SACRAMENTO, Calif. — AVB Marketing has launched a enhancement to its automated merchandising platform that allows retailers to control the bundling of individual products, and dynamic pricing automation ensures package pricing will never be obsolete when displayed on the retailer’s ALTA website.
Designed with feedback from a focus group of AVB/BrandSource members, LINQ Package Builder allows the independent retailer to bundle individual products together into a package with cumulative pricing summing the total of the package components, giving members a low effort/high reward tool in “the up-sell and cross-sell potential for these packages and their associated components,” according to the home furnishings buying group.
Prior to the release all independent retailers using AVB’s LINQ system as their merchandising platform had to rely on globally merchandised packages and/or submit a request for packaging product. Now all members using the LINQ system on a the group’s Commerce (or above) ALTA website level will have access to create custom packages and pricing by self-serving within the platform. They will no longer need to submit requests or rely on globally merchandised packages.
BrandSource said Package Builder works for all products in the buying groups catalog, including furniture.
With this release, all images, manuals, and spec sheets will follow the associated simple products into a bundle SKU and retailers will have the option to supersede cumulative package pricing with overrides and rules. In addition, the implementation of status automation has been included in the rollout, meaning that if any of the component products are inactive in the catalog, the package will also be inactive. This fail-safe ensures that packages with “out of stock” or discontinued products do not show on the retailer’s ALTA website solution.
Custom package creation, released on September 22, 2021, will be available to all retailers on an ALTA Commerce or higher-level website. Vendor packages created globally by AVBM are available to all ALTA website levels. BrandSource members can learn more about this latest feature release in LINQ or see if they qualify for this feature at their current ALTA website level by reaching out to their AVB Marketing representative or emailing marketing@avb.net.