competera.ai.

Transcript

Aaron: Hello and welcome to Pricing Heroes, a podcast sponsored by Competera.

This is a series of interviews with the best-in-class retail pricing experts driving bottom-line metrics for major retail brands and the industry as a whole.

Today’s guest is Seth Nieman. Seth has built a career at the intersection of pricing, merchandising, procurement, and commercial strategy, holding senior roles at major retailers including Lidl US, Wakefern Food Corp, and Rite Aid. Most recently, he served as Vice President of Pricing Strategy & Transformation at Rite Aid, where he led efforts to modernize pricing and improve commercial performance following the company’s emergence from bankruptcy. At Wakefern, he helped implement a new pricing architecture across banners like ShopRite and The Fresh Grocer, and at Lidl, he played a key role in shaping pricing and assortment strategy during the company’s U.S. expansion.

Over the past decade, Seth has developed a reputation as a transformational leader with a data-driven, customer-focused approach to retail strategy — building lean, dependable teams and driving measurable improvements even during the most challenging market conditions.

Seth, welcome to Pricing Heroes.

Seth: Thanks, Aaron. I really appreciate the kind words, and as a fan of the show, you've really done a great job building this into something insightful and actionable for anyone that's impacted by pricing, which is all of us.

Aaron: Thanks. I really appreciate that. I have to say that our success is due entirely to the phenomenal contributions from the guests who appear on the podcast.

So Seth, if you don't mind, let's begin with your personal story. As mentioned in the intro, you've worked across procurement, merchandising, marketing, sales planning, and now pricing. Can you walk us through that journey and explain what ultimately drew you to pricing?

Seth: So I got my start, as you mentioned, at Lidl US. And coming out of college, I couldn't pick a better job. I call that my retail education because I joined the company before they had actually opened up stores here in the U.S. So for two years, our primary focus was understanding the market, understanding the competition, and I even got the opportunity to go to the Netherlands and shadow the buying team there.

I got to see my first LIDs, negotiate my first products, and then come back here to the U.S. to work on the original assortment that we would launch with when we opened up stores. And that was the holistic product lifecycle. So we started with an idea of what the product would be — and it's all private labels, so everything is built from the ground up.

And that included pricing. We knew that that was a significant lever coming into the U.S., and that was something that Lidl, as a discounter, really emphasizes as one of the most important parts of their value proposition. So as a very early pricing-expert merchandiser in my career, pricing became a key focus, and I really developed a passion for that entire product lifecycle — including pricing.

Then I was actually recruited to move up to New Jersey to join Wakefern ShopRite after several years at Lidl. And it brought me back to what I was originally doing when I started at Lidl. They were going through a full own-brand transformation as well, really wanting to make that a strategic pillar of the organization — which it really hadn't been for the previous time that ShopRite had been operating.

So we were able to do a similar type of analysis to what we were doing at Lidl: going out into the market, understanding our competition and our customer. We launched two new brands, Bowl & Basket and Paperbird, which were very successful. And again, I saw how important pricing was as a lever to drive sales and profitability.

That was a big focus of our transformation at Wakefern — going out and being more competitive in the market. And that starts with building strong partnerships with the vendors that produce that product. So our first step was understanding the assortment that we wanted to go to market with, but also to negotiate a better cost from our vendors so that we could invest in price.

And we were successful in negotiating some pretty significant cost savings on some key items — most notably our 24-pack water, as well as our potato chips, our salty snacks. And when we launched those two new brands back into the stores, we saw significant growth — over 100% in some cases — just by investing in the price, the promotion, and of course the packaging and branding was a key part of that as well.

That was a huge success, emphasizing own brands at Wakefern. And I really, again, saw that importance of being competitive in price and how that, as part of the value proposition, can drive sales for the organization.

Then from there, I was fortunate to be promoted to Director of Marketing and Sales Planning, where I led the promotional planning, promotional calendar, as well as the trade fund management for ShopRite. And this is where I really started to see the importance of promotion at scale — not just within my small desk that I had at Lidl and originally at ShopRite, but seeing it across the entire organization.

Grocery is such a fast-paced industry, so it was a great place for us to test new ideas and see the results of them on a weekly basis. So we tried several new programs: “Don’t Miss Deals,” which was our idea of the most competitive prices in the market for that particular week; “Dollar Deals,” especially toward the end of the month, which aligned with customers looking for lower-priced items to fill their basket; and then “Locked In Price,” which has become popular not just at ShopRite but other retailers as well, as inflation has taken off — to show that we are going back and locking in a price from last year.

That role granted me more exposure within the organization, and I moved into my first official pricing role. I was VP of Merchandising Support, which covered pricing, vendor management, and space planning. That’s where I truly got to implement pricing strategy at scale within the price optimization tools that we used on a daily basis.

That became another pillar of the organization, with Wakefern choosing pricing as one of the strategic priorities. And what I’ve found about pricing that I really love is that it’s a unique combination of the art of merchandising and the science of economics. And the changes we can make on a daily basis have a huge impact on the customer as well as the organization.

Aaron: So I’m curious. Since you've held so many roles in disciplines that often operate alongside but separately from pricing, in what ways have those experiences shaped your approach to pricing?

Seth: I like to say that I've worked in just about every area of merchandising. And getting my start as a category manager — which is primarily who's working and managing with pricing — I know exactly what they expect. I've been in their shoes before. I know what their challenges are. I know how to present pricing recommendations to them in the way that they would like to hear.

So I'm able to work with my team to help us adapt our processes, our presentation formats, to give them that insight. Seeing it from all of these different perspectives — and seeing how important pricing is — allows me to help guide my team to make sure we're making the right recommendations, and then also to push back when we need to.

I like to say that pricing is the conscience of the organization. The category manager has sometimes different priorities, and pricing is a key component of that. But we need to make sure at the end of the day that we're doing the right thing for the customer.

What I like to do for those category managers is — and I tell my team this — make their jobs easier. Pricing's just one component of what they do on a daily basis. If we can be one area of the company that brings them actionable insights and actually takes some work off of their plate, then that's a key win for the company at the end of the day. Because that allows that category manager to then focus on other strategic work that they're doing.

Aaron: Would you mind going into a little more detail about the tug of war between the competing priorities of these two functions? Like, how are you thinking about weighing those priorities and making a decision that is most effective for the organization — but also keeps the customer in mind?

Seth: So, leading the pricing organization, I'm tied to the overall profitability of the company. Of course, we all have financial constraints. I'm looking at it from a holistic perspective across the entire store. So if we need to invest in a particular category, we should be able to offset that in other categories so that we can have the right value proposition for the customer.

A category manager — their focus is more narrow. They have just their desk that they're focused on, and they want to make sure that they're hitting their profitability targets, their sales targets for their desk. So my job then is to make sure that I'm working well with all the category managers and also with the category leadership — the vice presidents, the directors — so that if we do need to strategically invest in a particular area, we’re able to give that category manager coverage so that they're not going to be impacted on their performance metrics.

Because, as an organization, we decided that we needed to invest in a particular area. And so that push and pull is a very strategic negotiation that, at the end of the day, centers on the customer. And going back to: this is the most important recommendation that we can make from a customer perspective, we also see that from an overall perspective, it's within our financial guardrails — and here's the reason why we need to make this particular change.

Aaron: So you worked in three very different retail models — Lidl with its everyday low price strategy, Wakefern with a traditional hi/lo approach, and Rite Aid with a more convenience-focused, pharmacy-driven model. What were the key differences in pricing strategies across those companies, and what did you learn about how pricing should adapt to different retail formats?

Seth: Well, I think you said it well — there couldn’t be more differences between those three models. So I saw very distinct differences there. And what's interesting is that there's no one correct strategy for pricing. There are some core components that a good pricing strategy must have, but each of these three models can be successful if they're implemented in the right way.

So I talked originally at Lidl about how price and being the most competitive in the market — that EDLP approach — was one of the most important parts of their value proposition.

At a hi/lo retailer like ShopRite at Wakefern, price and promotion really combine together to be that important lever, where customers are looking for extremely hot deals on the promotional side. Less important on the base pricing side — but, as we saw with inflation rising and customers looking for everyday value, that has changed over the last several years. So when I was in that role, we really emphasized becoming more competitive on our everyday price as well.

And I think what it goes to is really understanding what your value proposition is. I've mentioned that a couple times already, but if you're a store that’s really in a high-traffic area, a little bit of a smaller footprint, and your customer's trip is all about convenience, you may be able to justify a slightly higher price than a big-box retailer that the customer is seeking out as a destination for a stock-up trip.

And the keyword there is “slightly,” because at a certain point the customer will learn and realize how much more expensive that convenience is. And if you break that value equation, they'll change their behavior. And instead of popping into your convenient location on the way home, they'll plan ahead accordingly and make that trip elsewhere — or even look to e-commerce to fill that need, which is becoming a bigger and bigger challenge to brick-and-mortar.

So the key is constantly balancing and rebalancing that value equation with your customer — knowing them intimately, knowing the trip, and what they’re hoping to achieve with a trip to your store. And pricing is a crucial component of that.

Aaron: You developed and implemented a new pricing architecture across both national brands and private labels, using a tiered strategy based on customer importance, price perception, and promotional role — delivering increased gross profit while improving CPI. Can you walk us through the structure of that pricing architecture and the approach you took to design and implement it?

Seth: So we started with a deep dive into our customer — who they were, why they were shopping with us, what we were doing well and not well. And we partnered with dunnhumby, one of the industry-leading consumer insight organizations, and we leveraged their RPI — the Retailer Preference Index.

That gave us some insights on how we were performing across the store. And one thing that we saw was that promotion was a key lever that was bringing our customers in. We were doing very well compared to the market on the promotional side. So customers saw the value they were getting when items were on sale.

But from an everyday value perspective — that everyday retail — we got lower marks on that particular component. So we saw an opportunity to improve our price perception, and that became an emphasis on our everyday price.

Obviously, you can't go across the board and lower prices on all items, because that will hurt the profitability equation. So we had to be very strategic with how we wanted to invest. To do that, we created what we called KVI statuses — Key Value Indicators — and segmented our items accordingly. So: KVI items being the most important, KKCI items being the second most important, and Background items being the third most important.

Having that top tier of items — those most important to the customer, driven by their first-party loyalty data — we were able to invest in those items, be most competitive on the items that they're going to remember the price of when they shop at our store. They know what they're paying at our competitors, and they’re able to compare that in their head.

So when they see a competitive price — and I'll use grocery as an example — on eggs, or bananas, or milk, they're going to associate that lower price across the store. And so we see the benefit of improved price perception by investing on a small group of very important items.

Then we're able to balance out the profitability equation by potentially allowing slightly higher guardrails to competition — slightly higher pricing on the lesser important items. Items that customers are not purchasing on a weekly basis.

The other aspect that we added was a promotional role to each item. We said overall promotions are working well — customers find value — but let’s identify which items are most important, which should continue to be promoted. So we assigned that promotional role to those items.

Because it’s important: if you have a strong promotional equation, you can’t simply lower the everyday retail to EDLP. Then there won’t be funding to continue to promote that item. So we were very strategic in determining which items should be lowered on everyday price, and which should continue to be promoted.

What we saw with the implementation was a significant increase in that Retailer Preference Index score for our everyday value. So our price perception improved, and the internal CPI — the Consumer Price Index — that we track versus our competition also improved at the same time.

Aaron: Very cool. And one key point you made was that customer data was crucial to the decision-making process. Can you talk a little bit about how you were collecting that customer data and using it to make those informed decisions?

Seth: We had the benefit of a great loyalty card program, and so we had really great insights that we could dig into to understand: when we changed price, how did customers respond? When we adjusted a promotion, how did they respond to that? What are items that they’re truly loyal to — that really, no matter what the price, they’re continuing to buy this item every time they come in — because that's an important item to them?

And so, using those insights, that’s how we determined those KVI statuses that I mentioned and how we assessed what we called their price sensitivity to items.

Any retailer that has that loyalty card data — obviously, there's a spectrum: some have great data, some good but not as great. But there are still insights there. And even without that first-party loyalty data, there are other ways of getting to insights like that that you can use to determine your statuses.

And that’s always been, to me, a fun process as I've gone into different organizations — to try to understand what's our methodology for determining these important items? But at the end of the day, it's something that you then align on with your merchant organization, because they know the customer, they know their desks as well.

And so it's been a really creative process to define those statuses.

Aaron: I think more of those loyalty programs are going to have a significant impact on pricing moving forward, as retailers begin to focus more on a hyper-personalized, customer-centric approach — which will rely very heavily on that personalized data.

But because of the issues around the ethics of tracking, there will need to be that sort of opt-in — the willingness, the transparency around collecting the data. Like saying, “Hey, because you’re part of this program, you get certain benefits, like personalized discounts or targeted promotions,” something like that, for collecting that data on the customer level.

Or maybe it’s not customer-level. Maybe it’s location-based, like store-level. But yeah, it's very cool.

Seth: That's an interesting point that you mentioned because location-based is a component of first-party loyalty data. And as I've worked to establish different pricing zones, that is something that we look at — to understand that certain stores are more price sensitive overall than others. And that can help you segment your price zones to make sure that these stores that are price sensitive are priced a little bit more competitively than other stores in different areas that have a less price-sensitive customer base.

So I think that’s a great callout. It’s not just looking at the overall customer; it’s also looking at the customer within that particular store or region.

Aaron: Yeah, I know that you also established a localized pricing strategy for over 60 ShopRite stores by grouping the locations with similar competition and financial goals.

What was your approach for building that strategy, and what were some of the challenges you faced in rolling it out? And do you have any lessons learned from that process?

Seth: Yeah, a ton of lessons learned — and great segue there with the discussion on price zoning.

We wanted to look at pricing on a more localized basis because previously it had been done really on a much larger scale across ShopRite. And I mentioned the importance of promotion, and now we were looking at getting more detailed and data-driven with our everyday price.

Looking at the different stores, there were a lot of different customer bases. There were a lot of different formats — from urban to suburban to rural — different competitors. And we looked at all of those different components.

And then the added detail is that Wakefern ShopRite is a co-op. So there could be one store owned by one member; the store a few miles down the road could be owned by a different member. So some of the challenges that we faced were that there’s a lot of consideration where ShopRite is its own competitor within certain markets. And so we needed to be cognizant of that when we set our pricing strategy.

Also, different members have different strategies, different profitability targets, different focuses on competition. And so what I set out to do was to localize within reason — identify stores that had a similar customer profile, similar competitive profile, similar profitability targets — and group those stores together within a particular region.

We were really successful in grouping those stores and being very specific with how we priced each of those clusters. We looked specifically at the competitive guardrails that we set — the competition — and ensured that they were set appropriately.

What’s great about pricing tools is that you see the result of what your forecast is — what you’re expected to achieve by changing these certain prices. And so we were able to commit to a particular financial target and go out and work to achieve that.

Aaron: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I frequently shop at ShopRite when I was visiting family in Greenwich, and I suspect that the pricing strategy for ShopRite in Greenwich is very different than, say, East New Haven.

Seth: Definitely right. Different competition, different customer.

Aaron: Exactly. Okay, so I would like to pivot a little bit and talk about Rite Aid. I'm sure that, as many listeners know, Rite Aid has been in the news recently due to its bankruptcy, and it’s currently liquidating a lot of its assets right now, including all of its store locations.

During your time at Rite Aid, your role focused on pricing strategy and transformation during the company’s emergence from bankruptcy in late 2023. Can you share what that transformation entailed and how you approached pricing within such a challenging context?

Seth: We really started with the foundation and looked at every area of pricing.

That was first a full assessment of the optimization methodology that we were using with the price optimization provider. So really getting into the detail of how that tool worked — what was being optimized, what wasn’t, what were the constraints and the rules built to determine the recommendations that we were getting.

So we spent a lot of time with that partner to work through and make some changes and enhancements along the way.

We’ve talked about KVI statuses and what we implemented at Wakefern ShopRite. We did the same thing at Rite Aid — looking at refreshing those. And I mentioned that creative process — Rite Aid’s data was a little bit different from Wakefern ShopRite, so we had to work slightly differently but still got to a great outcome and made sure those KVI statuses were set correctly for our customer.

Then we looked at category roles. That was something that — when I first joined the organization — I went and met with all the merchant leadership and tried to understand: what's working well with pricing, what would you change, what are some of our opportunities? And everyone mentioned that category roles were something that the organization really needed.

So for us, that became assigning certain categories as convenience, certain items as destination categories — categories where we have an advantage over our competition, where customers are seeking us out for that particular category — and then core categories, which would be items that most other places also sell. So we’re competing against quite a large part of the market; nothing really unique — so we need to be a bit more competitive there.

We established those category roles and also built pricing guardrails around them to coincide with the KVI status and the category role.

Then I looked at price zone mapping also. We wanted to make sure we were aligned to the right competition, that our stores were segmented in the right way, and just did a refresh there.

We onboarded a new competitive intelligence provider. They provided us with all the price web scrapes, as well as some in-store price checks, that helped us understand where we are in the market. And then we used that data to make pricing decisions.

Clearly, the constraints that we were in — we weren't able to approach this in a traditional way or invest in the way that I would’ve really hoped to. But within those constraints, I think we did a great job with the team of identifying key items that we could invest in — again, focusing on those with the highest price perception with the customer.

And then offsetting that, continuing to drive gross profit and cash flow in that challenging time, with changes to those lesser important items. So that supported the improved cash flow. It was obviously a huge team effort, but we were one component of our first successful emergence from bankruptcy.

And as you mentioned, those of us following the news have seen the second bankruptcy. Unfortunately, that was bad news for Rite Aid, but I'm extremely grateful for that experience. Getting to lead that transformation is something I'm really proud of, working with such a great team at Rite Aid.

So for right now, I'm enjoying the summer. I'm able to do things like this interview with you, Aaron — which has so far been a great time — doing a bit of consulting, and on the personal side, I'm even planning a proposal to my girlfriend, which I think by the time this airs should be a success. So I'm looking forward to that.

Aaron: Cool. Congratulations. I think that's the first breaking news of an engagement on this podcast. That's great to hear, Seth — congratulations.

Seth: Thanks, Aaron.

Aaron: So I’m really interested in understanding exactly what the unorthodox situation you found yourself in — how that specifically changed the priorities of pricing, affected the strategy, and how you had to approach it differently.

So what was it that you were not able to do that you typically would have done in that situation? Let's say Rite Aid was performing well, there were no bankruptcy concerns, and you entered this new role — I assume there were some things that you would have otherwise preferred to implement that you weren’t able to. Can you go into a little more detail about what those differences precisely were?

Seth: Definitely. So, looking at the drug channel in general — we talked earlier about the differences in pricing strategy that I've seen at Lidl, at Wakefern, at Rite Aid. The drug channel as a whole, as we know, is priced on the higher side of the equation of the different channels in retail.

We know that's driven by it being more of a convenience-type trip for the customer. They're coming in for their prescriptions, they need to pick up something while they're there — maybe some snacks, maybe some over-the-counter medicine — or they're in need late at night, and they have a 24-hour pharmacy, and their child is sick, and they need to come in and get a particular medicine for them.

And so with that, we’ve seen that the drug channel as a whole — from a competitive standpoint — is much higher than the other channels that I've worked in. What I would have ideally liked to do is be a bit more change-oriented with looking at different ways of pricing and investing more in a more competitive everyday retail.

But clearly the situation we were in — emphasizing the cash flow that we needed to generate and also the inventory position that Rite Aid found itself in — that wasn’t something that we were able to do. And so we had to look really strategically.

Like I mentioned, we were still able to invest in certain key items for the customer that we saw were very important to them — but just not to the scale that we would have had we not been in that situation.

Aaron: Do you feel like that experience has equipped you with unique insights and expertise?

Seth: I definitely think my experience with the three different strategies is — I wouldn’t say unique — but it definitely gives me a broad view of the market. I know many others have probably worked with different formats before, but as pricing leaders know — those of you listening to this podcast — all of us have constraints.

Whether you're in bankruptcy or you're performing extremely well financially, none of us can go and simply wave a magic wand and implement the strategy that we want to tomorrow. We can’t go and lower every price that we want to. There’s still the science behind being strategic with what we want to change and what we leave the same.

So I think that this has given me a good perspective of what it takes to work within that constrained environment — which means that as I go to other organizations and have fewer constraints, I’m excited to really test the boundaries of what’s possible and how we can bring better value to the customer with our pricing strategy.

Aaron: I appreciate that. So let’s pivot a little more generally toward retail pricing.

We're in a really volatile moment for U.S. retail. We have persistent inflation — although the May inflation numbers do not look as bad — but we also have tariffs, price-sensitive shoppers, and political scrutiny around pricing.

I'm sure you've seen that there’s been talk among politicians about dynamic pricing or the need to look into AI pricing technologies, and there’s just a general concern about the ethics and fairness around it.

So from your vantage point, what are the biggest pricing challenges facing retailers right now?

Seth: I think it’s clarity, first of all — understanding which tariffs that have been announced are actually going to be implemented and to what extent. Because we have seen such significant changes where tariffs of a certain level will be announced, and then a couple of weeks later — or even days later — those will be reduced down or eliminated.

So I understand that there’s a lot of negotiations taking place right now, and those tariffs are a moving target. That makes it very difficult for retail, because we're not planning for next week — we're planning for next year.

Understanding what your assortment and your costs are going to look like next year is a very difficult task today. So it makes that planning process for retailers very difficult. I think having the clarity to understand what will actually be implemented, so that we can then plan accordingly, is a huge challenge.

You mentioned dynamic pricing, which is a really interesting concept right now. It’s been accelerated by the rollout of digital shelf labels — electronic shelf labels — that we see across numerous retailers. I know most major retailers, if not all, are testing those in some form or fashion.

I think we're a ways away from any sort of dynamic pricing being implemented in-store. You think about the complexity of handling that at the POS for a large retailer — like a ShopRite, like a Walmart — with tens of thousands of SKUs. Being able to manage one particular customer paying one price, and then ten seconds later, the customer behind them at the register paying a different price — and being able to strategically do that — which is really how that conversation has been framed, with people saying: “This particular customer who's less price-sensitive will be charged more; this customer who's more price-sensitive will be charged less.”

To do that on the micro scale of a store — a single transaction next to each other — is going to be a challenge to figure out. And with technology, I’m sure that it will become possible. But I don't see that happening today.

Really, the advantage with ESLs is from a labor perspective — not having to put up those tags every single week or daily, depending on how you set your pricing strategy. And it's also typically better for the environment — not having to print tens of thousands of tags for every store and ship them out on a weekly basis.

Aaron: Yeah, and there’s also the added retail media aspect of the ESLs, which can possibly serve some good for the customers.

In terms of dynamic pricing — I think we’re many years away from personalized dynamic pricing. I don’t even know that that would necessarily ever make sense. I think most people are concerned about real-time adjustments across shelves for products — the idea that you might be shopping at the wrong time, and people who come earlier in the day get a better price than people who come later in the day, or whatever.

But in terms of the personalization, I think the more intelligent approaches will be some type of loyalty program. They’re not paying a higher price simply because the shelf price changed — but they’ll pay a lower price because they received a personalized promotion based on their shopping habits.

Seth: Yeah, I completely agree. And we're already seeing that with personalized promotions — digitally targeting customers based on their purchase behavior.

I know where I shop, I get those targeted digital coupons that are “just for me” based on what I've purchased. And that is an incentive for me to come into the store, make a trip, and get those items that I purchase regularly.

Like you said, that’s an improvement to the price — not a retailer trying to gouge because I’m shopping at a certain time. And, you know, I referenced that approach to the price sensitivities of the customers because that’s how I’ve heard it framed by some lawmakers.

So obviously this is a new topic for everyone. And it’s good that they’re looking out for the customer — because that’s what we want to do also as pricing professionals.

So there's just a lot of education that's still needed for the market.

Aaron: At the end of the day, I think what matters more than anything is transparency. As long as retailers are being transparent about the way prices are set, how prices are impacted, and when they’re changing, then there’s no real issue with that.

But it’s on the retailers to get ahead of it. If they wait for a government agency to step in, then there might be some challenges there.

I was having a conversation with another pricing consultant not too long ago, and we were talking about how this is actually an opportunity for a retailer like Trader Joe’s to leverage a key differentiator. They don’t use ESLs — they have the hand-drawn shelf labels.

In some ways, there are retailers that can lean into this type of experience to differentiate themselves and be transparent about how they’re setting prices and how often they’re changing those prices.

But yeah, I think it opens up an entirely new world of possibilities for pricing when you begin to look at ESLs, dynamic pricing, and all of that. It just —  I don’t know — maybe customers will end up having more choices in terms of the experience that they have, and that might be a good thing, not necessarily a bad thing.

Seth: I think you’re right. That’s a great example with Trader Joe’s, and they have a smaller assortment, so it’s a bit easier to hand-draw tags. I don’t think we’ll see that from any of the larger players anytime soon, but they’ve really done a great job of identifying who their customer is, why they shop with them, and what that overall value proposition is.

So I think regardless of which retailer or company you work for, if you can understand that — and then build your pricing strategy to fit that value proposition — you’re going to find some success.

Aaron: Yeah. So we’re talking about technology, and I’m curious — you’ve worked across multiple technology implementations, including integrating price with space planning and customer data.

What tools or technologies do you believe are essential for pricing teams today?

Seth: First, I would say a good price and promotional optimization tool. Competera is one of them. There are a ton of different tools out in the market today that leverage — whether it’s machine learning, AI, obviously your data — to optimize pricing according to the guardrails, the strategy, the rules that you set.

That’s a tool that a good pricing professional should be using on a daily basis to make sure that they’re staying up to date with where the market is.

And obviously, to set those constraints, you need to have the data of how your competition is priced. So second, I would say a strong competitive intelligence platform to get you that data is crucial.

What we’ve done in my past is we feed that price data — the competitive intelligence — directly into the price optimization tool, and then, according to the rules and the guardrails that we have set, price recommendations are then made. It’s not quite real-time yet, but on a weekly basis, we can see how the market has changed and whether we need to make a change to our retail.

Higher-frequency checks have been increasing in performance. In years past, you would get maybe a full book check from an in-store price checker on, say, a quarterly basis. And then sometime over that next quarter, you would go through all those changes and implement them.

Now what we’re seeing with web scrapes today is you could get daily updates — you can get hourly updates. If you’re in the e-commerce space, you’re probably looking at that from an hourly perspective to make sure you’re priced correctly.

In brick-and-mortar, it’s still done primarily on a weekly basis. But a combination of in-store and online web scrapes is great to make sure you have a good understanding of where your competition’s at.

And then third, I would say a really strong consumer insights platform. I talked about some that we used in my past to determine which items we needed to invest in, and understanding your customer — using your data, leveraging those insights to build your pricing strategy — is really important.

And then one thing that I would say ties all three of these together is making sure that they connect to the other platforms that your organization uses.

So from a supply chain side, you want to make sure you’re connected with forecast and replenishment, because the pricing changes that you make — the promotional plans that you set — are going to have an impact on what product needs to be purchased and how much.

There’s a budgeting and sales planning component for the finance side. As you make those investments and start to drive more volume — does that generate more sales for the company?

And then you mentioned space planning. I’ve worked in space planning in the past, and some of the newer macro and micro space planning tools are starting to incorporate tons of data with the goal of doing space optimization. And pricing — and the changes that we make — obviously with the impact it has on sales, that’s an important tie-in with space planning as well.

And then finally, I’ll reference AI, because that is the hot topic across all industries. And it’s really started to make its way into price optimization.

I spent some time at NRF earlier this year, which is a great show to see what’s new on everyone’s roadmap. And AI is on everyone’s roadmap.

Some have implemented different agentic AI capabilities — which, from a category management standpoint, I see as a huge part of the future. I talked about how, as a pricing professional, I want to make the category manager’s job easier so that they can focus on key strategic decisions. AI will make their jobs easier as well — helping them identify what are the most impactful things they can do today to drive their business.

And we’re already seeing some key leaders in the tech space start to pilot and even implement those tools.

Aaron: Yeah. It’s crucial to understand — there’s a big misconception around AI, that AI is just going to replace all of the jobs. You’re not going to have any more pricing teams or any more merchandising teams. But the reality is, it actually just frees up the individual to focus more strategically.

I use AI all the time. It could never replace the job I’m doing, but man, am I vastly more efficient. And I have a lot more time to think creatively about different approaches I want to take to meet my objectives.

It’s just much more enriching for me. I feel like I’m able to really focus on doing the things that I’m really good at and enjoy doing — and not so much the rote tasks that are oftentimes mentally taxing.

So I think AI is doing the exact same thing for merchandising and pricing.

Seth: That’s well said. And Aaron, if they had tried to replace you with an AI interviewer, I would’ve declined the interview.

Aaron: I appreciate that. Solidarity. Yeah.

Okay — so, one last question about retail pricing. Having built and led cross-functional teams throughout your career, what advice do you have for pricing professionals who want to grow into leadership roles — especially those who have made lateral moves into pricing?

Seth: So what I like about pricing — we’ve talked about the technical side of things, and you’re working within these new platforms. AI is a huge component. So you become sort of that technical expert within the merchant org.

My goal has always been to bring new technology and new tools to that organization to make their jobs more productive and more efficient.

So I think that the person within pricing who can be really successful is somebody who has that technical ability — to dig into a price optimization tool, to try out a new AI or agentic solution to see how it can improve our business.

But at the same time, have those soft skills — the commercial, the business skills — that allow you to communicate well with the rest of the merchandising org.

We’ve talked about the push and pull of certain recommendations within pricing and getting pushback from merchants if they don’t particularly align with what they’re expecting to see.

But if you’re able to then present those in a way that really is impactful to them — that really focuses in on the consumer — having that combination of: here’s the detail, the data, the why of this recommendation, and then here’s how it impacts your business, and communicating that to the right audience.

I think that’s been the perfect blend. And that’s been some of the reason for my success — being able to know my audience and communicate effectively with them. Really just staying focused on the customer and data.

Another thing about making a lateral move into pricing — especially if you're coming from an area that you will be working with on the pricing side — that’s an advantage. You've been in that seat. You know what they expect. So use that to your advantage, and communicate exactly how you would have wanted to be communicated with when you were in that seat.

Aaron: I think that’s a phenomenal answer, and hopefully the audience appreciates that as well.

Final question: What books, podcasts, or resources would you recommend to our Pricing Heroes community?

Seth: So what I always recommend to my team is to stay very up to date on industry trends.

For my industry, those are publications like Drug Store News, Progressive Grocer, Retail Dive, Supermarket News.

Your industry might be particularly different, so find the industry trade publications that you can follow to make sure you know what’s happening with competition, what’s happening with the customer.

Even quarterly earnings reports or annual reports for your competition can be really insightful. There’s a lot more detail in those than sometimes you would expect, and that can give you insights on broader macroeconomic trends as well.

We see that a lot with pricing, just given how much we’re impacted by things like tariffs and different decisions that the government is making. So it’s important to follow those trends at the macro level.

I’m partial to Wall Street Journal, but I get my news from a variety of different sources and viewpoints to make sure that I’m getting the full picture.

And then I referenced the trade show NRF earlier, which — from a technology standpoint — a lot of technology providers will show exactly what they’re focused on for the next couple years and what’s new and different about their tool compared to last year.

So that’s been a great resource to understand where the market is going and how important things like AI are going to be in the near future.

Aaron: I don’t think I could agree more. As someone who works in communications, PR, and media relations, I think those are phenomenal resources for keeping up to date with what’s happening.

And I honestly think that’s probably much better than reading a book on the general principles of pricing. Because if you’re already in a pricing role, you probably already know all of that. It’s just understanding the trends.

Seth: That’s right. And I would add — I forgot to reference — but definitely this podcast has been a great resource.

Aaron: Okay. I appreciate that. Thanks, Seth.

Again — congrats on the upcoming engagement. Hopefully by the time this airs, you'll have a yes and you’ll be on your way to planning the wedding — and becoming accustomed to the pricing that is the wedding-planning universe.

Seth: That might be one aspect of pricing I’m not looking forward to.

Aaron: So before we go, you did briefly mention that you’re doing a lot of consulting now. Are you also looking for another opportunity, or are you just doing mostly individual consulting?

Seth: Definitely excited to find the next role. I'm exploring my options right now and applying for roles. I feel like I've always had challenging, high-profile roles, and I'm definitely drawn towards that type of challenge. I love building things, fixing things, transforming things. So I'm excited to find another opportunity that aligns with those interests.

Aaron: Well, I hope you're able to find the right role soon. Whoever snatches you up, I think will be getting a transformational leader with unique expertise.

Seth, thank you so much for being on the show and for sharing your insights with us today.

Seth: Aaron, thanks so much. This has been a great time. You’ve been a great host, and I really appreciate the opportunity to speak with the audience today on the podcast.

Aaron: I hope you enjoyed our conversation with Seth Nieman. Be sure to follow and connect with our guest on LinkedIn.

For more information about AI pricing solutions, visit Competera.ai.

Remember to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast app to ensure you don’t miss future episodes. And please help us reach others in the pricing community by leaving a 5-star review.

If you find the insights on the show valuable, I encourage you to check out the Retail Pricing Community on LinkedIn, where you’ll find pricing professionals sharing their expertise and latest trends.

Thanks for joining us on this episode of Pricing Heroes. Take care — until next time.