Pricing Really Isn't Everything!

Thursday, March 5, 2015

I've been rather sure of myself lately. The more I looked around the world, the more I came to the conclusion that pricing wasn't just an important facet of business, but it was the facet of business. It was the answer to every question and the cause of every action. That is, until yesterday when my entire world came crashing down.

As I was filling my car with gas, I noticed that there was a very large box containing packages of road salt available for sale. I suppose that this wasn't unusual in and of itself. Growing up in New England, I'd see road salt sold well into April. However, I no longer reside in my former home of New England. I now live in southern Florida - in a city that probably hasn't seen snow since some time in the Jurassic.

Given that I've already touched on the pricing of salt, I spent a fair bit of time trying to predict the type of person who would be interested in buying road salt when the daily temperature was in the 80s. The most plausible archetypes for buyers that I could come up with were:

• Folks who were driving far north and were afraid they might get stuck in a snowstorm.
• Northerners who had come from very snowy areas and didn't realize that one does not need road salt here.

Neither of the two seemed likely.

While I'll avoid the obvious question as to why corporate headquarters sent road salt to this gas station in the first place, I think that the best options are to send it back or (more likely) dispose of it. There are minimal uses for salt that is neither pure enough for chemical processes, nor rated for human consumption. Dropping the price will not change that fact.

For once, changing the price will do little. It's certainly a sad day in Princingville today, but you can certainly improve my mood by picking up a copy of my software pricing book or by contacting me for a consult.