Your product is on the shelf, distribution is growing, and revenue is coming in. But margin pressures are increasing, retailer feedback feels inconsistent, and your promotional calendar is beginning to look reactive. These may not be isolated challenges—they could be signs that your price architecture needs a serious review.
Pricing architecture is more than just what your product costs. It is the full structure behind how your products are priced across pack sizes, formats, channels, and customer segments. When it is not working, the symptoms appear quickly.
Here are five common red flags that tell you it is time to step back and realign your strategy.
Sales Are Up, but Margins Are Down
If top-line revenue looks healthy but profit margins continue to shrink, there may be a misalignment in how your products are priced or promoted. SmashBrand explains that price communicates value, and when products are underpriced in pursuit of trial or placement, it can create long-term financial stress.
Whether it is trade spend, slotting, or simply discounting too aggressively, your pricing strategy needs to account for both acquisition and sustainability. A margin decline without scale efficiency is a warning sign.
Your Price Pack Architecture Feels Unclear
Multiple formats with similar pricing. Inconsistent per-ounce values. Promotions that clash with everyday pricing. If your own team cannot clearly articulate your pricing logic, it is likely that consumers and retail partners are confused too.
According to Umbrex, strong price pack architecture is easy to understand and built around tiers, value, and usage occasions. This is not about pricing everything higher. It is about aligning format, volume, and value perception so your assortment makes strategic sense.
Retailers Are Giving Mixed Feedback
When one buyer says you are too expensive and another says you are underpriced, the issue may not be perception — it may be structure. If your price is inconsistent across regions or channels, or if your promo strategy lacks consistency, retail partners lose confidence.
At Come Sell or High Water, we work with brands to bring pricing strategy into alignment with retail needs. Our Process includes a pricing audit that evaluates everything from your promotional calendar to channel-by-channel strategy. When pricing is clean and coherent, sell-in conversations become much easier.
Your Promos Are Becoming More Frequent
Promotions are a tool, not a solution. If your velocity is increasingly reliant on price reductions, that may be a sign that base pricing is not delivering perceived value. You should not need constant discounting to drive trial or sustain sales.
We often use the Unit Economics Tool to help brands run sensitivity models on promo depth, price elasticity, and margin tradeoffs. The goal is not to eliminate promos. It is to ensure they are part of a healthy, scalable structure.
Your Product Assortment Is Expanding, but Pricing Strategy Hasn’t
New SKUs are great — unless they cannibalize your hero products or confuse buyers. Without a pricing strategy that considers the role of each SKU in your lineup, new launches can erode sales instead of lifting the brand.
When was the last time you evaluated how your three-ounce bag supports your twelve-ounce tub? When did you last compare your DTC pricing to your retail shelf price? If it has been more than a few months, now is the time.
Conclusion
If any of these signs feel familiar, you are not alone. Fast-growing brands often focus so much on scale that pricing gets left behind. But the strongest brands build pricing strategy into the foundation — not just the margin line.
Need help identifying where your price architecture might be out of sync? Contact our team for a diagnostic review. We will help you realign your strategy so it supports growth, margin, and long-term retail success.