Step into the shoes of every clothing retailer you can think of. Think about the clothing stores that are located nearest to you in the mall down the road. Usually most of their business comes during specific times of the year where they have huge sales. Most people will wait to purchase an item until it comes on sale mainly due to the fact that the customer usually knows when the item will go on sale depending on the time of the year. But what about during the slow months? How do businesses get people to come into the door and buy something without having to always be dropping their prices to grab peoples attention?
The answer is unexpected, but simple. Threatening to raise prices brings customers in the door at almost the same rate as if the prices have dropped. Its always difficult to get a customer to recognize what they really want without having to advertise a new sale to them. Most people view lower sale prices as the only way to really bring customers in the door, but that is not necessarily true. Another technique to get customers in the door and really grab their attention is to inform your customers that prices will be increasing soon and won’t be coming back down for awhile. This entices people to make them think that they need to purchase and item now rather than continue to wait till prices drop. When they realize that prices aren’t actually going to drop soon, rather they are going to increase, customers begin to take notice of the products within your store and make purchases.
Adam Hudson, an Amazon enthusiast who used to sell his own products on Amazon, explained how increasing his prices on his Amazon products took his sales through the roof. Him and his business partner used to sell their own unique selfie sticks on Amazon. They were in a sales slump during a slow time during the year, so they decided to inform their customers that their prices would be going up in a week. Hudson claims that, ‘we made a hundred and something thousand dollars that week and everything changed from there,’ according to an interview he did with Emily Richett. Its strategies like this that occur in desperate times and seem out of the ordinary, but can really take a business’ sales through the roof if executed correctly.
BoweryJE22
this is interesting. I think as college students with limited money we don’t truly understand this, because that is our pain, but for a lot of people their pain is quality which they feel like they are getting with a higher price. It totally depends where your coming from and a good sales person has to figure that out.
This is an interesting idea, and it sounds like it works for some people. Apple did a similar thing to this. They were not selling as much as they were hoping, so they raised prices on some products like their laptops. People are still willing to buy them at a higher price since they are made by Apple, and Apple made more money. This specific tactic usually only works for brands with a specific customer base and product line. But the tactic you mentioned sounds like it would work for a wider variety of companies.