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Writer's pictureAn Minh Nguyen

The marketing mix: price

Updated: Oct 1, 2020

A business can adopt new pricing strategies:

  • To try to break into a new market

  • To try to increase its market share

  • To try to increase its profit

  • To make sure all its costs are covered and a target profit is earned

Different methods of pricing


Cost-plus pricing: the cost of manufacturing the products plus a profit mark-up


Benefits:

  • Easy to apply

  • Different profit mark-ups could be used in different markets

  • Makes sure that the price covers all of the costs

Limitations:

  • Lose sales if the selling price is higher than competitor's price

  • Total profit will only be made if all products are sold

  • No incentive to reduce costs

Competitive price: when the product is priced in line with or just below the competitor price


Benefits:

  • Price is at realistic level

  • Avoids price competition ( reduce profit of other businesses in the industry)

  • Used when it is difficult for consumers to tell the different between products of different businesses

Limitations:

  • Lower price than costs of production , lead to losses being made

  • Hard to give a higher quality imagine

  • Detail research cost time and money

Penetration pricing : when the price is set lower than the competitors prices in order to enter a new market.


Benefits:

  • New launched products to create an impact

  • Ensure that product enters the market successfully

  • Market share build up quickly

Limitations

  • Profit may be low

  • Customers might reject the product is price increase

  • Might not be appropriate for the brand with high quality products

Price skimming : where high price is set for a new product on the market


Benefits:

  • Establish the product as being high quality

  • Increase profit rapidly

  • Helps recover research and manufacture costs

Limitations:

  • Discourage consumer from buying the product

  • Encourage more competitors

Promotional pricing : when a product is sold at a very low price for a short period of time (*not a pricing strategy )


Benefits:

  • Helps to sell off unwanted stock

  • Renew interest in a product if sales are falling

Limitations:

  • The revenue will be lower

  • Might lead to a price competition with competitors

Impact of psychology on price decisions:

  • High price for a high quality product may mean that high-income customer wish to purchase it as a status symbol

  • If price set below a whole number, it create the impression of being cheaper

  • Supermarkets may charge low price for products that are purchase for a regular basis for impression of being given good value for money.

  • Repeat sales when the price reinforces consumer's perception

Using different pricing method for the same product


Dynamic pricing: when the businesses change product prices, usually when selling online depending on the level of demand


Customers can be split into two or more groups -> charge with different prices for the same product or service.

Businesses do this because the price sensitivity of these group are different


Price elasticity of demand:


Price elastic demand : where consumer are very sensitive to changes in price

  • Prices increase by 5% the sales decrease by 15% = falling revenue for the business

Price inelastic demand : where consumer are not sensitive to changes in price

  • Prices increase by 15% the sales decrease by 5% = increasing revenue for the business





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