{"id":803,"date":"2011-08-09T22:08:51","date_gmt":"2011-08-09T22:08:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/more-coffee.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=803"},"modified":"2011-08-09T22:08:51","modified_gmt":"2011-08-09T22:08:51","slug":"4-ways-to-lock-down-your-products-pricing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/more-coffee.co.uk\/?p=803","title":{"rendered":"4 Ways To Lock-Down Your Product\u2019s Pricing"},"content":{"rendered":"

I found this on “http:\/\/www.theaccidentalpm.com<\/a>” one of my\u00a0favourite\u00a0blogs.<\/em><\/p>\n

You would think that simply by\u00a0setting the price of your product<\/a> and then telling the world about it would wrap up that part of being a Product Manager, right? Well guess what, in this\u00a0era of the Internet<\/strong> everything having to do with product pricing has become more complicated. What you need is a new set of tools that will help you to lock-down your product\u2019s pricing\u2026<\/p>\n

Ban Your Customers<\/h2>\n

Product managers know that\u00a0not all customers are the same<\/strong>. The rise of the Internet and its ability to provide customers with a virtually unlimited view of your product\u2019s pricing has created a new type of customer \u2013 the returner.<\/p>\n

This type of customer is obsessed with\u00a0getting the lowest price<\/strong>on your product. That means that they\u2019ll search for the lowest price and buy your product through that channel and start to use it. However, even after they buy your product they will continue to search for lower prices. If they find a lower price, then they\u2019ll buy the product through the lower price channel and then turn around and return the unused product to the channel that they originally bought it from to get the higher price refunded.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t need this kind of customer. What product managers need to do is to\u00a0carefully watch your customers purchasing and returning behavior<\/strong>. You\u2019re going to want to spot names, addresses, and credit cards that keep showing up that are part of this kind of cycle. Once you know who they are, you\u2019re going to be better off refusing to sell to them in the future \u2013 it\u2019s just not worth it.<\/p>\n

Eliminate Surplus Supplies (and Pricing!)<\/h2>\n

Depending on what kind of product you are managing, you may occasionally run into the situation in which\u00a0you have too much of an older version of your product<\/a>. The question of how to\u00a0get rid of these products<\/strong> is always a difficult one to solve.<\/p>\n

Lots of times product managers will sell off their remaining stock of product to discount channels. This used to be\u00a0a good strategy<\/strong>when those channels operated in geographically diverse locations that didn\u2019t overlap with your product\u2019s primary channels.<\/p>\n

Now that the Internet has information on everything, your discount resellers have the ability to\u00a0show up right next to your primary channels<\/strong> when a customer goes searching for your product. This can quickly cause problems if their price for your previous product is much less than the price of the current model.<\/p>\n

Product managers in this situation often find that they need toremove the lower cost versions of their product<\/strong> from the market. This can be as simple as buying them back from the resellers and then either destroying them or selling them in different countries where they won\u2019t compete with your primary channels.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t Promote Your Brand \u2013 Hide It!<\/h2>\n

Generally speaking, product managers work very hard to\u00a0get their product\u2019s brand out in front of their customers<\/strong> as often as possible. However, when we find ourselves in a situation where we need to get rid of an older or overstocked product, the opposite is true.<\/p>\n

In these situations we need to\u00a0hide our brand from our customers<\/strong>. It no longer matters the high quality of our product \u2013 we just want people to buy it so that we can clear out the shelves. When we use middlemen to get rid of these products, product managers need to make special requests.<\/p>\n

Stripping the product name and the company\u2019s name from the product that is being sold can help. What we want to avoid islowering the perceived value of the product<\/strong> (or version) that we are currently offering. Making sure that the discounted product does not confuse customers is one way to do this.<\/p>\n

Play The (Internet) Search Game<\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s face it \u2013\u00a0your potential customers are smart<\/strong>. They spend a lot of time on the Internet and on your company\u2019s web site studying how to get the best deal on your product.<\/p>\n

You may be surprised at how resourceful they are. Often times customers\u00a0will use your pricing and promotions schemes against you<\/strong>. This can be as simple as trolling your web site to find out where you offer the same product at the lowest price or by combining different discounts in order to get the lowest price.<\/p>\n

What this means for product managers is that we have to always be on the lookout for\u00a0the prices that our web sites are offering<\/strong>. When we start to see a flurry of orders coming in via the web site at a low price, it is well worth our time to check out just exactly what is going on.<\/p>\n

What All Of This Means For You<\/h2>\n

The arrival of the Internet has changed the way that Product Managers can price their products. Gone are the days that we could charge one customer one price and then turn around and charge another customer a different price. The Internet has made it\u00a0all too easy for our potential customers to compare prices<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In order to take back some of the control over what people pay for our products, product managers need to\u00a0change the way that they allow their products to be sold<\/strong>. This includes dropping some customers, eliminating discounted products, hiding their brands, and managing the role that Internet search engines can play.<\/p>\n

One of the reasons that we chose the product management profession is because it is so dynamic. The Internet\u2019s impact on how we price our products is a great example of this. Instead of throwing our hands up and giving up, we product managers need to\u00a0understand the changes that we\u2019re facing and adapt<\/strong>. Those of us who do this well will become even more successful product managers.<\/p>\n

– Dr. Jim Anderson
\nBlue Elephant Consulting \u2013
\nYour Source For Real World Product Management Skills\u2122<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I found this on “http:\/\/www.theaccidentalpm.com” one of my\u00a0favourite\u00a0blogs. You would think that simply by\u00a0setting the price of your product and then telling the world about it would wrap up that part of being a Product Manager, right? Well guess what, in this\u00a0era of the Internet everything having to do with product pricing has become more…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[108,449,451,483,674,738,817,838],"class_list":["post-803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-bargain-hunters","tag-intermediaries","tag-internet","tag-least-profitable","tag-pricing","tag-search-engines","tag-surplus-inventory","tag-theaccidentalpm-com"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/more-coffee.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/more-coffee.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/more-coffee.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/more-coffee.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/more-coffee.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/more-coffee.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/more-coffee.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/more-coffee.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/more-coffee.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}