Show HN: I made $8000 in one day on the Mac App Store • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: I made $8000 in one day on the Mac App Store

#81

Post by robgough » Thu, May 24, 2012, 2:04 PM UTC

pvidler wrote: post #70

n9com wrote: post #67

This is hardly anything to do with price elasticity. It's to do with the fact that 3 major websites picked up the story and linked to the app.

It's true that the websites would have driven most of the sales, but still interesting that the response was better than when Apple featured the app (which is also a big deal). I suspect the one-day-only nature of the sale might have helped quite a bit.

I agree, one-day-only is a big motivator for me. Even though Panic's Diet Coda was priced a little more than I would normally have paid for an app I know I probably won't use very often, knowing the price was going to double tomorrow rather forced my hand.

Re: Show HN: I made $8000 in one day on the Mac App Store

#82

Post by wmeredith » Thu, May 24, 2012, 4:13 PM UTC

pvidler wrote: post #72

fjarlq wrote: post #45

Man, Wednesday is the worst day to learn about Two Dollar Tuesday.

Yes, I missed it too. I should probably read the verge more often, but their site design is just too beautiful to miss by putting it in my RSS reader. Ironically, the result is that I hardly ever remember to go there.

Try http://www.newsblur.com/, it lets you look at orginal sites from your RSS reader. This was a big pain point for me until I found it.

It's an HN user's side project and it's the best RSS reader I've found, hands down.

Re: Show HN: I made $8000 in one day on the Mac App Store

#83

Post by ja27 » Thu, May 24, 2012, 7:09 PM UTC

cageface wrote: post #63

ja27 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My current understanding of psychological price barriers, at least for mobile apps, is that once you're over the 99 cent barrier, there isn't much of a difference (at least to Americans with our $5 bill) between $1.99, $2.99 and $3.99. It's only when you hit the $4.99 that they think of that as a different price class. There will still be people that balk at paying $3.99 instead of $1.99, but supposedly not 50% of th…

Do you have any references for this theory? If true it would influence my pricing strategy for my own apps. I have seen more sales at $2.99 than $4.99 but I haven't tried anything in between.

I wish I did but it's from a bunch of different posts. I wish it was easier to A / B test in the store but the daily traffic is so unpredictable and unmeasurable. I guess it could be tested on a landing page before hitting the iTunes store, even if you have to lie about the price.

Re: Show HN: I made $8000 in one day on the Mac App Store

#84

Post by anotherthrow » Thu, May 24, 2012, 9:09 PM UTC

rmATinnovafy wrote: post #52

The biggest point made here is the following: whatever perception you have about money, you are right. If you think you can't make more than $1k a month, you are right. Same with $10k, $100k, etc. The author stunbled with this by accident. I bet you he will now focus on finding another product that will allow him to repeat that. Another minor point is that marketing works. Its up to you to find what. So don't stop wh…

From the article:

> This is beyond my wildest dreams of what I expected to make.

Therefore the app creator did not have an accurate perception of what money he would make. Therefore he is a counter-example to your claim, and your claim is false.