Giant Food Stores, LLC has added fuel pricing to its cache of consumer demand management solutions - for which it just renewed its license -- to manage fuel pricing for 61 Giant fuel locations in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia.

The grocer chose KSS Inc.'s PriceNet, PriceNet Mobile, and Visualizer solutions for its fuel pricing.

"In today's fuel environment, it's vital to have accurate and reliable information at our fingertips to make important, competitive business decisions as market conditions change," noted the Ahold division's v.p. for general merchandise, health and beauty care, and fuel Todd Patti. "The PriceNet, PriceNet Mobile, and Visualizer software from KSS provides the flexibility we need to create a responsive fuel-pricing process that we can monitor and adjust as needed."

PriceNet is an end-to-end pricing solution supporting the key tasks and stakeholders involved in retail fuels pricing, ranging from capturing field-based intelligence at the site level to the generation of price proposals, through comprehensive pricing rules or price optimization, to consistent and timely implementation.

PriceNet Mobile allows users to enter competitor prices and quickly get new price proposals that are sent directly to their mobile device for approval and implementation. Additionally, PriceNet Mobile users can review key performance measures and get exception-based performance alerts, shortening the delays in responding to market events and/or competitor price changes that could cost retailers lost volume, margin, or price image.

KSS Visualizer is a Web-based data visualization tool that gives retailers and wholesalers central visibility of their fuel operations at any level, from the entire enterprise to a store-by-store basis. The solution helps users track individual store performance against predetermined goals, thus supplying the information needed to make fast business decisions. It also quickly draws attention to major changes in such key performance measures as volume, running rates, margins, and competitor price position.

In other demand management news, for in-store pricing and promotion optimization Giant-Carlisle renewed its contract for DemandTec's Everyday Price Management, Promotion Planning & Optimization, and Deal Management software services. Giant has been a DemandTec customer since 2005.

"Giant-Carlisle is renewing its contract with DemandTec because of the improvements in productivity we've realized since implementing the technology," said Ron Domenick, s.v.p. of non-perishables at Giant-Carlisle. "DemandTec has helped automate the entire price and promotion business process for all categories throughout our stores."

Giant-Carlisle uses Everyday Price Management to streamline its price management process with rules-based pricing, price maintenance, and price execution. It's also implementing Promotion Planning & Optimization to plan promotions that better meet its business objectives based on a scientific understanding of consumer response to discounts, advertisements, and in-store displays, as well as other demand drivers. The retailer uses the Deal Management module to streamline trade funds presentation, negotiation, and reconciliation processes.

According to DemandTec, 98 percent of Giant-Carlisle's vendor deals are negotiated via the Deal Management service on the DemandTec TradePoint Network.

Giant operates stores in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia under the Giant Food Stores, Martin's Food Markets, and FoodSource banners.