Reiser's Pieces: Sustaining Price Integrity in a Transparent Marketplace

Remember how Mondays used to start? Walmart’s weekly Beats Report would hit your inbox, and you held your breath. If your item price had been beaten somewhere else, you knew what came next: price-protection conversations, maybe an unplanned Rollback, and an awkward huddle with finance. As a Walmart buyer, I watched that same ritual play out with every vendor. Back then, the week had a tempo. Today, the clock never stops.

Sophisticated AI price monitoring and Amazon’s algorithm have turned a weekly pulse into a live wire. There’s no hiding, no pause button. A single low price anywhere can echo everywhere. Amazon isn’t just comparing UPCs. It matches by price per unit across families, sizes, and formats. If it’s published, assume it’s visible. That’s how a weekend deal becomes the market price by Tuesday—and why frequent price promotions can punch holes in price integrity that take weeks to close.

Feeling pressed? You’re not alone. Across categories, manufacturers say their number one pain point is maintaining price integrity across channels. Transparency, algorithmic matching, and relentless promotions are pulling prices lower, and keeping them there.

The ripple effects are real: Margin erosion, brand dilution strained retailer relationships. Add third-party sellers and it’s no surprise that even strong brands struggle to hold the line.

Our first instinct? Fight price with price. But that sprint ends painfully. Undisciplined promotions, club packs without guardrails, and siloed, account-by-account decisions only fuel the fire. Decisions made for one account trigger price cuts in others. Swapping counts without changing consumer value doesn’t fool unit-level matching. And single-use promo codes? They get scraped and spread, with leaks everywhere. Those old “configuration tricks”? They rarely work now.

So how do you win? Not by chasing price drops. Instead, rebuild discipline in an always-on marketplace.

Leaders now treat price integrity as a capability, not a reaction. It’s part of their operating system—governed, data-driven, and strategically aligned.

They’re asking new questions:

• Who owns price in a transparent marketplace?

• How do we align Sales, Marketing, and Finance when one decision ripples everywhere?

• How should our assortment, price pack architecture, and promotional design evolve to defend value?

These are complex questions, with no one-size-fits-all answer. We’re helping many brands modernize MAP enforcement, rebuild governance, and protect brand equity in an AI-driven marketplace.

Quick example.

A mid-size health and wellness brand recently faced significant marketplace price erosion, hurting margin and retailer trust. By uncovering root causes of compression and defining targeted actions, they’ve begun regaining control of their narrative and profitability. They’re not done, but that clarity around the drivers, and a  roadmap to address them, has already put them on stronger footing.

Price integrity isn’t about being the lowest. It’s about being the clearest and most consistent. Shoppers reward that. Retailers appreciate it. Your P&L depends on it.

And if you miss those Monday Beats, think of it this way: They once told you where you stood after a weekend; today the feed updates every hour. The principle is the same. You may not beat the algorithm, but you can protect your brand. Those who listen and act with discipline will stay in rhythm with the market. As for the rest? The beat moves on without them.

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Jason Reiser is Chief Executive Officer, Market Performance Group