December 12, 2022
Flintfox, the intelligent pricing specialist, has helped The Very Group achieve over £5million in additional profit by giving the retailer real-time margin visibility and streamlining its supplier payment and rebate management systems.
The Very Group is one of the largest online retailers in the UK selling over two thousand major brands in fashion, homeware, toys, and electricals.
The Flintfox Intelligent Pricing Platform has given The Very Group the ability to analyze individual product performance and see in real-time where decisive pricing changes should be made. This visibility enables better pricing decision-making and has delivered significantly enhanced profit margins across key lines and categories.
The retailer manages agreements with more than 1,400 suppliers, each with individual rebate terms. In the past, this complex process was managed manually, but with the implementation of the Flintfox Intelligent Pricing Platform, the company has been able to retire 28 separate spreadsheets, moving to a single platform delivering major efficiency gains.
On average more than 1,500 live trade agreements are managed daily through the Flintfox platform, scaling up to more than 15,000 on key days throughout the peak period. The platform consolidates all agreements and delivers a seamless process from deal creation to invoicing, ensuring supplier transactions are processed on time and with total accuracy, eliminating time-consuming manual claims validation. The system has improved cash flow and now gives users full visibility of both forecasted and achieved trading margins.
The Very Group has also been able to transform its compliance processes to keep up with changing industry regulations and remove the need for third-party services, resulting in £1 million in annual cost savings.
Chris Dieringer, Chief Customer Officer at Flintfox said: “The Very Group is a leader in the e-commerce industry with a highly sophisticated business model but a lot of complexity inherent in its pricing and supplier management.”
“This is where Flintfox comes into its own. Complex pricing structures traditionally mean a lot of time and resources spent managing them. Flintfox takes that pain away, along with human errors and lost revenue, and gives retailers and consumer brands total margin visibility and the ability to take control of profits.”
The Very Group initially forecasted a saving of £ 2 million a year from moving to Flintfox, however, in year one, the platform drove an extra £5m into the business in profit.
Phil Corner, Supplier Funding Manager, The Very Group said: “With the help of Flintfox, we’ve been able to completely overhaul the way we manage our pricing and supplier agreements. The holistic and granular margin visibility enables us to make in-the-moment changes to improve profitability. In addition, we can maximize supplier revenue and practically eliminate time spent debating claims. The productivity and efficiency gains have been clear and the return on investment huge.”
‘“With the help of Flintfox, we’ve been able to completely overhaul the way we manage our pricing and supplier agreements. The holistic and granular margin visibility enables us to make in-the-moment changes to improve profitability. In addition, we can maximise supplier revenue and practically eliminate time spent debating claims. The productivity and efficiency gains have been clear and the return on investment huge.”’
The Flintfox Pricing Platform was integrated with Microsoft Dynamics 365, which ensured many of The Very Group requirements could be fulfilled out of the box, reducing the need for heavy customization.
Brought to you in partnership with Microsoft, view The Very Group Case Study here.
