Patent attributes
The present invention discloses a method, program product and system for controlling pricing using a markdown profile, where the method of the present invention includes: selecting a markdown profile based on an attribute of a product to be used for the sale of that product; selecting a retail price for the product; acquiring updated sales data regarding the product; and determining a markdown to be applied to the retail price from the markdown profile using the updated sales data. The method can further include the step of adjusting a retail price of the product by the markdown. The present invention also provides a data structure implementing a markdown profile for determining retail price adjustments for a product, where the data structure includes: an actual sales quota parameter; a posting period parameter arranged perpendicular to the actual sales quota parameter; a plurality of data fields containing markdowns, each data field corresponding to a specific posting period and actual sales quota range and each markdown relating to an amount of adjustment of a retail price for the product; and an attribute field containing product attribute data used to determine the relevance of the markdown profile to the product.
