Below is a summary of our interview with Corina Manea. You can listen to the full interview using the embedded media player below or on your favorite podcast platform (e.g., Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music).
In this episode of Pricing Heroes, we sit down with Corina Manea, Vice President of Commercial at flaconi, one of Europe’s leading online beauty retailers. With over a decade of experience in pricing, analytics, and planning—including roles at Wayfair and Zalando—Corina shares how she helped flaconi evolve from a small, manual pricing team to a fast-moving, AI-enabled commercial organization operating across seven countries and more than 40,000 SKUs.
We explore how pricing leaders can drive strategic transformation, why pricing in beauty is uniquely complex, and how Corina uses experimentation, data, and team culture to scale both performance and trust.
From manual to modern: Leading a pricing transformation at flaconi
Corina joined flaconi as Team Lead of Pricing and Forecasting when the team consisted of just three people managing prices manually. Her first mission was to build an in-house pricing tool to streamline workflows and support the business as it scaled. That tool became the foundation of flaconi’s pricing strategy—but over time, as the assortment grew and the company expanded into new markets, the system couldn’t keep up with the pace of change.
“Speed is everything in beauty,” Corina explains. When the tool began to slow them down, her team made the decision to adopt an external pricing platform. The switch enabled them to automate repricing daily, run elasticity tests, and reduce manual work by half—all while freeing up time for experimentation and strategy. “That was a huge win for us,” she says.
Corina’s journey from pricing lead to VP also involved expanding her remit to commercial planning, campaign management, and category strategy. That broader view allowed her to bring a pricing lens into forecasting, target-setting, and supplier negotiations—ensuring alignment across commercial functions.
Pricing in beauty: Walking the tightrope between growth and brand integrity
Pricing in beauty comes with challenges few other verticals face. flaconi manages a wide assortment that spans luxury, mass market, fast movers, and long-tail SKUs. That means pricing decisions must consider stock levels, demand signals, competitor benchmarks, and, critically, brand image.
“We’re not trying to be the cheapest,” Corina says. “We’re trying to offer the best value—high-quality products at fair prices that align with customer expectations.” To protect premium brand perception, flaconi uses dynamic pricing paired with strict thresholds and brand guardrails. Every move is tested, monitored, and aligned to the company’s long-term goals.
As assortment complexity increased—especially with the addition of low-margin, low-rotation SKUs—Corina’s team had to develop more sophisticated pricing logic. The goal: maximize both top-line growth and profitability without eroding the positioning of flaconi’s premium assortment.
Campaigns, planning, and performance: Integrating pricing with commercial strategy
At flaconi, pricing is more than just a lever — it’s a foundation for cross-functional decision-making. When Corina stepped into a broader leadership role, she brought pricing into the heart of campaign planning, target forecasting, and category performance management.
Her ability to translate pricing signals into business decisions helped improve coordination between teams that previously worked in silos. “I think it’s crucial to understand the pricing strategy,” she explains, “because it affects both campaign performance and planning targets.” With a deep understanding of how price changes impact both brand and margin, Corina ensured that flaconi’s commercial teams were working from a shared source of truth.
This alignment allows flaconi to respond to market trends without sacrificing control. Pricing becomes not just a tactical adjustment, but a strategic input into how campaigns are structured, which categories are prioritized, and how targets are set and measured.
Experimentation with accountability: How flaconi tests and learns at scale
Corina emphasizes that experimentation is only powerful when it’s paired with discipline. At flaconi, her team tests new pricing strategies regularly — including campaign mechanics, price elasticity models, and category-level optimizations — but those tests are always rooted in clear hypotheses and performance benchmarks.
“We are always looking at data and using data,” she says. “Whenever we come up with an experiment, we have very clear proof of why we want to do it and what it could achieve.” This rigorous approach allows the team to try bold ideas without risking long-term performance. If a test isn’t working — and the data shows that — they don’t hesitate to shut it down.
In this way, Corina has built a culture where innovation and accountability coexist. Her team is encouraged to explore new tactics, but within a framework that protects margin, brand integrity, and customer trust.
The WeCommerce mindset: Building culture into the pricing engine
Behind flaconi’s pricing transformation is a people-centered philosophy known as “WeCommerce” — a cultural model that emphasizes collaboration, ownership, and transparency across teams. Corina describes it as a structure where every team member, from working student to senior executive, has the opportunity to shape outcomes.
“In our commercial team, everyone plays a crucial role,” she explains. “We encourage people to challenge processes, bring new ideas, and share feedback openly.” Through daily standups, regular updates, and a shared commitment to improvement, her team creates alignment not just across functions — but across levels of seniority.
This approach builds psychological safety and promotes collective learning. “What makes our work meaningful isn’t just delivering beauty products,” Corina says. “It’s about creating genuine connections — and that includes how we work internally.”
Technology as an enabler, not an afterthought
For flaconi, technology isn’t a backend support function — it’s an engine for speed, flexibility, and competitive advantage. Whether it’s pricing, planning, or campaign execution, Corina’s team uses digital tools to move fast and respond to changing market conditions in real time.
“We prioritize simple yet scalable solutions over complexity,” she says. That mindset has shaped flaconi’s approach to both internal innovation and external partnerships — including its decision to sunset a legacy in-house pricing tool in favor of a platform that could meet the demands of multi-country, multi-SKU operations.
Corina sees technology as essential to their customer promise. “Our core value is customer centricity,” she explains. “We invest in infrastructure that allows us to react fast, iterate, and serve our customers better — not just on price, but across the entire experience.” That agility, she says, is what enables flaconi to keep up with fast-changing trends in beauty and e-commerce.
Recommended resources
Corina encourages professionals to deepen their understanding of behavioral pricing and stay connected with others in the field:
- Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
- LinkedIn pricing communities and Berlin-based e-commerce conferences
- Informal conversations and peer learning across teams
