With AI-driven dynamic pricing and advanced price optimization, a leading Mexican pharmacy chain unlocked +$32.6M in margin, +$21.2M in revenue, and 1.06M additional units sold over three years.
Client
Modernizing Pricing for a Nationwide Pharmacy Leader
A leading pharmacy chain in Mexico wanted to modernize how it priced more than 70,000 SKUs across nearly 1,500 stores.
The business is known for:
- A broad portfolio spanning baby care, personal hygiene, OTC, snacks, beverages, and prescription (Rx) medicines
- A reputation for competitive pricing and strong customer service
- Cross-functional involvement in pricing from Analytics, Technology, Consulting, and Category teams
From 2022 onward, the retailer embarked on a multi-year pricing transformation, partnering on an AI-driven dynamic pricing approach that could scale across regions, categories, and formats.
Challenge
Balancing Margin, Revenue, And Market Share in Very Different Local Markets
Despite its strong market position, the retailer’s legacy pricing model was holding it back.
The company faced a classic tension: in some regions, it needed to defend or grow market share; in others, it needed to protect and expand margins. Yet its pricing playbook was largely uniform and reactive.
Key challenges included:
- One-size-fits-all pricing: Heavy reliance on competitor matching, with limited room to reflect local demand patterns or customer willingness to pay.
- Rule-based decisions and silos: Multiple departments influenced pricing with rule-based approaches that didn’t always align, creating inconsistencies and internal friction.
- Intuition-led practices: Pricing was driven by experience and habit rather than real-time, data-driven insights.
- Limited governance: The absence of centralized pricing governance made it harder to enforce strategy, resolve conflicts, or steer toward clear corporate goals.
The impact was tangible:
- Margin erosion in high-potential markets that could have supported more strategic retail pricing strategies
- Missed growth opportunities in emerging regions where sharper pricing could have accelerated market-share gains
- Slower response to competitive and market shifts, with decisions often lagging behind real-world dynamics
The retailer wanted to replace intuition with analytics, localize strategies by region and category, and do it all within a framework that respected approvals from its parent organization.
Solution
Dynamic Pricing Powered by Rapid Pricer: AI at the Heart of Pricing Decisions
To address these challenges, the retailer deployed Dynamic Pricing powered by Rapid Pricer—an AI-driven dynamic pricing solution that uses real-time pricing, demand analysis, and continuous learning.
The solution brought together advanced analytics, automation, and governance to build a sustainable pricing framework:
Data-driven, automated pricing engine with integrated retail analytics
- Automated collection and analysis of internal pricing, sales, and margin data
- Integration of competitive pricing data to understand relative positioning
- AI-based demand models that factored in seasonality, promotions, holidays, and longer-term trends
AI-powered pricing algorithms and continuous optimization
- Algorithms designed to balance margin, revenue, and market share objectives
- Continuous monitoring of performance, with dynamic price recommendations and scenario simulations
- Real-time updates that allowed the retailer to respond quickly to market moves and competitor actions
Tailored retail pricing strategies by region, store cluster, and category
- Custom pricing strategies for each store cluster, aligned to local consumer behavior and competitive intensity
- Clear category roles (traffic drivers, margin builders, strategic differentiators) to guide pricing moves
- Differentiated positioning for key product types, including high-volume and private-label SKUs
Close collaboration across teams
- The retailer’s Pricing, Technology, and Category teams worked in tandem with Rapid Pricer’s solution architects and data scientists
- Joint effort to integrate AI models into existing systems and workflows, ensuring adoption and usability
- SaaS-based deployment to support scalability, regional customization, and future expansion into new categories
The result wasn’t a one-time pricing “fix” but a multi-year transformation program that evolved from margin optimization to a more integrated strategy balancing revenue, profit, and market share.
Benefits
From Intuition to Impact: Measurable Value, Year After Year
The shift from intuition-led to AI-driven dynamic pricing delivered immediate and sustained benefits.
Operational and strategic benefits
- Consistent, aligned pricing across regions supported by pricing algorithms
- Reduced internal conflicts and clearer decision rights
- Stronger governance, with a transparent, rules-backed pricing framework
- Faster, better decisions
- Real-time dashboards and simulation tools to test “what-if” scenarios
- Quicker response to competitor moves and market changes
- Stronger category management
- Greater visibility into category-level performance and competitive dynamics
- Ability to position categories differently based on role and contribution
Financial impact (USD)
2022 – Margin Optimization Phase
- Margin: +$28M (+6.2%)
- Revenue: +$22M (+1.4%)
- Units sold: +505K (+3.6%)
2023 – Margin-Focused Strategy (Wave 1 & 2)
- Margin: +$4.2M (+6.7%)
- Revenue: –$1.81M (–1.0%), an intentional trade-off to prioritize profit
- Units sold: +217K (+1.0%)
2024 – Integrated Strategy (Revenue + Margin + Market Share)
- Margin: +$433K (+3.2%)
- Revenue: +$982K (+1.5%)
- Units sold: +338K (+2.7%)
Over three years, the retailer built a sustainable pricing engine that consistently delivered value while adapting to shifting business priorities.
Stronger partnership, stronger confidence
“Our experience working with RapidPricer was an excellent experience given that they delivered what they promised; they helped us improve our pricing strategies with the tools and process that they offered us.”
— Commercial & Business Strategy Leader, Mexican pharmacy chain
Behind the numbers, there’s also a cultural shift: pricing conversations are now anchored in data, simulations, and shared goals instead of gut feel and internal negotiation.
Summary
A Multi-year Pricing Transformation That Keeps Paying Off
This multi-year journey shows what’s possible when a retailer commits to AI-driven dynamic pricing as a strategic capability, not just a tactical tool.
With Dynamic Pricing powered by Rapid Pricer, the retailer has:
- Replaced fragmented, intuition-led pricing with a unified, data-driven framework
- Aligned margin, revenue, and market share goals across regions and categories
- Built a scalable SaaS-based foundation that supports:
- Expansion into seasonal and high-volume categories
- Deeper integration with promotions and inventory optimization
- Predictive analytics to anticipate competitor moves and market shifts
The result is a more agile, resilient pricing organization—one that can adapt to changing conditions while staying true to long-term growth and profitability goals.
Ready to move from intuition-led pricing to an AI-driven engine that balances margin, revenue, and market share?
Learn how Dynamic Pricing powered by Rapid Pricer can help you optimize prices across every store and category.
