By: Iain Lewis, VP Growth & Sales | Quicklizard
For years, pricing software has been “on the verge” of going mainstream in retail.
Every year, someone says, “This is it, this is when everyone finally adopts dynamic pricing.” And yet, it never quite happens.
One big reason? We’ve been talking about pricing in the wrong language.
Retail leaders don’t naturally think in terms of “pricing optimization modules” or “AI elasticity engines.” They think in terms of Sell-Through, stock flow, markdown pressure, and the critical moments where decisions truly matter.
This is where Pricing Moments come in, a more intuitive way to discuss pricing, one that reflects how retail teams operate on a day-to-day basis.
Why Sell-Through Matters More Than Pricing Alone
For years, Sell-Through has lived almost entirely in the replenishment world — a metric our industry uses to judge buying decisions, stock flow, and future orders. What’s been missing is acknowledging that Sell-Through is also the cleanest signal of pricing effectiveness.
The truth is simple: Sell-Through shouldn’t just guide what we buy next season — it should guide how we price this season.
It’s the most important commercial metric retailers aren’t using for pricing.
Historically, Sell-Through sat on the planning and replenishment side of the business. Pricing teams didn’t touch it. But Sell-Through is fundamentally a pricing signal — it tells you immediately whether a price is right, too high, or too low.
The problem is that retailers look at it weekly, long after the moment they could act. That delay is where the margin goes to die.
The Real Problem: Retail Reacts in Weeks, Not Days
Walk into any buying or merchandising office, and you’ll see the same ritual repeated weekly:
Trade meeting. Spreadsheet. Last week’s performance. “What happened?”. “What went wrong?”. “What do we change?”
And by the time the team has the answer, another week has already passed.
This delay is not a small inefficiency; it’s the root cause of margin leakage across the business. When a product slows down, even one lost week of inaction can ripple across the entire season.
That’s why Sell-Through has become such a central theme in my conversations.
It’s not just a metric, it’s the heartbeat of retail.
But Sell-Through alone isn’t the whole story. It’s the moments inside the season that decide whether Sell-Through moves in the right direction.
Where Pricing Moments Come From
As I listened to retailers describe their day-to-day challenges, I realized they rarely talk about “modules” or “capabilities.” They talk about moments:
- A product that stops selling in Week 2.
- A competitor who drops price overnight.
- A category where stock levels suddenly look worrying.
- A hero product selling out faster than expected.
- A season that’s drifting off-plan.
These are the real pressure points, the moments where a decision needs to happen now, not three days from now.
That’s when the idea of Pricing Moments clicked for me.
Pricing Moments are simply the real-world junctions where price and Sell-Through intersect, the moments retailers already respond to every day, but often too slowly because the signals are buried in reports and manual processes.
It’s not a new concept. Retailers have been living these moments forever. But giving them a name makes them easier to see, measure, and, most importantly, systemize.
A Story Every Retailer Recognizes
A few weeks ago, I spoke with a retailer who told me about a line of knitwear that simply didn’t move. They’d bought the right quantity, priced it according to past seasons, and marketed it well, but for whatever reason, the line stalled.
The team didn’t spot it until the next trade meeting. By then, another week had gone by. They lost margin. They lost cash. And they lost time they couldn’t get back.
When I showed them how “Slow Seller Early Warning” fits into the Pricing Moments framework, something clicked instantly. It wasn’t about algorithms. It wasn’t about software features.
It was about timing.
They didn’t need more dashboards. They needed to know, automatically, the moment that product fell off its expected Sell-Through curve, not ten days later.
That moment, right there, is why Pricing Moments matter.
Why Pricing Automation Changes the Game
Here’s the truth retailers quietly admit: Most pricing and trading processes today are manual, slow, and reactive.
Only a small fraction of products are priced automatically. Everything else depends on humans catching signals at the right time, which is nearly impossible at scale. This is where Quicklizard fits naturally into the story.
We don’t replace the expertise of merchants or pricing teams. We remove the delay. Pricing automation isn’t about being clever. It’s about being on time.
- Real-time alerts.
- Forecast vs. actual Sell-Through.
- Automatic slow-seller identification.
- Instant execution across stores and channels.
These aren’t features; they’re the systemization of the very Pricing Moments retailers have always lived by. When teams can act in the right moment, the entire Sell-Through curve shifts:
- Earlier interventions → fewer markdowns
- Faster response → better stock flow
- Cleaner decisions → higher margin
This is the outcome retailers tell me they want every day. Not more tools. Not more dashboards. Just… earlier action.
Pricing Moments Are the Future of Retail Pricing
When I first started thinking about Pricing Moments, I wasn’t looking for a new way to describe pricing. I was trying to find a new way to describe the reality retailers already live in.
What I realized is this: Sell-through is the outcome. Pricing Moments are the journey. Automation is the missing link.
If we can help retailers see their season through this lens, and act in the moment instead of after it, we’re not just improving pricing. We’re giving them back control. And in a world where every week of the season counts, that control is everything.
About Iain Lewis
Iain Lewis is a pricing strategist with over a decade of experience helping global retailers and brands improve commercial performance. Before joining Quicklizard as VP Growth & Sales, he held leadership roles at Pricefx, Boston Consulting Group, and Zilliant, where he specialized in pricing research, commercial analytics, and pricing transformation programs. With a background that spans consulting, SaaS, and retail operations, Iain brings a clear, practical perspective on how retailers can improve sell-through and act on the moments that matter.
