Blog

2015 saw us move from being a casual poster, to a business who posts dedicated pricing content up to three times a week. Moira McCormick has done much of the hard work on this front over the last 12 months, and we thank all our visitors for likeing, sharing, and commenting. If there are any ideas you would like to suggest for next year - please fire away in the comments section below, and I can see if I can twist her arm to include!

Pricing can be a scary topic. You’d probably much rather talk about your products or services, or how you can be of assistance to your customers. You've attracted a potential client, you don't want to put them off before you've even got going!! It's necessary however to face the fact that pricing is just as important a concept to communicate as the excellent features of your product or the benefits of your service.

What is Surge Pricing?

"Surge pricing" occurs when a company raises the price of its product or service if there is an increase in demand - and lowers prices when demand is weak. This article looks at two case studies with a view to show what business models a surge pricing strategy is best adopted in.

Introduction

Pricing can be approached at three levels - at the industry, market, and transaction level.

Pricing is one of the four major elements of the marketing mix. Your pricing strategy naturally involves evaluating the price you will charge for your product or service, and how this price fits in with your overall marketing plan, but are you covering all the bases? This article looks at some of the critical elements that can be forgotten by a pricing manager.

There are lots of reasons to review and increase your prices at regular intervals - it's a normal part of business. Effective and fair pricing helps grow customer loyalty and relationships. Fact! Steep pricing hacks are going to turn customers away so you've got to be more sassy and subtle in the way you raise prices. Small pricing hacks can be beautiful sometimes! The important things are to know your customers, know your industry, and experiment until you find a fair pricing level that works best for you and your business, without alienating customers.

You'd like to ask your customer straight out - how much money have you got to spend? It's not perhaps the most tactful or advisable question and the answer is one that the customer would be pretty foolish to reveal. They know that you'd tailor your product or service around that declared budget, even if you knew that the real cost would be considerably lower. Good for you perhaps but a nightmare scenario for the client, harbouring resentment and a bad reputation for your business. You'd definitely not be offering value for money and will soon be found out.

In a perfect world, a good product and accurate pricing should equal accumulation of profit. 

If you are keen to generate more profit, then perhaps it's time to try up-selling or cross-selling. They are often confused but there are subtle differences between the two.