An alert reader sent in an article from the Wall Street Journal (free for one week) called The Psychology of the $14,000 Handbag, which delves into why stores offer, well, $14,000 handbags, and what this means for the rest of … Read More
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Prices for Sale!
Some pricing humor to start your week. (Thanks to Sam Shapiro at Channel Pricing Associates.)
Customer Self-Segmentation
One the best ways to segment prices is by allowing customers to sort themselves. Here’s an interesting sign that does just that.
Competitive pricing cuts tech profits, despite topline growth
Despite strong demand for technology products by both home and business buyers, competitive pricing is exerting strong downward pressure on profits and stocks. Hardware makers are suffering the most, from storage, to memory, to processors. As this Wall Street Journal … Read More
5 Ways NOT to do Promotions
From Mental Floss, here are 5 Ballpark Promotions that Went Wrong. Example number 1: 10-cent beer night.
The Math of Multiple Discounts
Recent research by Akshay Rao and Haipeng Chen confirms that people have a hard time processing a sequence of percentage discounts. For example, if you have a $100 item at 20% off, and then take another 20% off, what is … Read More
iPhone Hype Obscures Apple Pricing Strength
If you’re lucky enough to be living under a rock, you may not know that Apple is introducing its iPhone today. Although I had hoped not to be part of the hype onslaught, I have been meaning to write a … Read More
Supreme Court Overturns Ban on Minimum Price Agreements
In a decision that will have profound pricing impact, the Supreme Court overturned a century-old ban on restrictive pricing clauses between manufacturers and distributors or retailers. In an ideologically divided 5-4 decision, the high court ruled that the practice of … Read More
Blockbuster Goes after Netflix with Pricing
Punished by the the popularity of cheap DVDs, video-on-demand, and the Netflix DVD-rental-by-mail service, Blockbuster announced further price cuts on its subscription plans. These plans allow consumers to rent and return videos at stores or by mail. The added ability … Read More
Adding Time to Activity-Based Costing
Here’s an interesting article from the Harvard Business School newsletter on some relatively simple ways to incorporate time into Activity-Based Consting (ABC) estimates. ABC is great in theory, but getting reasonably accurate data and then keeping them up to date … Read More