Price Optimization on BigQuery, for loss prevention
Ward pulls from any BigQuery dataset, gA4 event exports, ads data transfers from Google BigQuery, runs pricing on it, and delivers the loss prevention read each day.
How a Head of LP runs pricing off Google BigQuery
Shrinkage costs you more than you think. Ward finds out where. Ward pulls forward the signals that change a loss prevention decision.
Price Optimization is a card type Ward runs continuously. Ward monitors price elasticity shifts in real time and recommends adjustments that protect margin without sacrificing volume.
How Ward sends Pricing daily cards: Ward continuously measures price elasticity by category, tracks competitive pricing signals, and models the margin-volume tradeoff.
Setup: Service account with BigQuery Data Viewer role. Ward runs read-only SQL queries on your schedule.
Key capabilities
- Category-level price sensitivity
- Competitive price monitoring
- Margin-volume tradeoff modeling
- Real-time elasticity measurement
Chat
Ask anything. Ward routes to the right agent and returns cited answers.
I pulled Store 37’s last 28 days against the chain baseline. Two root causes, both compounding.
| Signal | Finding |
|---|---|
labor_efficiency | Rev/labor-hour −22% vs. cluster, staffing mismatch at 11a–1p peak |
inventory.fresh | Fresh fill 83%, backroom replenishment lag at 2–4p |
promo.lift | BOGO crackers cannibalized Brand Y by 28%, net category +6% |
Recommend: re-baseline Store 37 schedule against true peak, raise replen window to 1p, and review the BOGO before next cycle.
labor_scheduling…
Reporting
Pinned views built from saved data-lake queries. Every number re-derivable from its SQL.
| Model | Horizon | MAPE |
|---|---|---|
holt_winters | 4wk | 4.1% |
arima_sarimax | 13wk | 8.9% |
gbm_demand | 1wk | 2.1% |
bayes_hier | new store | 11.4% |
Sources
Connect external systems to the data lake.
| Name | Type | Last sync |
|---|---|---|
sap_pos_transactions | import | 2m ago |
sap_inventory_shrinkage | import | 2m ago |
sap_labor_scheduling | import | 14m ago |
retail_inventory_weekly | import | 1h ago |
retail_google_ads_daily | import | 1h ago |
retail_meta_ads_daily | import | 1h ago |
retail_ga4_website_daily | import | 1h ago |
Policies
Browse and manage Cedar access policies for your tenant.
| Policy ID | Effect | Resources |
|---|---|---|
merch-read-default | permit | Model::* |
finance-read-shrinkage | permit | Model::"inventory_shrinkage" |
vendor-blocked | forbid | Model::"labor_*" |
region-west-only | permit | Tenant::"acme" |
What Ward has eyes on.
The pricing model runs on a daily cycle, not on a reporting calendar. It detects the pattern, attributes root cause, and attaches a recommended move before the number reaches a review deck.
Ward reads straight from BigQuery rather than replacing it. Any BigQuery dataset, gA4 event exports, ads data transfers come across on a read-only connection, get enriched with contextual data, and come back as findings. Your Data Platform is untouched.
Why this combination
is its own problem.
Price Optimization needs any BigQuery dataset and gA4 event exports at minimum. Google BigQuery carries both, at the grain the model needs. That is the whole integration story: no middleware, no staging warehouse, no custom extract.
What the first 90 days
actually look like.
-
01
Week 1: read-only connection
Ward sits on top of Google BigQuery with read-only credentials and begins ingesting any BigQuery dataset and gA4 event exports. No config changes on your side. First daily cards arrive inside the first 48 hours.
-
02
Weeks 2 to 3: baselines
Ward needs roughly two weeks of history per store to separate a real deviation from normal variance. During this window the insight cards are directionally right and the thresholds are still moving.
-
03
Weeks 4 to 12: steady state
Ward delivers insight cards on a daily cycle, each with root cause and a recommended move. Volume settles at a level a single person can read over coffee. The measure of success is not how many daily cards arrive, it is how many get acted on.
How Ward connects to Google BigQuery
Ward queries BigQuery using your existing datasets. GA4 exports, POS data, CRM exports. Ward reads it where it lives.
Setup: Service account with BigQuery Data Viewer role. Ward runs read-only SQL queries on your schedule.
Data Ward reads from BigQuery
Impact metrics with BigQuery
Data lake enrichment
Ward enriches BigQuery data with: Any BigQuery dataset, GA4 event exports, Weather & events, Demographics, Custom feeds
Shrinkage costs you more than you think. Ward finds out where.
- ×Shrinkage lands as a year-end surprise
- ×Cannot distinguish theft from spoilage from admin error
- ×High-shrinkage stores only identified during audits
- ×No correlation between operational changes and loss patterns
- ×Exception-based reporting misses slow-bleed patterns
- ✓Store-level shrinkage tracking with cause attribution
- ✓Anomaly detection flags stores deviating from estate average
- ✓Receiving dock discrepancy patterns identified automatically
- ✓Correlation analysis links operational changes to loss shifts
- ✓Trend analysis catches slow-bleed patterns audits miss
US retail shrinkage hit $112.1 billion in 2022. Up 19.4% year over year. Source: National Retail Federation
Frequently asked questions
Service account with BigQuery Data Viewer role. Ward runs read-only SQL queries on your schedule. Data points include: Any BigQuery dataset, GA4 event exports, Ads data transfers, Custom ETL outputs.
Shrinkage costs you more than you think. Ward finds out where. Ward solves this with automated insight cards: Store-level shrinkage tracking with cause attribution. Anomaly detection flags stores deviating from estate average. Receiving dock discrepancy patterns identified automatically.
First insight cards arrive within 48 hours of data connection. Ward needs approximately 2 weeks to establish stable baselines for your specific operation.
No. Ward sits on top of your existing stack. It is the proactive intelligence layer that watches your data continuously and delivers insight cards, so your team acts on findings instead of hunting for them.
Related solutions
See what pricing problems Ward catches.
Root causes, not just alerts. See it on your data.
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Find out what your data has been hiding.
Tell us about your operation. We’ll show you the problems Ward catches, and the ones your current tools miss.