Pricing advice that works all the time

1. Pricing Advice that Works All The Time
August 11, 2014
Pricing is very important.
Here is a simple piece of pricing advice that will work for you all (if not most) of the time. I
call it "cut the zeros".
Give you an example. Let's say you are running a car workshop. When your customer asked
for a quotation, you will list down all the services and parts you will provide and then you
will give them a total fee of $4,000.
Your customer will then hesitate and ponder very hard at the figure. Even though you have
already provide a detail breakdown of the services rendered and the hours spent on repairing
individual parts. The typical scenario is that the customer will try to bargain and haggle you
down another $500 at least.
Have you wonder why? And what if you quoted them at $4,220?
Is there anything wrong with $4,000? This is an absolute number and it looks like you have
calculated your cost and you know your price well. You even took time to itemized each and
every item for their needs. $4,220 is not a number your normally quote and it looks like an
unrounded number with no buffer.
Well, the fact is that customers do not like zeros. The zeros triggers their suspicion, thinking
that the quotes are padded and that you are simply trying to milk them dry. This is a law of
non even price numbers that marketers like us have used for decades.
Well, I am not asking you lie to your customers, price your services right and based on a win-
win model.
Then again, this may not work for all customers, try it out to feel the difference.
Anndy Lian
Chief Marketing Officer
Scientific Tradition Pte Ltd
www.scientifictradition.com