Introducing the Donated Goods Pricing App

Welcome, everyone. We're so glad that you could join us today. We'll be talking about Microsoft technology solutions for nonprofits and how the right technology solution can empower organizations and expand their mission. My name is Cameron Caudle, and I am a senior solutions manager at Sunrise Technologies. I'm very fortunate today to be joined by Carlos McDonald from Microsoft. Carlos, would you like to introduce yourself? Yes. Thanks, Cameron, for having me. I'm Carlos McDonald. I'm a senior business application sales executive here at Microsoft. I specifically work with nonprofit organizations through, what we now call Microsoft Elevate. Thank you, Carlos. Can you tell us a little bit more about Microsoft Elevate and the overall mission? Absolutely. Elevate is a successor of Tech for Social Impact and expands upon the long standing work of Microsoft philanthropies and the Tech for Social Impact team that supports our nonprofit customers. Microsoft is fully invested in partnering with and advancing the work and causes that these organizations have. This means continuing to work with governments, educators, labor unions, employers, and community leaders to ensure technology and AI reflects human values and serves human needs. Thank you, Carlos. As a Microsoft partner, we've seen firsthand with our customers how much of an impact they make in the communities that they serve. Being a Microsoft partner allows us to deliver tailored yet scalable solutions to organizations of all sizes. The technology that we implement, specifically being Dynamics three sixty five Finance, Supply Chain, Commerce, Business Central, Power Platform, and AI and Copilot solutions, are all part of the Microsoft ecosystem. Each of those could be deployed separately. However, many organizations deploy them together because they connect seamlessly across your organization. At Sunrise, one of our main expertise is retail. Because of our experience with for profit retailers as well as nonprofit retailers like Goodwill, we have a lot of knowledge and experience with the challenges that they face. While our business application offerings cover a vast majority of business processes, there are always unique challenges and business cases to account for. Microsoft provides tools to account for this with the power platform. A great example of this is the pricing app we've been working on and how it can address a need that may not be met with something off the shelf. You share an overview? Absolutely. Throughout working with nonprofit organizations, we've seen a common trend of processing donated goods. That process typically involves an employee looking at the item, identifying the brand, and then going and looking at a company price sheet to determine how to price the item. That leaves room for error and also can be a little bit time consuming. This has worked successfully for many years, but it doesn't take into consideration any current market trends. The pricing app guides employees through the pricing process and leverages AI models to identify the item and the current market price. Organizations still have full control over the price that is published or printed onto the barcode for resale. We're not looking to replace employees. We're looking to give employees a better way to do their jobs more successfully. And with better pricing, nonprofits get the most out of their inventory and continue to expand their mission. Come on, Cam. You can't leave us hanging here. We need to see this thing in action. You got it. Let's take a look at the pricing app and see how it connects with other apps within the Microsoft ecosystem. The pricing app is a power app solution that can be opened on any device. Employees simply log in using their Microsoft account, which automatically validates both their access and their store or warehouse location. The pricing app currently supports two models, soft goods, like apparel, and home goods. Organizations can easily expand the app to include additional categories as their business needs evolve. Let's get started. I'll begin by using my device to take a picture of a donated shirt. I can also upload an image directly from my device. Once the image is captured, I'll tap analyze image, choose the quality of the product, and select run price search. Here, we can see the output of the pricing model, a summary that includes the brand, estimated retail price, and recommended price range. The app is configured to explain the reasoning behind the price it suggests, adding a layer of transparency and understanding for employees. While the AI model provides smart recommendations, employees still maintain full control over pricing decisions. Here, I can easily choose whether to apply the average, minimum, or maximum suggested price. In this version, these options appear as buttons, but they could easily be presented as a price slider. This is completely configurable based on your organization's preference. Next, I'll generate a barcode. This step writes the production record directly into Dataverse, which not only supports physical barcode printing, but can also enable integration capabilities with online selling platforms, such as eBay or Poshmark. You can see logic built in referencing the weekly color week schedule that is used widely throughout the nonprofit industry. Once the barcode is generated and the product record is created, employees can quickly move on to the next item, helping maintain productivity and efficiency throughout the pricing process. Behind the pricing app is an AI prompt that is completely configurable for your organization. For example, if you want pricing to always be set at fifty percent below the market value, no problem. Or if you'd like to block barcode generation for certain brands or store locations, that can easily be configured too. The pricing app can be tailored to fit unique business rules and operating procedures, creating a flexible and scalable pricing system. Using the pricing app offers several benefits for your organization. More accurate market based pricing, reduced onboarding time for new employees, systematic tracking of production data with improved reporting insights, and the ability to update pricing rules for one or more stores instantly. Best of all, the pricing app connects seamlessly with other Microsoft applications like Power BI, d three sixty five Commerce, d three sixty five Customer Insights, and more. Next to people, data is one of the most valuable assets in your organization. For nonprofits, making every dollar and every hour count is critical. When you can track and analyze employee productivity, it's easier to make decisions based on real data rather than just a gut feeling. Let's take a look at this Power BI dashboard. This would be for a nonprofit retailer that sells donated goods to help fund its mission. Here, decision makers can quickly see performance insights across regions, stores, and even individual employees. With this view, they can understand total unit output and average unit price per item produced, both at a high level and for each employee. Now, imagine taking that a step further. By assigning a unique barcode to every item produced, the organization could track sell through performance in real time. Power BI could then reveal trends like, are certain items priced too low or too high? How long does it take, on average, for an item to sell once it's on the shelf? How does the sell through rate for employee a compare employee b? This level of visibility empowers leadership to make smarter pricing, staffing, and inventory decisions, all backed by data, not guesswork. It's a great example of how Microsoft's data and analytics tools can help nonprofits maximize impact and efficiency. Let's now take a look at how employees could leverage d three sixty five Commerce to create and execute pricing strategies. Many nonprofit organizations that sell goods use creative discount strategies to encourage repeat visits and boost the size of each customer's purchase. With Dynamics three sixty five Commerce, organizations gain access to a powerful and flexible pricing engine that makes this easy to manage. The system supports multiple discount methods, giving users the ability to set pricing rules by product category, specific attributes, a store, or a group of stores. Discounts can also be scheduled for certain dates as well as times to align for special events or campaigns. Let's take a look at a common example, a color week discount. In this case, items produced during a green week are automatically discounted by fifty percent. This helps keep inventory moving while maintaining consistent pricing logic across all locations. Another effective strategy is the mix and match discount, perfect for clearing slower moving inventory or excess stock. For example, a promotion like buy a shirt, get a pair of pants free can be created and deployed in just a few clicks with Dynamics three sixty five Commerce. Now, let's explore how d three sixty five Commerce transforms the in store experience, both for the store associate managing the system and customers shopping in store. Dynamics three sixty five Commerce delivers a powerful, intuitive point of sale solution designed for retailers of all sizes. With this system, employees have access to rich product details, in-depth customer insights, and even visibility into a customer's available loyalty points, all in one place. And remember those discounts we talked about earlier? They're automatically applied within d three sixty five Commerce. This not only speeds up each transaction, but also reduces the chance of cashier errors, helping employees stay efficient while ensuring customers always receive the correct pricing and promotion. The interface itself is completely configurable. Screen layouts and button grids can be set to fit an organization's exact needs. And new inline actions create a seamless, modern experience for associates as they complete sales. To wrap up our journey, let's take a look at how d three sixty five Customer Insights brings all customer information together, enabling organizations to use the data they've captured for targeted marketing, deeper engagement, and strategies that keep supporters coming back. Dynamics three sixty five Customer Insights brings everything together by transforming customer data into actionable insights. All of your customer data, from purchases and preferences to loyalty data, can flow directly into Customer Insights, empowering your organization to design data driven marketing strategies. For nonprofits, customer insights lets you easily create automated marketing journeys that engage supporters at just the right time. For instance, when a new customer makes their first purchase, a journey can automatically trigger a personalized welcome email, introducing them to the organization's mission, highlighting upcoming events, or offering a thank you discount to encourage repeat visits. When opening a new store, marketing teams can build localized journeys to reach nearby supporters, promoting the grand opening, sharing store hours, and driving excitement within the community. With d three sixty five customer insights, Copilot can assist in crafting the text for these emails, suggesting tone, subject lines, and messaging that align with the voice and the audience of your organization. While these examples focus on marketing efforts to customers, journeys can be defined to craft personalized messages to other groupings, like donors, volunteers, and employees. These capabilities make it easier than ever to communicate effectively and consistently, ensuring every outreach feels personal, timely, and aligned with your organization's mission. Together, these demonstrations show how Microsoft technology empowers nonprofits to work smarter, make data driven decisions, and strengthen relationships with their communities. Through this demo, I hope that you are able to see how Microsoft solutions can help transform nonprofit organizations. I want to thank Carlos for joining us and for his continued support with Microsoft Elevate. Yeah. Lastly, I'd like to say, thank you so much for, this presentation. You know, as we continue to work together, I think there are more and more solutions that we can bring to bear through the power platform and extending what we've currently done. So thank you once again for your time and really, really looking forward to seeing you guys out there. Thanks. Thank you for your time today. We know that your time is valuable and we appreciate that you spent it with us. If you wanna learn more about the pricing app or any other Microsoft technology solution, please reach out. You can use the QR code on the screen to connect with us. We look forward to helping your organization drive impact within your organization, your community, as well as your mission. Thank you.