What Does a Pricing Analyst Do?

Pricing a product, commodity or service is a specialized skill. The job of a pricing analyst is to understand market conditions perfectly and help in deciding product prices. In today's competitive business world, pricing your product correctly has become very important to outdo competitors. The interviews for these jobs are tough, as companies prefer to recruit top talent for such jobs.

Pricing analysts help in deciding the prices of the products of a company for which they work. For this, they have to consider many factors such as the nature of the product, prices of goods of competitor companies, and the paying ability of the consumers. These analysts have to find out how much a consumer is willing to pay and what service he expects by conducting intensive research.

He has to determine or find out which are those products, for which the consumers are willing to pay a higher price and what are the exact reasons for that. They need to be aware of price trends prevailing in the market.

For the purpose of research, they also refer to historical prices and data about the prices of commodities under different market conditions, to arrive at correct conclusions. They work closely with the marketing team of the company.

For becoming a pricing analyst, you ideally need to have a college degree in subjects such as mathematics, economics, marketing or statistics. With the help of a degree in these fields, you will be able to enter this field quite easily. The institute from where you complete your course matters a lot when it comes to securing the best jobs in the industry.

With a master's or doctoral degree in the above subjects, you can get the most coveted jobs in this field. Most of these professionals are management graduates and post graduates from reputed universities. A good knowledge of accounting, price trends, and effective communication skills can make you a successful pricing analyst.

The salary of pricing analysts largely depends on their educational qualifications, years of practical experience, job location, and type of employer. The ones working for top-notch companies in the financial services, production, and manufacturing sectors can expect to earn a better salary than those working for the smaller companies.

The salaries are much higher in the cities, as compared to the rural areas. As per various salary surveys, the median salary for a pricing analyst is around USD 68,000 per year.

On the whole, most of them earn between USD 50,000 to USD 80,000 per year. You can definitely earn more than this amount if you have the relevant work experience and have worked on large projects successfully.