Monthly Archives: April 2006

Why Pricing Has to Align with the Rest of the Company

Seth Godin recently posted an piece on his blog called Razors and blades, about trouble with an HP printer. Like razors, printers are a money-losing business. The profit comes from the blades and the cartridges that people keep coming back … Read More

2 Articles on Drug Pricing

Forbes has a couple of interesting pieces on drug pricing. A Primer on Drug Pricing discusses the inherent inefficiencies of an industry driven by huge R&D costs but low marginal costs. The basic point is that the price that maximizes … Read More

Price Confusion as a Skimming Strategy

Slate posted an article recently that suggests that cellular carriers offer confusing plans to make extra money off people who aren’t willing to dig around for bargains, rebates, and better plans. There is a good deal of merit in the … Read More

Pricing Error: Bill Off by about $200 Trillion

Yes, that’s “t” as in “trillion.” A Malaysian man received a phone bill for $218T (or 806,400,000,000,000.01 Malaysian ringgit) after disconnecting his deceased father’s phone line. If your calls cost $1 per minute (perhaps some kind of international dialing), you’d … Read More