Retention Edge E31: Stop guessing - let customers tell you the price

The topic of pricing is at the same time simple… and not.

On one hand, it’s just math. COGS + markup.

In reality, though, there are a lot of minute details and lot of testing that go into settling on the perfect price point (I’ve definitely found that in my business).

But what if the biggest mistake in ecommerce pricing isn't setting the wrong price - it's setting a price at all?

This week I sat down with Slava Sabirov, founder of Batna, to talk about something I hadn't encountered before: letting customers negotiate their own deals in real time.

Not coupons or flash sales or bundles. An actual multi-step dialogue where the system figures out the optimal deal for each individual buyer.

It challenged a lot of assumptions I had about how pricing should work.

Here are the top takeaways from a fascinating conversation, and the thought behind Slava’s unique approach.

Fixed pricing is guesswork (especially in fashion)

Pricing is mostly art, not science.

If you're selling consumer goods that don't change much season to season, you can gradually find optimal price points through data.

But fashion? You're swapping out your entire assortment once or twice a year. Every new SKU is a guess.

How much is this jacket worth, but in gray? How about a slightly different shade? The demand could differ by 10x, and you have no way of knowing until it hits shelves.

Slava's argument is that the biggest pricing mistake brands make is not making it personal. Because value is deeply subjective - two customers looking at the same product will have completely different willingness to pay.

A fixed price captures some of them and loses the rest.

This resonated with me. We talk so often about personalizing the shopping experience; personalized recommendations, personalized emails, personalized landing pages.

But the price itself? That's still one-size-fits-all for most brands.

A dialogue captures more value than any fixed price

Here's how Batna actually works.

On the product page, next to the normal "Add to Cart" button, there's a second button. The customer clicks it, enters a price they're willing to pay, and starts a multi-step negotiation with the system.

The system is more than just haggling. It's doing two things:

• Understanding the customer's willingness to pay through the conversation itself; no CRM data, no purchase history, nothing. Just the dialogue.

• Running a real-time valuation of every SKU based on demand velocity, stock levels, and how that product compares to others in the catalog.

If the customer's offer makes sense against that valuation, the deal goes through.

If not, the system counters - often by requiring the customer to add another item to unlock the discount. That second item is also selected based on real-time valuation, which means it helps move slower stock.

The results: negotiated orders are 30-54% larger than non-negotiated orders. That's not a typo.

You don't need customer data to personalize a deal

This one surprised me. I asked Slava whether purchase history and CRM data would improve the system. His answer was basically: probably, but by less than 20%.

The dialogue itself is that powerful. The back-and-forth tells the system everything it needs to know about this person's price sensitivity in this moment, for this product.

They don't track who they've negotiated with before. They don't pull Shopify customer profiles. They don't need it.

Slava acknowledged there's room for improvement here - tracking repeat negotiators, building behavioral profiles - but the point stands: the real-time conversation is a better signal than historical data.

Most personalization tools try to predict what a customer wants based on past behavior. Batna just asks them.

There's something refreshingly direct about that.

Salespeople will always give away the maximum discount

One of the most important things Slava said, especially for anyone running physical retail: if you give salespeople the power to discount, they will always give the maximum.

Every time. Because their incentive is revenue, not margin.

If they can do 10% off, they'll do 10% off. They don't care that you'd have closed the deal at 5%.

Batna's system does the opposite. It's optimized to give the smallest possible discount that still converts the sale. And it's surprisingly good at detecting when someone is negotiating for fun versus genuinely price-sensitive.

Those "just trying my luck" customers? The system still finds a way to convert them (usually through a bundled deal that works for both sides).

This is a real problem in brick and mortar that most brands just accept as a cost of doing business. Slava's team has gotten up to 80% of in-store transactions coming through negotiations. All profitable for the retailer.

Final thoughts

It’s rare that someone comes along with an app or a service that’s completely different to what anyone else is doing.

Slava’s take on pricing certainly did that.

The big takeaway here is that pricing doesn't have to be a guessing game followed by damage control. There's a version of this where every customer gets a deal that works for them, and for you.

Whether you use Batna or not, the insight is worth sitting with: your customers already know what they're willing to pay. The question is whether you're asking them.

Catch the full episode on YouTube or Spotify. Like, share, comment if you found it useful or heard anything the piqued your interest.

We’ll be back later in the week with more to help you grow & scale your brand the right way.

— Pietro