Pricing & Monetization Blog: Page 6

Many are probably familiar with the proverb "What goes up must come down." Throw an apple up in the air, and one does not have to wait long to see it fall down. While physics has demonstrated to us that things must first go up before they come down, the world of economics plays by its own rules. When dealing with economics, prices can both... [read more]

The website Pinboard has a special place in my heart - not because I'm a user, but because I wrote about its innovative pricing strategy in my book on how to price software. The firm recently announced a new pricing... [read more]

A bit of advertising caught my eye. It detailed a limited-time promotion for a "six pack" of individualized golf lessons. Image courtesy of Adam Juda I have some... [read more]

Someone told me about his idea of paying massive commissions to encourage affiliates to bring new users on board. It's no secret that some companies pay 10%, 20% - even 50% of the purchase price to guns for hire who are willing to market a product. After all, with many digital goods, any income above zero represents a net gain. So here's a... [read more]

Those familiar with my writing know that I'm a big fan of customer segmentation (and using different pricing strategies for different types of customers). It's great when it works! There's just one problem - it doesn't always work. As a pricing strategy becomes more complex, the opportunities for customers to exploit the system... [read more]

I recently purchased a cell phone case for the grand price of $2.99. This princely sum covered not only the case itself, but also shipping and handling. Given that most stores sell such products for ten times the price, people were shocked by my online shopping prowess. How could the manufacturer make any money at that price? Wouldn't it go... [read more]

Many companies have discovered that they can save tons of money by switching their washrooms from paper towels to hot air dryers. The hot air units save money by: Eliminating waste disposal costs Eliminating cost of disposable towels Reducing staffing costs for bathroom maintenance There's just one problem. ... [read more]

We live in a very analytic society. We have more computing power on our cell phones than was used to land a man on the moon. Every purchase we make, every web site we surf, every email we send - it's all put into giant databases. Numbers are crunched, predictions are made, futures are determined. Rarely do we ask if we're using those numbers... [read more]

In my book on pricing software, I included the quotation Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing. The implication of the quote is that one should always strive to succeed. Former managers of mine have been full of such empty aphorisms. Beyond "giving 110%" and "only accept success,"... [read more]

The Product Continuing our tradition from the previous pricing teardown, we're going to be examining another Y Combinator-backed startup. Given the recent Thanksgiving holiday, I felt that there was little choice as to which company should... [read more]