Although I’ve said before that with luxury items, the price is the value, I’m still occasionally astounded. Now along comes one of the most absurd items I’ve ever seen. Swiss watchmaker Romain Jerome created a watch they call “Night & … Read More
psychology
Pricing Advice from the World’s Oldest Profession
For many people watching the Elliot Spitzer scandal unfold, the shocking part of the story was not that a powerful politician went to a prostitute. That seems almost retro these days. What seemed jaw-dropping was the amount of money Spitzer … Read More
In Luxury Goods, Price is Part of the Value
Luxury vendors have long known that high price is part of their appeal. Not the price per se, but the exclusivity that comes with it. Like a peacock’s tail, the conspicuous consumption of goods that lack any practical purpose is … Read More
Back from the Writers’ Strike– A Daily Show and This Blog
As you may have noticed, the quantity and quality of posts has suffered since my writers have gone on strike. But like The A Daily Show, we’re back. Fittingly, when Jon Stewart returned to the studio last week, he had … Read More
Who can sell $300 socks?
There’s an interesting article over at Fast Company on The Inevitability of $300 Socks, which talks about the formerly incredible notion of paying $300 for jeans. Remember when $50 jeans were “designer”? The authors, Dan and Chip Heath, argue that … Read More
Reference prices
An alert reader sent in an article from the Wall Street Journal (free for one week) called The Psychology of the $14,000 Handbag, which delves into why stores offer, well, $14,000 handbags, and what this means for the rest of … Read More
5 Ways NOT to do Promotions
From Mental Floss, here are 5 Ballpark Promotions that Went Wrong. Example number 1: 10-cent beer night.
The Math of Multiple Discounts
Recent research by Akshay Rao and Haipeng Chen confirms that people have a hard time processing a sequence of percentage discounts. For example, if you have a $100 item at 20% off, and then take another 20% off, what is … Read More
Abusive Pricing?
Jason Calconis has a funny post about a hotel charging $2.80 for a cup of coffee. I’m not sure how much you get to complain about coffee when you have a $400 hotel room, but the point is legit. People … Read More
A Really Important Part of the Demand Curve
Josh Kopelman over at the Redeye VC blog has a great post (see image from post– click for larger image in original post) on the importance of the part of the demand curve when the price moves from “free” to … Read More