Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Utilize Unit Pricing

Why would consumers consider a cleaning product in a smaller package to be of better quality than another brand of cleaning product which comes in a larger package?
     According to research findings from University of Texas-San Antonio, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and Chinese University of Hong Kong, the answer has to do with a common retail pricing practice: The smaller package generally carries a higher cost-per-unit than does the larger package. Consumers associate higher costs with better quality. When the researchers distracted the consumers sufficiently to keep them from estimating cost-per-unit prices, the effect disappeared: The product in the small package was no longer rated as being of higher quality than the one in the larger package.
     Judging a product to be of higher quality makes it more attractive to shoppers. That’s what perfume manufacturers depend on when using small containers for their offerings at retail. Catch the curiosity of the shopper by highlighting that the product carries a high price. Then say why it’s worth it.
     But for many shoppers, there’s an appeal of the large economy size. They might get stuck at the point where they look at the prices of items, failing to move beyond that point to notice much about the other measures of value to them, such as effective life of the product and how well the product is customized to their needs and characteristics.
     For these people, variants of unit pricing can facilitate sales:
  • A piece at a time. Partitioned pricing presents an item’s cost as a main price plus one or more additional charges. This highlights benefits. Researchers at London Business School and European School of Management and Technology used the example of IKEA charging separately for the table top and the table legs. 
  • Only pennies a day. The London/European researchers recommend you quote the price in terms of units of use. A tire retailer could state prices in terms of how much it costs per 1,000 miles. An insurance agent could point out that the superior policy costs only fifty cents per day more than the bargain policy. 
  • Beyond the horizon. A related technique is to get customers thinking about how much money they can afford to spend in the long run. Researchers from Princeton, University of Chicago, and Digitas-Boston found that focusing on the long-term raised by about 35% the amount the shopper was willing to pay. 
Click below for more: 
Depend on Interdependency for Price-Quality 
Move Shoppers Beyond Fixating on Price 
Corner Risks with Partitioned Pricing

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