French childrenswear retailer Petit Bateau deploys Centric Software competitive market intelligence solution

Centric Software reports that Petit Bateau has selected Centric Market Intelligence to execute its data driven pricing strategy.

Founded in Troyes in 1893, Petit Bateau operates in 55 countries, through a network of e-commerce sites and more than 350 Points of Sale.

Faced with a range of market challenges including rising raw material costs, such as the rising cost of cotton, a falling birth rate in Europe and an explosion in the second hand market, it needed a high performance, intuitive competitive market intelligence (CMI) solution.

It is vital for the brand to have in-depth, real-time analysis on assortments and prices, as well as robust data on product trends. Petit Bateau’s objective is to remain competitive with a more strategic assortment and pricing architecture to maintain its appeal to customers.

“Price increases have their limits and we needed to fine-tune our pricing strategy and the breadth of our offer, including the number of products in each category,” says Anne-Laure Christoph, Head of Children’s Sales Merchandising and Pricing at Petit Bateau.

“We wanted to offer our customers a fair price in relation to the perceived value of each product and the pricing practices of our competitors.”

To develop their pricing architecture, Petit Bateau had been using rudimentary methods with teams manually collecting prices from competing online sales sites and compiling data in spreadsheets.

It tried using a different CMI solution but this other platform lacked critical functionality such as the ability to scan a wide breadth of product categories and provide easy-to-use analyses and reports based on detailed product attributes and style features, critical to apparel.

Petit Bateau thus looked for an alternative solution and chose Centric Software.

With Centric Market Intelligence, it can now tap AI powered product monitoring and high quality product image matching capabilities for a wider range of styles and categories, coupled with best-in-class accuracy.

“Centric’s solution seemed very intuitive, and we had great conversations with the pre-sales team,” says Christoph.

“Data reliability was addressed right from the start and the Centric team was very attentive and very reactive. They were quick to respond. Centric simplifies errors or data anomalies in product categorisation. Teams are now monitoring twice as many brands as they did with our previous solution.”

“With just a few clicks, we have accurate, reliable information on colours, materials, pricing architecture and price changes made by our competitors.”

“We’re delighted that Petit Bateau, an established name in children’s and adult fashion, has chosen Centric Market Intelligence. This French brand enjoys a solid reputation and has been able to withstand the ups and downs of the market by innovating over the decades, while remaining true to its heritage,” says Fabrice Canonge, President at Centric Software.

“With Centric Market Intelligence, Petit Bateau now has intelligent, reliable and high performance data at the heart of its decision-making process. We are pleased to develop this promising partnership.”