1 Introduction

RPM is a pricing and promotions execution system. RPM's functionality includes the definition, maintenance, and review of price changes, clearances and promotions. The system's capabilities range from simple item price changes at a single location to multi-buy promotions across zones.

RPM contains three primary pricing execution dialogs for creating and maintaining regular price changes, clearances, and promotions. Although each of the three pricing activities is unique, the system displays these dialogs using a common look and feel. Each of these dialogs uses the conflict checking engine, which leverages RPM's future retail table.

The future retail table provides a forward looking view of all pending approved pricing events affecting an item at a given location. RPM pricing events are defined against the zone structure. The zone structure represents groups of locations organized to support a retailers pricing strategy. RPM allows the user to break out of the zone structure and create location level events as needed.

RPM supports the definition and application of price guides to these pricing events. Price guides allow the retailer to smooth retails and provide ends in logic to derive a final consumer price.

RPM pricing strategies allow the user to define clearance and regular item retails based on rules-based logic. Price changes are proposed in a pricing worksheet, and the user reviews and accepts them. The pricing worksheet gives the retailer access to future and price events at the item/zone level, which can be helpful in making pricing decisions. Depending on the items affected, pricing strategies can be defined at the department, class or subclass level. Types of strategies include margin based, competitor driven and proposed (as clearance markdowns).

The system also supports area differential pricing strategies for regular retail price changes. This functionality allows a retailer to define pricing relationships that ease pricing maintenance across the organization.

Note: The Oracle Retail Security Manager (RSM) is a module embedded within RPM. References to RSM as a standalone entity within this guide are intended to provide the user a better technical understanding of its configuration and functional role, but from a packaging and product release perspective, RSM only exists as a module of the RPM application.