個案資料

Pricing is no longer a purely economic challenge, or a problem that can be solved through simply lowering prices or allocating costs and adding markups. Pricing must focus on value exchange — that customers will buy a product when it delivers value in excess of its price after adjusting for alternatives — and the marketing orientation of the firm. The challenges of pricing can be categorized as price setting (setting the right price in the first place), discounting, price structures (the strategic approach through which specific transactional prices are set), and overall pricing strategy. Various qualitative and quantitative analytical techniques have been developed that help with pricing challenges. Executives must realize that they cannot rely upon the output of a single equation or quantitative analytical technique, as pricing is a strategic challenge, not an “engineering” challenge. In examining the four basic challenges of pricing, this article reminds us that firms exist to serve customer needs profitably. The right price reflects the ability of the product to address a customer challenge, and the right price extracted from customers must exceed the firm’s cost to deliver. Price structures enable executives to align their prices with customers’ willingness to pay without resorting to discounting. The modern understanding of pricing, as detailed in this article, is crucial for executives to embrace in order to make better decisions for their firms.

• Pricing
• Discounting
• Value Exchange
• Marketing Orientation