Delivering a step change in pricing intelligence for Lincolnshire Co-op

THE CHALLENGE

Lincolnshire Co-op is one of the most successful independent retail co‑operatives in the UK. It’s owned by 300,000 members living in Lincolnshire and the surrounding counties.

While rolling out Electronic Shelf Edge Labels (ESELs), the business took the opportunity to enhance its pricing strategy through a reworked framework. It wanted to increase visibility of additional insight that could help it make purposeful, deliberate pricing decisions that were grounded in customer reality.

“Our aim was to have a consistent understanding of our pricing position with timely visibility of our prices against equivalent products, especially Key Value Items.”

Rob Ambler, BI & Insight Lead

The team at Lincolnshire Co-op sought a partner who could bring both technical Microsoft Power BI capability and commercial understanding to deliver a pricing intelligence solution.

THE SOLUTION

Lincolnshire Co-op selected Climber based on our track record of delivering complex retail analytics solutions in Microsoft Fabric and Power BI and the strength of our working relationship. We approached the engagement as a sophisticated price intelligence challenge. We focused on helping the business to make better pricing decisions in a way that would ultimately improve the customer experience.

At the core of the solution was a highly structured and governed pricing logic layer, designed to be both technically robust and commercially transparent. It incorporated clear rules for product matching, overrides, exclusions, promotions, and missing data. This brought together multiple data inputs into a consistent decision-making framework. The logic was then consistently applied at product, store, category, and estate level through a carefully engineered data model. This created a single, trusted view of pricing impact across the business.

The solution gave Lincolnshire Co-op a far stronger foundation for action. Rather than relying on manual interrogation, teams could focus quickly on the areas that mattered most to members and customers. They had confidence that the insight was reliable, explainable, and consistently applied throughout.

“Before, it was heavy lifting to surface the important things, now the dashboard does that for us.”

Rob Ambler, BI & Insight Lead

Climber’s collaborative approach was central to the success of the project. The team worked closely alongside Lincolnshire Co-op throughout, combining technical delivery with ongoing commercial discussion to ensure the solution developed in step with the business’s thinking. As priorities evolved and new requirements emerged, the approach remained flexible. This allowed the solution to adapt quickly without losing momentum. The close partnership helped create an outcome that was not only technically strong, but also practical, trusted, and aligned to how the business really needed to work.

“On occasion we needed to pivot… every organisation does. Climber understood that and became part of the team. There was no ‘that’s not in the contract’. It was always, ‘how do we solve this together?’”

Rob Ambler, BI & Insight Lead

THE OUTCOME

The project delivered significant benefits, with ESELs and pricing insight working together. The business is now better placed to maintain a fair, consistent, and competitive offer for members and customers.

“We’ve now got choices we simply didn’t have before. Previously, a price change might have taken a week. Now we can respond within 24 hours if we need to. Climber helped us deliver everything we asked for – and we launched early, which hardly ever happens.”

Rob Ambler, BI & Insight Lead

The solution has also created a ‘dashboard effect’ that has cascaded through the organisation and improved data management, governance and stewardship across the board.