I rate blogging as the number 1 element in a CRM Strategy for one reason, instant gratification. I have always been a huge proponent of instant gratification, from the afternoon coffee buzz to twitter. I think that blogging is a solid platform to create and distribute your message or content, and get it in front of your audience so that they can feel your social capital. Blogs are by design informal, they open your organization up and personalize how your audience experiences your message. Blogs are a great tool when you have a story to tell. Anyone who uses the internet can manage a blog, so that the technical costs associated with telling your audience your story are low.

Today's customer demands that online merchandising be relevant to them without being intrusive. Online retailers have to be flexible enough to recognize this and act on it. Each section of the website of any major online retailer has a specific audience profile, different demographics, age groups, social and economic backgrounds, etc. Obviously the customer demographic for videogames is different from the kitchen appliances demographic, and yet the items are displayed in the same environment on most major online retail sites. If the environment can be customized at the individual store level, why aren't these same stores customizing their web environments accordingly?

Are you in search of the optimal 2 digits to fix after the price of each item you are selling online?

Before you set your price point cents, you should consider three things.

1. Should price point cents vary for discounted products?

2. What impact will the cents have on my key performance indicators(KPI) like sales revenue, net profits, ROI or market share?

3. Does your inventory / POS system support multi-tiered pricing across discounted products?

My favorite attention getting example is this simple math problem.

1,000,000 transactions times .11 cents = $110,000
If you set your price point cents at .88 versus .99 you will leave $110,000 dollars of potential revenue in the garbage can.

So, your long term pricing plan should monitor your competition in local markets, which will enable you to optimize price points intelligently.