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JWPM Consulting

Price Strategy

13 September 2021

The pricing strategy is one of 4 marketing levers (Product, Price, Place, and Promotion) that is set to achieve competitive advantage. Finding the right pricing strategy is more sophisticated than simply adding a profit margin to a cost price.


How much is it?

Before we answer that question, we need to first understand what it is that you think you are buying and what it is that is being sold.


Price by itself means nothing; it's the value proposition that is the key concept.



Arguably, Price is the most important element of the 4P marketing mix...

...because price speaks directly to the purpose of the marketing exercise which is to generate revenue/profits.

It is also the first hint to the buyer…

  • How the product or service being offered is positioned
  • The primary ingredient in the value proposition
  • Is there any point continuing considering purchasing?

When the purchase process begins, price is normally the first thing the buyer wants to know, but is the last thing the seller should reveal.


Value proposition

In 1871 a fellow called Carl Menger advanced his theory about price setting, he proposed that prices are set at the margin between what a willing seller is prepared to sell at, and what a willing buyer is prepared to buy at. Further, he noted that the price is actually set by the last transaction between the most willing seller and the most willing buyer. It became known as the marginal revolution in economics and it changed economists' thinking.

Prior to Menger economists struggled to agree on how price was actually formed and proposed that it was a function of cost. Others thought the labor component was the key driver.


The implications of this theory is that the value of a product or service is subjective and not always based on any true underlying value.



The price a person is willing to pay for a product or service is based on their own individual perception and circumstance. People draw on a range of considerations to make-up their minds...

  • Immediate need. Do I have to buy it now, or can I delay, or not buy at all?
  • Opportunity and difficulty of considering alternatives.
  • Scarcity: how readily available is the product or service?
  • Reputation and trust (another way of saying "Brand")
  • Long term utility and durability.
  • Personal preferences, allegiances, and prejudices.
  • What have other people being paying?

It is complex but also provides the opportunity for the marketer to influence the buyers' perceptions through strategy and tactics remembering that marketing is about playing with all four of product, price, distribution, and promotion.


Price as a positioning signal

Buyers of any product or service generally understand that price is linked to quality. As a simple example, a $100 bottle of wine will be better than a $15 bottle (hopefully).

One might think there is an opportunity to simply price a cheap wine higher to achieve higher profits (and there is wriggle room), however enough people would notice and the brand reputation would suffer. Equally, a good wine priced at a discount may lead some buyers to conclude there is something wrong with it.

Price is very much interpreted by buyers as an indication of where a product is positioned on the quality dimension.



Supply and demand

While price indicates quality, consumers take many factors into account when making purchase decisions.

Economic theory maintains that price is based on the balance between supply and demand. In simple terms, a product that is in short supply (demand exceeds supply) can command a higher price, and when a product becomes plentiful, sellers are forced to lower the price.

Price equilibrium, is the point at which the total number of products available can be consumed by potential buyers. Inherent in this concept is the idea that lower prices will bring more buyers back into the market; buyers have choices. Not only can they choose between competing products, but also choosing not to buy at all.





The initial COVID outbreak created a global shortage of face masks. Prices skyrocketed.



People were paying prices like $1.00 for a paper mask that normally cost a few cents (and regulators were forced to step in). Production rapidly increased and within a few months; supply again equaled demand and prices dropped to previous levels.

In some marketing theory, the concept of "problem solving" is discussed, every purchase decision is characterized as a "problem to be solved." Examples of problems the consumer is seeking to solve can be as simple as "I have run out of milk" to as complex as "I need to build a new office block." Thus, the value proposition (and therefore price a consumer is willing to pay) is a function of...

  • How critical is the problem (what are the consequences of not solving the problem?)
  • How much am I willing to pay to solve that problem?
  • How easy is it to find and compare solutions?
  • Urgency. How soon do I need to solve the problem?

For the marketer to develop an effective pricing strategy, understanding the problem from the consumer's perspective is essential because...


Cost Plus Pricing is the most common and yet least effective pricing strategy



More about this later.


Price discovery

The consumer seeks price discovery early because (as explained above) it can tell them a lot about the product or service. However, part of the value-proposition is the question "is this a good use of my funds?" or even "can I afford it?"


Buyers can choose to buy your product, your competitors' product, or to buy nothing at all.



People seek to determine first if they should even be investing time in finding out more about the product or service. In traditional sales training, the sales person is taught to delay discussing price as long as possible to allow time to fully discover the potential customer's "hot buttons" and to create desire.

However, context is everything in marketing. In retail, it is common practice to label every product on the shelf with a price (and is required by law). But, in B2B selling, often the price is impossible to quote until the customer's requirements are fully scoped.


Developing the price strategy - the role of the marketer

When developing marketing strategy, the marketer must consider all elements of the 4P marketing mix, the other elements being Product, Place, and Promotion. Together, each of these are the levers the marketer sets to achieve competitive advantage.

Here is a collection of various pricing strategies with examples.


Cost plus pricing

Cost Plus pricing is the simplest and least sophisticated pricing method. The price offered is the cost price plus a profit margin. Read more Cost Plus Pricing

Penetration pricing

Start with a low price and then progressively increase it. Penetration pricing is a method for gaining market share particularly used when a new product/service or brand is launched into a mature market. Read more Penetration Pricing

Price skimming

The opposite to penetration pricing is price skimming. Start with a high price and then over time, lower the price in steps. Typically used by technology manufacturers when introducing the new higher specification versions of their products. Read more Price Skimming

Premium Pricing Strategy

As the name suggests, premium pricing sets the asking price at the top end of the market.
Premium pricing is as much a positioning strategy as it is a pricing strategy as it seeks to signal to the potential customer that the product/service is of high quality or high desirability as evidenced by its high price. Read more Premium Pricing

Price bundling

Price bundling is the practice of packaging-up various price elements that comprise an offer and presenting it as one price. Read more Price Bundling

Cascading demand

Cascading demand pricing is a product-mix and pricing strategy where the sale of an initial product locks in an on-going stream of future sales of accessories, spare parts, or consumables. Read more Cascading Demand Pricing

Discriminatory pricing

Pure price discrimination is a pricing strategy where identical products or services are sold to different market segments at different prices. Read more discriminatory pricing

Yield Pricing

Yield pricing (or yield management) is a variable pricing strategy applied to managing goods or services that have a fixed maximum capacity and relatively fixed cost. Common examples are Airlines, Accommodation, Advertising Inventory, Rental Car Hire, Equipment Hire, and Live Performances. Read more Yield Pricing

Low balling

Low Balling is more a tactic than a strategy unless a company decides that it will always use low-balling. Low balling is the practice of quoting a price below the level needed to achieve satisfactory profits in order to open-up a new customer relationship or win a project that has opportunity for recovering profits through changes to project scope. Read more about low balling.

Relationship pricing

Relationship pricing is price setting based on considering the overall profitability of a customer across a portfolio of products/services over an extended period of time, rather than each individual transaction. Read more Relationship Pricing.


Price elasticity

Price elasticity refers to the extent to which price variation impacts demand.

Elastic demand

Common sense suggests that (in general) as you increase the price of a product or service the less likely the product will be purchased. Conversely, lowering the price increases demand. This is the key motivation for discounting.

Purchase volumes that are impacted by pricing are referred to as having elastic demand.

Inelastic demand

However, some products and services are not impacted by price changes - the price of fuel is the classic example. People will pay what they have to pay to fill-up at the service station; they might grumble about high fuel prices, but regardless they purchase anyway.

Purchase volumes that vary little with price are referred to as having inelastic demand.

However, some products or services are less price elastic than others. Where the volume decreases at a slower rate than the price (i.e. if you increase the price by 20% and sales volume falls by only 10% then you have the opportunity to maximize profits through implementing a price increase. However, for manufactured products, profitability can be eroded by sales volume declines because overhead recovery can be decreased if there are less products to amortize fixed overhead costs over.


Further reading

What is positioning?
What is branding?
What is market segmentation?
Product strategy
Place Strategy
Distribution strategy
Promotion strategy

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