Your ladder is an instruction
You choose every waiting period and every depth. AI never replaces the percentages you set, and nothing is imposed on you.
Sparande E-commerce · A focused app powered by SparGrid
Markdowns that step down on their own, and never past what is safe
Stock that sits too long costs you twice: the cash tied up in it, and the space it takes from something that would sell. Markdown Optimizer lets you set a markdown ladder once, such as 5% off after 60 days listed, 10% after 90, 15% after 120 and 25% after 150, and then applies it to every product on its own clock.
AI finds the possibilities. Our maths verifies what is safe to launch. Every step, whether it comes from your ladder or from an AI proposal, is priced and checked against your margin floor before it can touch your store. The floor is your cost per item, or cost plus a percentage you choose, and no step sells below it.
Watch the 70-second tour
See Markdown Optimizer at work: AI finds the possibilities, our maths decides what is safe
A little over a minute, with real screens from the app. You set the ladder, and AI only finds possibilities across your catalogue. Whether a markdown is safe is always decided by deterministic, quantitative mathematics, tested against your margin floor: cost, or cost plus a percentage you choose. AI never sets a price, and a step that would sell below your margin floor never reaches your store.
- AI only finds the possibilities. AI never sets a price
- Deterministic, quantitative mathematics decides what is safe to launch
- You review products and prices before the ladder is switched on
AI you can launch with confidence
Markdowns are where AI can do the most good and the most harm. It can see patterns across a whole catalogue that nobody has time to find, and it can also discount a product into a loss without noticing. So we split the work: AI proposes, and mathematics decides whether the proposal is safe.
AI finds the possibilities
AI reads your catalogue, your sales evidence and your own notes. It can propose an improved schedule, or a safe alternative when one of your steps would fail its checks.
Maths verifies what is safe
Every schedule is priced from the original price and tested against your margin floor: cost, or cost plus a percentage you choose. Anything unsafe is held, with the reason.
Three verdicts, and no guessing
Before any markdown can be scheduled, the maths returns one of three verdicts. It reports every reason it finds, not only the worst, so you always know what stopped a step.
| Verdict | What it means | What happens next |
|---|---|---|
| Valid | Every step stays at or above your margin floor: cost, or cost plus a percentage you choose. | The step is scheduled and applied when the product reaches it. |
| Revise | A step would fall below your margin floor or break a rule, but a safe depth exists. | AI proposes an alternative inside the limits the maths has set, and the maths checks it again. |
| Hold | No safe version exists, or the evidence is missing, for example a product whose listing date cannot be read. | Nothing changes in your store, and you are told exactly why. |
What a markdown ladder looks like
A ladder is a staircase of prices. A product starts at full price and, the longer it stays listed, the further it steps down. The example below is a ladder as a user would set it up in Markdown Optimizer, with any values they want, in days or months. For example, 5% off after 60 days, 10% after 3 months, 15% after 120 days and 25% after 150 days. Each percentage is taken off the original price, not off the step before, so 25% means 25% in total.
How a ladder runs
Set once
A schedule, not a spreadsheet
A ladder is a calendar rule: after this many days listed, take this much off. You do not pick products by hand or maintain a list.
Its own clock
Every product joins at its own age
A step fires once a product has been listed for the waiting period. A product listed today and one listed last winter sit on different steps of the same ladder.
Verified
The platform works out what each step is worth
When a step comes due, the platform decides which products qualify and what the reduction would cost you. If it cannot produce a figure, you are told, rather than shown a zero.
Honest pricing
An original price only where it is proven
A struck-through original price is shown only where the product's recorded price history proves it; otherwise the price is simply lowered. You can turn the original-price display off in Settings, under Markdown rules.
Your call
Ask me first, step by step
Mark any step to wait for your approval. Everything else runs on its own, and you see what is coming before it happens.
Explained
AI tells you why, in plain words
Each recommendation comes with a short explanation that follows your own notes as house rules. The explanation can never change a price or a figure.
What it will not do
Trust in automation comes from knowing its limits. These are written into the app.
- It will not invent a number. Where there is not enough history to model what a markdown would recover, it says so.
- It will not mark down a product whose publish date cannot be read, rather than treating an unknown date as old.
- It will not let AI set a price. AI proposes and explains; the maths decides.
- It will not discount bundles or gift cards. They are excluded from every ladder.
What your team sees in the app, and what your shoppers see
Every product has a place on the ladder and a reason for being there. The same price that clears the maths in the app is the price that appears in your store.
In the app
Where every product stands, and why
The products view shows the step each product has reached, the discount at that step, the price the maths calculated and the step that comes next. Search by title or SKU, or download the whole list as a CSV.
The status column is where the three verdicts become visible. Most rows here are live on Shopify at 25% off. One was not applied because it would sell below cost. Another already carried a sale price, so the app stopped and asked which price is the original before taking anything off it.
Every row has an explanation in plain words and a “Why?” link, so a held markdown is never a mystery.
On your storefront
The price that passed is the price shoppers pay
This is the same snowboard from the products view. The app calculated 524.96 at the 25% step, and that is exactly what the product page shows.
The markdown is applied to the product’s own price, so shoppers see it on the product page before they reach the cart.
What Markdown Optimizer gives your team
- Time-based markdown ladders that run for the life of every product
- AI proposals for better schedules, each one verified by quantitative checks
- A margin floor check on every step: cost, or cost plus a percentage you choose
- A searchable products view and a list of upcoming markdowns
- Per-step approval when you want to see a markdown before it goes live
- Plain-language explanations that follow your own notes
- Email digests on your schedule, never one message per product
- Plans priced by catalogue size, each with a 7-day trial
Clear boundaries
Markdown Optimizer owns
- Age-based markdown ladders and their schedule
- Safe markdown depths and honest sale pricing
- Approvals, explanations and upcoming-markdown visibility
Belongs elsewhere
- Bundles, upsells and regular-price pairings → Bundle Optimizer
- Margin leakage and pricing conflicts → Margin Optimizer
- Early stock-health intervention → Velocity Pulse
- Distressed-stock recovery → InventoryIntel
- Enterprise cross-channel orchestration → SparGrid
Powered by SparGrid
Markdown Optimizer is a focused app that runs on the SparGrid platform. It puts the markdown engine to work on one job: moving ageing stock at a depth the numbers can defend. SparGrid itself runs ten business agents and sixty capabilities across every channel, so when you need more than markdowns, you can adopt the full platform without changing tools.
Let AI find the possibilities. Let the maths keep them safe.
Set your ladder once. Markdown Optimizer applies it to every product at the right age, checks every step before it reaches your store, and tells you why in plain words.
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