I work in a retail company with several brands and we sometimes have communication issues about prices for promos. For example, someone would email that the video game is on sale for $40.00, but the graphic shows $45.00, and the actual price is showing $43.00. The same idea goes for coupon codes. This example is going a bit extreme but you get the picture.
My goal is to have an internal centralized location (web) everyone can reference for prices than filtering through emails, price change after price change spreadsheets, etc.
Would anyone happen to know if something like this that exists? I was playing around the idea of using a blog, but hoping there’s something better.
Some wishlist features:
Tagging
#videogame, #store_brand_1, #coupon, etc
Filter by tags
Start-end date
Group promo merch together
if there are multiple skus for a promo
Team task checkoff to see the progress and who did it
Each team (as needed) will check off what they completed and allow notes
Eg: Graphics team finished the promo image, Marketing scheduled email, etc
Subscribe to promos
Email if there are any changes/updates
Allow comments
Contact details for promo questions
Wow…Did I offend you somehow? I was hoping to find a friendly suggestion to using a centralized promo tracker instead of having to wade through email threads if we have any changes.
[update]
I must have missed the blog comment in your original post. The good thing about the blog/tracker tool is that the decision makers would be the ones to update the prices there (as they have always been). We wouldn’t have multiple blog entries since it would be simple enough to update the current price. This takes out the guesswork of which is the latest price. In addition, I think this would be a good way, as you mentioned, to “consolidate” our prices into one location.
If you don’t think this is a feasible solution to consolidate, could you lend us some constructive ideas where we wouldn’t use technology as a part of the solution?
Just to reiterate…the issue is around the confusion with the latest price, not who to believe. It was also pointed out this was an extreme example to make a point.
I agree we need to communicate better and the prices need to be consolidated. But if, whatever the reason, things change, would it not be easier to have a centralized location with notifications to see the latest prices and see who has already done what? Of course technology won’t be the be-all, end-all, but you have to agree it’s much better than email threads and excel revisions.
I think Shaun’s point is that your problem is poor management of the process, not a lack of technology. Throwing a tool at the problem isn’t going to solve it.
With that said, I know you’re against the spreadsheet solution but if you took control of your process you could do most of this with a Google Spreadsheet and give everyone access to it through their Internet browser so you wouldn’t have to worry about out of date information being out there.
