Impact Pricing · 5 Oct 2026 · From the week of 5 October
Is Your Business Healthy? Your Pricing May Have the Answer with John Gilbo
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In brief
Host Mark Stiving interviews John Gilbo, Sales Director for North America, Australia and New Zealand at retail pricing software vendor QuickLizard, who previously led pricing at Kirkland's, Academy Sports + Outdoors and Safeway. They cover how Gilbo sells pricing software to retailers: problem-first discovery, honest disqualification, and making ROI believable with ranges and break-even numbers rather than leading with headline multiples. He explains how QuickLizard keeps delivering value after year one by tackling one pricing problem at a time (often markdowns first), and how retailers can handle tariffs, AI-driven pricing models and customer segmentation. His central argument is that pricing deserves a regular health check, because outdated processes and slow reactions quietly leak margin.
For founders
- Gilbo makes ROI believable by showing prospects a range from consultant high-end claims down to historical bands, plus a break-even hurdle, rather than leading with a headline figure like 25X that can sound salesy.
- Mark Stiving's pitch of a pricing system as '5% of revenue in pure profit' failed to convince a CEO. Years later, at another company in a similar situation, he succeeded by going to each affected stakeholder, quantifying specific problems, and bringing those to leadership.
- QuickLizard prices its subscription and implementation aggressively to remove price as a barrier, and uses internal agentic AI tools to make implementations faster and cheaper; Stiving countered that a 25X ROI suggests they could charge more.
- To sustain value after year one, Gilbo lands with a single problem such as markdowns, builds trust with early-adopter teams, then expands into everyday pricing and promotions.
- Gilbo recommends a periodic pricing health check because many companies still run pricing on Excel or a 10-to-15-year-old system, and the fix may be a process change rather than new software or a big consulting spend.
For revenue leaders
- Gilbo opens discovery by mapping the prospect's go-to-market (everyday pricing vs. high-low promotion, seasonality, markdowns) before proposing any solution.
- Gilbo disqualifies openly when a prospect is too simple, has too few SKUs, too little revenue or no team, telling them the cost would outweigh the value.
- Gilbo advises multi-threading a deal across IT, the CFO group, business teams and merchants, though he admits he sometimes forgets to do it.
- On tariffs, Gilbo describes retailers that pass cost increases through selectively, taking less on top-moving items and best customers and more on slow-moving, less elastic items and infrequent shoppers.
- Gilbo notes that success metrics can be relative: one prospect expecting a 3-4% market margin decline defines winning as losing only 1-2%.
What was said 21, most useful first
Gilbo makes pricing ROI credible by presenting a range and a break-even hurdle instead of leading with his biggest ROI number.
He doesn't quantify returns on the first call. Later he shows what consultants say pricing can deliver (the high end), bands of what QuickLizard has achieved historically, and break-even numbers so the prospect sees the hurdle, then discusses the gaps between them. He avoids opening with the 25X figure because it can come across as salesy, comparing it to starting with a 5K rather than an Ironman.
“I like to give them in bands of what we've done historically. I like to give them break even numbers so they can see, look, here's what you've got a hurdle. And then I like to have a nice dialogue about the deltas there.”
QuickLizard prices its subscription and implementation aggressively so that price is never the reason a retailer delays.
Gilbo says retail deals compete with many other projects, such as a new warehouse, ERP system or store growth, which he can't control. Price is the one factor he can control, so QuickLizard keeps both the annual subscription and implementation cost low to lower the barrier to entry, aiming to be a long-term partner. He says they tightened costs for the first year and for later years.
“I can control pricing. And it's one thing I like to try to bring to the table and try to make a non-factor when I'm in a nice sales cycle with a partner.”
Stiving's pitch for a pricing system failed when framed as a percentage of revenue and succeeded when built from quantified stakeholder problems.
At a semiconductor company, Stiving pitched a new pricing system as returning 5% of revenue as pure profit and could not convince the CEO. Years later, in a similar situation, he went to every person who cared about pricing, found their specific problems, and quantified what each was costing. Leadership then readily agreed to buy. He frames it as making value believable through specific problems, in line with his view that value is the result of solving problems.
“I went around to every person that cared and figured out what their problems were with pricing. And I was able to quantify, hey, this is costing us this much and this one's costing us this much. And I went in with specific problems back to the leadership team and they're like, oh yeah, we got to get this.”
Some pricing software clients define success as losing less margin than the market, not as gaining margin.
Gilbo described a soon-to-be client that fears its market margin will fall 3-4% next year. Its goal is to limit the decline to 1-2%, which it calls 'beat the market'. He says the value delivered depends on each client's objectives.
“they're fearful their market margin is going to go down three or four percent in the next year. Their goal is not to go up. Their goal is to only go down one or two. They're calling it beat the market.”
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Retailers should not pass the same tariff cost increase across every product and customer.
He describes the approaches he sees. Some retailers raise prices more than the cost increase to keep their margin percentage; some pass on the dollar amount; others avoid a 'peanut butter spread'. In the granular approach, top-moving items take less than the full increase, which is passed instead to slow-moving, less elastic items, and best customers take a smaller pass-through than infrequent shoppers.
“Some are not taking a peanut butter spread approach, but they're getting more granular into whether it's items, right top moving items. They might not take the full amount and pass it on to slow moving items, things that are less elastic.”
Gilbo starts retail pricing sales conversations by mapping how the prospect goes to market on price before pitching anything.
He first asks whether the retailer sells mainly through everyday pricing (a Walmart-esque model with infrequent promos) or high-low promotion like some grocers, whether it has seasonality and one-time buys, and whether it relies on markdowns. He says markdowns can be a huge drag on margin and a lot of work to manage. He describes his role as coming in to solve problems rather than sell.
“I just try to understand how they go to market to their end consumer from a pricing perspective. And then I just try to come, I truthfully just come to be a problem solver”
Gilbo openly tells prospects when he thinks the cost of his pricing software would exceed the value they would get.
If he doesn't think QuickLizard can help, he may take one more meeting and then tell the prospect directly. His disqualifiers are low complexity, selling only a few SKUs, insufficient revenue, or not having the team in place. He frames this as being open, honest and not pushy.
“either they're not complex enough or sometimes they only sell a few SKUs or their revenues not enough. They don't have the team in place. I'll just be honest with them that there's a gap for what I think the cost versus the value would return.”
It is not uncommon for QuickLizard's retail clients to see 25X ROI on its pricing platform.
He attributes this partly to QuickLizard pricing aggressively and partly to thin retail margins, where a revenue lift has an outsized effect on the margin line. Stiving's illustrative example was moving gross margin from 5% to 7%.
“It's not uncommon for us to see 25X ROI from our platforms, but I don't always go in day one with that number because that can come off as salesy”
Mark Stiving argued, half-jokingly, that a vendor delivering 25X ROI is underpricing its product.
Stiving responded to Gilbo's 25X ROI figure and the aggressive pricing behind it by saying that return level signals QuickLizard should charge more. Gilbo deflected with a joke.
“Just knowing that, you're not pricing enough. You need to charge more.”
Gilbo recommends multi-threading pricing deals across IT, finance, business teams and merchants, but admits he doesn't always do it.
He calls this a '360 approach' to reaching both blockers and advocates. He lists the IT team, the CFO group (for ROI), business teams and merchants. He notes you can't always get access and that salespeople sometimes simply forget.
“You want to hit the IT teams, the CFO group to talk about, you know, the ROI, the business teams, the merchants. You want to cover off on all of that. And it's one, you can't always get access, but two, you forget like you're human.”
QuickLizard sustains value beyond year one by solving one pricing problem at a time, often starting with markdowns, then expanding.
Asked how to keep clients happy once a margin gain becomes the new baseline, Gilbo said retailers don't tackle everything at once. For an apparel and footwear retailer, QuickLizard might start with markdown optimization before touching everyday pricing or promotions, build trust, onboard early-adopter category teams, and then add AI or rules-based models. He describes sustained value as constantly looking at what's next.
“So you start with a project, solve Markdown, build some trust, get the team on board, and sometimes all category teams won't go at once. So it's a process where you're bringing on the early adopters, getting some things moving.”
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Store-level markdowns based on sell-through beat a uniform chain-wide markdown.
Instead of a 'vanilla spread' markdown across the chain for an item that isn't selling, he advises getting granular. Stores where it sells well may need no markdown, while stores where it isn't selling should go deeper and sooner. He says using sell-through data and reacting faster can provide a huge benefit.
“Some stores it's selling well, you don't need to mark it down at all. Some stores you should probably take it deeper. sooner because it's not selling at all. So getting more granular, using sell-through data, reacting quicker can really provide a huge benefit.”
The main tariff problem for many retailers is margin leakage from reacting too slowly to cost changes.
He says many companies cannot react fast enough to tariff-driven cost changes, especially if they rely on spreadsheets or manual methods. QuickLizard automates the price response when tariff changes come in, so the gain is avoided margin leakage rather than new margin.
“A lot of companies are unable to react to those fast enough. And instead of you know, margin gains, it's really avoiding the margin leakage that's been happening.”
QuickLizard pairs implementation and a lifetime customer success manager with platform strategy help, but positions itself short of a strategy consultancy.
Gilbo says the implementation team is involved from day one, and each client has a CSM for the life of the contract who helps with using the platform, setting up strategies and rules, and getting the most out of it. They don't act as classic strategic consultants. Clients state the strategy they want and QuickLizard implements it, including what-if forecasting and scenario planning of the impact.
“from the life of the contract, you have a customer success manager that can help with the consulting side of, I would say more around how do you leverage our platform, how to set up strategies in our platform”
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QuickLizard uses agentic AI tools on its implementation process, which Gilbo credits for faster and cheaper implementations.
He says incoming client data is always an issue and a common slow point. Agentic tools sit on top of the implementation process to streamline it and find data errors. He gives this as one reason implementations are faster and less expensive than in the past.
“one of the reasons our implementations are faster and not as expensive as in the past. We have a lot of agentic tools sitting on top of that process to streamline it, to find errors and data is always an issue”
Gilbo describes pricing models that use inventory and sell-through as triggers for price changes and promotions.
If an item is low on inventory and selling well, the model can raise the price. If the retailer is falling behind plan on sell-through, it can trigger a promotion or a regular price change. These triggers are configurable per client.
“low on inventory and it's selling well bump the pricing up or vice versa. We're not meeting plan, we're falling behind ourselves through rates, trigger a promotion, trigger a regular price change”
Retailers with customer-level data typically give their most loyal segment more weight in pricing and merchandising decisions.
Using Safeway as an example, he describes segmenting customers into tiers, such as best shoppers who visit about three times a week, versus a long tail who visit once a month. Many companies weight the loyal segment more heavily in pricing, assortment and merchandising. QuickLizard can ingest a client's segmentation as a factor in its models.
“a lot of companies would wait those loyal customers with a little bit more, you know, you put more weight behind how we would price for them and the decision making around how you would merchandise for them”
Gilbo recommends a regular pricing health check, noting that the fix is often a process change rather than new software or major consulting.
He says teams routinely review category and business health and should do the same for pricing. He still meets many companies running pricing only in Excel, or on a solution installed 10 to 15 years ago that has never been enhanced. He advises looking with fresh eyes and uncovering processes, since the fix may not need software, a big consultant spend or a strategy change.
“I still talk to a lot of people that use Excel only or they've had a pricing solution in place for the last 10, 15 years and they haven't looked to enhance it. Just like anything, look at it with fresh eyes. It could be just a process thing, not needed with software.”
In Gilbo's experience, margin gained through better pricing was usually reinvested in categories or stores that were out of alignment.
He says that when his teams captured value through pricing, they typically reinvested it in a category or set of stores to fix something misaligned in the other direction. He ties this back to value for the end customer, not just the retailer. Stiving summed it up as: without margin you can't reinvest.
“When we'd reap some value in based on pricey we we'd reinvest it in a category or a set of stores and You know try to take care of something that was out of alignment in the other way.”
Gilbo describes QuickLizard's use of AI as a three-legged stool: pricing models, internal agentic tools, and a natural-language UI.
The first leg is configurable models (seasonality, elasticity, and any dynamic attribute such as inventory) that set prices, plus AI for matching items in scraped competitor data and flagging which items to promote. The second is internal agentic tools used for the product roadmap, QA and bug fixes, and implementation. The third is natural-language agentic capabilities in the product UI, which he says they are enhancing continually.
“So that's kind of the core of almost like a three-legged stool is the way I explain it to our clients”
Gilbo warns that pricing data analysis can become a rabbit hole where analysts lose sight of the original question.
Speaking from a prior role working with customer segmentation data, he said you can keep slicing data without coming up and forget what you were asked at the start. He described needing to come up for air.
“you can kind of just go down a rabbit hole and never come up and you're slicing data, slicing data, slicing data. you forget what question you were asked at the beginning, and then you had to come up for air.”