the promo plan that picks itself.
how a major european grocer took promo margin from 17% to 27% across four DACH fulfilment centres - by picking smarter, not cutting deeper.
promos picked on gut feel, priced to clear.
across four dach fulfilment centres, promo nominations were made every week - and largely on gut feel.
the demand forecast over‑estimated promo uplift by 9–14× on average, so discount depth became the only reliable lever: cut deep enough and the stock clears.
promo share of net revenue sat at 7.6%, and margin quietly diluted by discounting that wasn't aimed at anything in particular.
a system, not a dashboard.
map
we traced how nominations actually got made across the four fcs - the data buyers leaned on, the data they ignored, and where the 9–14× forecast error came from. the lever was always depth; the full constraint picture was never in the room.
- nomination tracing
- forecast‑error analysis
- constraint mapping
build
an agent that pulls campaigns, supplier agreements, sales history and pricing from the data warehouse every day - then builds the optimal promo portfolio per fc, balancing margin, depth, supplier mix and inventory, and writes it back into the promo system.
- portfolio agent
- warehouse integration
- write‑back to promo system
embed
same buyers, same suppliers - different prep. the agent does the constraint math every cycle; the team makes the calls and tunes the objectives, now with the whole picture in front of them.
- buyer enablement
- objective tuning
- ongoing support
we didn't discount harder. we discounted smarter - and tripled promo revenue while margin held.
tripled promo revenue. margin held.
over a five‑week window - iso weeks 9 to 13 - promo margin moved from 17% to 27%. ten points, worth about €2.6m annualised.
promo revenue tripled in the same window: +275%, +€6.43m. total margin held at roughly 32% - and discount depth was slightly lower than before.
the lift didn't come from cutting deeper. it came from picking better - the agent weighing the full constraint set every cycle, where a person could only ever see the headline campaigns.