IBM announced that Ermes Group is leveraging its cloud-based Watson Commerce pricing optimization solutions to help ensure that product markdowns resonate with value-seeking customers while maximizing profits for across all of its retail locations relating to Debenhams Department Stores, Next Stores, Oviesse Stores, Peacocks Stores and Uber Stores. Working with IBM, Ermes is now able to automatically determine which specific products in each store should be marked down due to stagnant sales, what the new price should be and when the reduction should take place. Previously, teams had to manually go line by line for every product to determine how it was performing and if they should put it on sale. Since going live with IBM, Ermes has significantly streamlined its retail pricing strategy while increasing profits.