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We're excited to announce that the next version of BlackCurve is now live. This release, called 'Big Ben', gives users more flexibility in setting up additional pricing levels (i.e. your price waterfall), as well as making it easier to bulk price customers by assigning them to customer profiles. 

Pricing is a journey, and you should always be looking to tweak and fine-tune your pricing, as well as seeking to understand if your overall pricing strategy is working. This post covers 9 indicators that may be telling you it’s time for a change in your pricing plan.

It's 28th November 2016, and we're pleased to bring to the world a series of enhancements to the BlackCurve platform which include:

Many industry leaders use Configure Price Quote (CPQ) software to inject speed and accuracy into their sales engines. Now could be the time for you to make a strategic investment in quoting software to increase your operational efficiency and give your company profits a real boost.

Even if a lot of our high streets are suffering from the competition offered from ecommerce sites, shoppers are still willing to visit a "real-live" shop and be tempted to purchase if the prices to them seem reasonable and competitive.

It's a misconception that online prices will always be cheaper – and there's nothing tempts shoppers to part with their hard-earned cash more than an attractive shop window display or instore promotions.

Monte Carlo Simulation (also known as the Monte Carlo Method) provides a comprehensive view of what may happen in the future using computerised mathematical techniques that allow people to account for risk in quantitative analysis and decision making.  It tells you not only what could happen, but how likely it is to happen.

Feeling downhearted that you can't compete with the "major players" in the Ecommerce world? OK, so you're not going to take on Amazon anytime soon but there are other canny ways to compete - and it all starts with thinking about, then developing, a competitive ecommerce pricing strategy.

Ever wondered what Configure Price Quote (CPQ) is? Have you thought about using CPQ but don't know how to implement it?

Due to popular demand, the very best BlackCurve CPQ blog posts were expanded with additional strategies and put together in this practical pricing guide called 'Your 3 Step Guide to CPQ'.

You can download it here.

Cost-plus pricing is a common approach to pricing used by many B2B/B2C businesses, probably because it's easy to calculate and implement: in order to reach your cost-plus price you simply add up all the costs of production or manufacture, set a desired margin for each unit and add that margin onto your cost. Voila, you have your price!

Hot off the press is our latest guide for online retailers entitled: 'The Ecommerce Pricing Guide'.

You can download it here.

Whatever business you are in you can use distinct or combinations of different pricing methods dependent on your business objective(s). A successful pricing strategy can be used to maximise profitability for each unit sold or from the market overall. It can also be used to defend an existing market from new entrants, to increase market share within a market or to enter a new market.

Our in-house researcher, Moira McCormick, has been working hard at producing the latest guide 'Pricing Guide for Manufacturers'. It is now available to download.

Manufacturers face their own unique pricing challenges with ever-changing products and demand.

It's a real conundrum to accurately estimate a fair market value for manufactured products whilst at the same time managing to keep a close eye on the bottom-line. Just keeping the whole process ticking over can be an achievement in itself ; looking forward to a healthy profit at the end of a revised pricing process should provide momentum and be an added bonus in these difficult times.

This post was sparked off the back of a tweet I was shown by my good friend Doug Ayling, when we were debating, over a pint of course, why some software companies don’t show their pricing.

Competitive-based pricing, or market-oriented pricing, involves setting a price based upon an analysis of what the competition is up to pricing-wise. You can choose to price-match - or price your goods higher or lower, dependent on what your overall business goals are and how you wish your product to be perceived.