Common pricing mistakes

1. Companies base their prices on their costs, not their customers’ perceptions of value.

2. Companies base their prices on “the marketplace.” By resorting to “marketplace pricing,” companies accept the commoditization of their product or service.

3. Companies attempt to achieve the same profit margin across different product lines. Different customers will assign different values to identical products. For any single product, profit is optimized when the price reflects the customers’ willingness to pay.

4. Companies fail to segment their customers. Customer segments are differentiated by the customers’ different requirements for your product. Your price realization strategy should include options that tailor your product, packaging, delivery options, marketing message and pricing structure to particular customer segments.

5. Companies hold prices at the same level for too long, ignoring changes in costs, competitive environment and in customers’ preferences. Savvy companies accustom their customers and their sales forces to frequent price changes. The process of keeping customers informed of price changes can, in reality, be a component of good customer service.

6. Companies often incentivize their salespeople on revenue generated, rather than on profits. Volume-based sales incentives create a drain on profits when salespeople are compensated to push volume at the lowest possible price.