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Do not talk about pricing

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Re: Do not talk about pricing

#41

If you try to buy things, it's sometimes desperately frustrating that no one will just quote you a simple price. They have different pricing tiers, and want a salesperson to talk to you so they can pretend to give you a "special" discount, and all sorts of BS. I'm sure these things work, but they also alienate customers sometimes. People have founded entire businesses on offering clearer pricing schemes.

[deleted]

Re: Do not talk about pricing

#42

If you try to buy things, it's sometimes desperately frustrating that no one will just quote you a simple price. They have different pricing tiers, and want a salesperson to talk to you so they can pretend to give you a "special" discount, and all sorts of BS. I'm sure these things work, but they also alienate customers sometimes. People have founded entire businesses on offering clearer pricing schemes.

if they don't give you a price, it means they don't want your business. if you don't reach out and ask, then they really don't want your business.

they're saving everyone involved a lot of time.

Re: Do not talk about pricing

#43

The phenomenon is called anchoring[1], and it works like this: the first price we see anchors our thinking about additional information. This is why furniture stores have a perpetual sale. "Oh look, this $2500 sofa is only $1899.99 right now. What a great deal!" One experiment had respondents use the last two digits of their social security number as the initial price for a bottle of wine or other good. This complete…

I wonder how well the `social security number` anchoring study replicates?

Re: Do not talk about pricing

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a good point but I don't think this is the main dynamic at play. I'm much more hesitant to buy a $5 app, a one-time purchase, than a $7 beer.

I've noticed that I'm more open to spending money on food rather than things like apps/music etc. Buying a $2 app is a week-long decision for me. Whereas I regularly spend ~$10 on a pizza when I'm bored.

You also have to decide whether you want to spend time on the app.

Re: Do not talk about pricing

#45
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally a user should get at least 10x the value than what they paid. When pricing, I try to go for a price that people pay, but with resistance from X% of leads. Then you can give some/many of them limited-time discounts, which nudges them over the edge. If you don't price high enough, you don't have room to do that. If you don't have resistance, you have no-one to do it for. And people are MUCH more likely to buy w…

Any source or reasoning for 10x? I've got some software that saves a certain type of business about 40-70% on tech support measured in time to resolution (and time spent). Plus it provides a large bonus in "can actually solve an issue invested of telling customer to keep trying to repro". If a tech costs $5000 a month and a company can save on one tech, only price it at $500/month?

If it's $5000 net, the gross the company has to pay for is much higher.

Re: Do not talk about pricing

#46

If you try to buy things, it's sometimes desperately frustrating that no one will just quote you a simple price. They have different pricing tiers, and want a salesperson to talk to you so they can pretend to give you a "special" discount, and all sorts of BS. I'm sure these things work, but they also alienate customers sometimes. People have founded entire businesses on offering clearer pricing schemes.

Very true - if a company/service requires me to get in touch with a sales guy, wait for a callback or watch a live presentation, product demo or similar, I'll definitely look elsewhere.

Unfortunately this seems to be common practice whenever you deal with products/services that target businesses.

Re: Do not talk about pricing

#47

If you try to buy things, it's sometimes desperately frustrating that no one will just quote you a simple price. They have different pricing tiers, and want a salesperson to talk to you so they can pretend to give you a "special" discount, and all sorts of BS. I'm sure these things work, but they also alienate customers sometimes. People have founded entire businesses on offering clearer pricing schemes.

Pretty much every company that doesn't display pricing doesn't get my business. There is invariably a competitor that does display pricing and I'll have bought that before the sales rep gets back to me. My philosophy/hunch is that reducing friction equals providing value. I always aim to provide value at every link in the value chain and reducing friction (displaying clear pricing and minimal click instant signup) is an easy way to do that.

Re: Do not talk about pricing

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed that I'm more open to spending money on food rather than things like apps/music etc. Buying a $2 app is a week-long decision for me. Whereas I regularly spend ~$10 on a pizza when I'm bored.

I'm the same and it doesn't really make any sense. Ok food is physical and tasty, but you enjoy it for maybe 15 minutes vs a game that could provide 100s of hours of entertainment?

The difference is uncertainty. With pizza, you know pretty well what you are going to get. With an app, 90% are crap, 9% are ok but not what you personally prefer, 1% are great. So, gambling $2 with a seemingly 1% chance of greatness feels like an app costs $200. The reality is not that bad. But, it's all about how it feels.

On top of that, it's not even really about the money. You don't want to feel bad about getting tricked into paying for a crap app. You'd feel like a sucker. It would be frustrating. People do all kinds of mental gymnastics to avoid feeling embarrassment and frustration --to the point that it's dangerous to call out a scammer because they are likely to get geniunely indignant and angry to avoid feeling the embarrassment of their obvious lie. Procrastination to avoid possible frustration is very, very common.

Re: Do not talk about pricing

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the same and it doesn't really make any sense. Ok food is physical and tasty, but you enjoy it for maybe 15 minutes vs a game that could provide 100s of hours of entertainment?

The difference is uncertainty. With pizza, you know pretty well what you are going to get. With an app, 90% are crap, 9% are ok but not what you personally prefer, 1% are great. So, gambling $2 with a seemingly 1% chance of greatness feels like an app costs $200. The reality is not that bad. But, it's all about how it feels. On top of that, it's not even really about the money. You don't want to feel bad about gettin…

I guess it's also training. We have many positive experiences of the "risk" of ordering pizza has turned out well. The number of experiences we have had to psotively reinforce app purchase positive experience is likely two orders of magnitude smaller.

Re: Do not talk about pricing

#50

If you try to buy things, it's sometimes desperately frustrating that no one will just quote you a simple price. They have different pricing tiers, and want a salesperson to talk to you so they can pretend to give you a "special" discount, and all sorts of BS. I'm sure these things work, but they also alienate customers sometimes. People have founded entire businesses on offering clearer pricing schemes.

But what's your budget though?
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