Consumer Products and Distribution
Every SKU, every channel. Priced and tracked properly.
Dynamic Pricing built for catalogues that run to thousands of lines, from branded consumer goods to aftermarket parts distribution. ERP, eCommerce and warehouse data in one place so margin questions get answered by SKU, not by gut.
Typical issues PE faces in consumer and distribution
Not the warehouse's problems. The four that land on the fund, and that we find in almost every catalogue business we open up.
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Nobody knows what a SKU actually costs
Landed cost, freight, duty, marketplace fees and returns sit in different systems and get allocated once a year across the group. Every pricing and range decision in the hold is made without it.
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Every bolt-on brings another ERP
The buy-and-build runs into three ERPs and two third-party warehouses. Consolidated reporting becomes a monthly reconciliation and the synergy case slips a quarter at a time.
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Working capital is invisible until it is a problem
Stock cover lives in the ERP, the storefront and the warehouse, and the three never agree. You are overstocked and out of stock in the same week, in the same channel.
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One price, several channels
Trade, direct and marketplace would each bear something different. Holding one price across them is not a decision anybody made, and it is the fastest margin in the hold.
What it runs on
Six layers, and our engineers have configured systems in all of them on real lines. The names are what a plant actually has, not a wish list.
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ERP
- NetSuite
- Microsoft Dynamics 365
- Cin7
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Commerce and marketplace
- Shopify
- Amazon Seller Central
- Faire
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Warehouse and logistics
- Manhattan
- ShipStation
- 3PL integrations
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Pricing and demand
- Databricks
- Power BI
- Python and dbt
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CRM and marketing
- HubSpot
- Salesforce
- Klaviyo
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Cloud and identity
- Microsoft Azure
- Entra ID
- Microsoft 365
Third-party names are listed so you can see what we work in. They are the property of their respective owners and imply no endorsement.
What we do about it
In this order, because pricing on cost data nobody trusts is how a commercial team learns to ignore the tool.
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Make the three counts agree
ERP, storefront and warehouse on one definition of a unit, so a stock number means one thing across the group.
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Build true cost per line
Freight, duty, marketplace fees and returns allocated to the SKU that incurred them, monthly, not to the group once a year.
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Price by channel, on evidence
Headroom by SKU and channel, each recommendation carrying the reason for it, so the commercial lead can defend the change.
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Make the next bolt-on report in weeks
One integration path, written down and repeated, so the fourth acquisition is not the first one again.
You have an analyst and an outsourced IT provider. Neither owns this.
Both are doing the job they were hired for. Neither was hired for the space between the ERP, the storefront and the warehouse, which is where all of this lives.
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The analyst is the reporting layer
Everything the board sees is one person's spreadsheet, and it stops when they are on holiday.
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Your provider is contracted for uptime
Helpdesk and infrastructure, not margin data and not an ERP migration. Asking is a change order, not a conversation.
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The joins belong to nobody
The ERP is one supplier's, the storefront another's, the warehouse a third. The gaps between them are unowned by design.
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A change nobody can defend does not happen
Without cost data the commercial team will not move on price, and they are right not to.
Value creation
What we do across a consumer hold, and where each one lands in the numbers a buyer checks.
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Price, on the evidence
The fastest margin available in a hold and the only one that needs no capital, once the cost data underneath it is trusted.
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Working capital out of stock
Cover by SKU and channel that all three systems agree on, which is the difference between a buffer and a write-down.
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Bolt-ons that report on day one
One integration path, so the synergy case in the paper lands on the timetable it was written to.
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A margin story a buyer can verify
By SKU and by channel, from systems rather than from a workbook, which is what stops it being discounted in diligence.
Neurotic AI Platform, on your catalogue
The same product every portfolio company gets, carrying the screens a commercial team opens and nobody else does. Asked in the words used in a trading meeting.
Ask Which SKUs are priced below what the channel will bear?
A block of fast movers, all in the same channel.
Headroom to recommended price
SKUs under review
- SKU 41-220 raise
- SKU 41-318 raise
- SKU 62-104 hold
The change is that a margin question stops costing an analyst a week. A buyer can ask what a line actually makes in a channel and get the answer in the meeting, with the cost components underneath it, which is what makes a price change something the commercial lead will sign.
AI intelligent dashboards
We build these quickly, and to your business: dashboards that let you see margin by line and by channel, and catch a product losing money long before the quarter closes — with the alerts and notifications that go with them, so a number that moves finds you rather than waiting to be found.
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Margin by SKU
True margin per line after freight, duty, fees and returns, rather than gross margin with a group allocation on top.
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Price recommendations
Where the headroom is by SKU and channel, each recommendation carrying the reason for it.
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Channel performance
Trade, direct and marketplace side by side on the same definition of a sale.
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Stock cover
Cover by SKU and channel that the ERP, the storefront and the warehouse all agree on.
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Returns
What comes back, from where, and which lines it quietly makes unprofitable.
These are the five a commercial team asks for first. The screens are built to the catalogue, not chosen from a menu, so a dashboard you need and cannot find anywhere on this list is the ordinary case rather than a special one.
Where to start
A two week audit. One document. No obligation.
Fixed scope, fixed price. It reads your systems and tells you what is wrong, what each fix costs, and what to do first. You keep the report either way.
What it turns up
- Licences paid for and not used
- Firewall rules nobody has reviewed since install
- Administrator accounts with no owner
- Reports built on a source that stopped updating
- An integration failing quietly, nobody alerted
What it reads live
- Licences, systems and what they cost waiting
- Network, remote access and segmentation waiting
- Cloud tenant, identity and admin rights waiting
- Core systems and how they connect waiting
- Reporting, data quality and access waiting
One document: what is wrong, what it costs to fix, and what to fix first.