What is Fair Market Value?
Mastermind for September 26th. What is Market Value?by mark mclean
read more here; http://realtylaboratory.com/2012/09/28/mastermind-for-september-26th-what-is-market-value/
More on Mobile App Pricing
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about factors that mobile app developers should take into account when pricing their apps (more here). If you are a developer or just someone interested in pricing strategies, I would recommend taking a few minutes to read.
I wanted to follow up with a short addendum to my post to discuss a very recent phenomenon which will likely significantly affect the top line app producers.
Last week, Rovio’s Angry Birds Seasons app (normally .99c) was featured as the top Free App of the Week by the Apple App store. Rovio took advantage of the promotion and the fact that it was downloaded by millions of users to promote a newer app which they just released, Amazing Alex. As soon as a user opens up the Angry Birds app, they are provided with an opportunity to purchase the new app, and this promotion was highly successful as Amazing Alex is now at the top of the App Store charts, and is a “featured” app as well. Wink, wink agreement perhaps?
Why is this significant? Well, I believe that we’re seeing a shifting in the lifespan of major apps. The leading gaming companies, like Rovio will be inclined to free up some of their previously paid apps in order to promote upcoming releases. What this means is that apps will now have a shorter shelf life, and we can expect that users will have more free access to cool apps after a certain time has elapsed. This is phenomenon is more likely in the gaming industry more so than others.
What Rovio has taken into account is that after a point in time, it is better to leave behind the laggards to promote newer games. I’m excited for this to become a reality, and ultimately it will be very positive for consumers.
Even when the bank loses, it wins
I was initially surprised to see an increase in bank accounts that have zero fees. An example includes the National Bank’s Freedom Account. The account will waive all fees, so long as $2,500/m is deposited into it.
You could put this down to competition or the reduced cost of business in an Internet-era. However, I don’t think it’s either of those. Perfect competition produce prices that equal the marginal cost. It doesn’t produce services for free. Computer systems are not free. Also, banks have been using computers for decades, and I know that bolting new web systems onto legacy COBOL/Fortran cores is likely to be more expensive than relying on tellers. Tellers are cheap, COBOL programmers are not.
Then I remembered that banks are interested in having their loans paid as slowly as possible, ideally with late payment fees sprinkled in. With the zero fees accounts, the trick is to make sure that the threshold for the minimum deposit is reachable only when one’s salary is paid into it. If the bank forgoes fees on a cheque account, their customers will not be putting their salary directly on to their credit card(s) or mortgages. This means that customers will be necessarily be paying off things more slowly, as interest tends to accrue daily.
What I find most intriguing about this strategy is that the banks have been able to make more money from people who are attempting to be financially contentious. Account holder is thinking they’ll be better off: “Wow, I’m free from banking charges”. When, most of the time, they’re probably worse off. They’ll be spending much more on interest over the long term. To make things better for the bank, when you deposit money into a cheque account, banks will be able to lend on the positive balance. However, when you pay off debt, you’re simply reducing the asset side of the ledger.
SonicTrades Price List
List of Services offered by the Sonic Trades and Research, along with time duration and pricing strategies for commodity tips, equity tips and intraday tips.
Round Your Price Up, Not Down
Your customer won’t notice as much as you think.
Surprisingly, most customers don’t know or remember your price as much as you realize.
If that’s the case, then why would you think rounding your price up is going to cost a lot of business? It’s not, so go ahead and do it.
Look at it this way. The additional profit you’re going to make might seem small, but it adds up quickly. If you’re in a typical industry and if by rounding your price up you increase your profit by 3%, then you could afford to lose 1 out of every 32 customers without damaging your total profit.
The probability of losing more than 1 out of 32 using this ratio is pretty slim. Sure, there are a few, but more often than not, the risk of losing more customers pales in comparison to the potential gain you will experience.
The reason more salespeople and companies don’t do this is simply out of fear of the unknown. This fear — or “unfounded fear” as I like to call it — is hurting the top-line and the bottom-line.
If you’re in sales, get over it and get going. You can’t argue facts, so put your ducks in a row and determine if the fear is simply that or if it is a fact.
The real upside to rounding up your pricing is the confidence you’ll gain as a sales force.
Price increases or any adjustment of any type that moves a price higher is always subject to pushback from the sales force. When the sales force can pull off something as easy as a rounding increase, then it begins to change their perception about every other increase.
Will it cause a 180 degree change? No, but it will begin to challenge the thinking of salespeople.
Source: Thesaleshunter
The New York Times in a Digital World
No Purchase Necessary
With sites such as Google, Wikipedia, and YouTube offering their services free of charge, companies who once charged a high price for there products are struggling to find a way to earn profits in this digital age. Consumers expect content to be available for free and instantly available with the click of a finger; for obvious reasons, companies are not so quick to offer there products free of charge. Many companies are constantly trying to find the correct balance between free and paid services.
The New York Times has struggled to find this balance as they adapt to the digital world. Consumers are getting there news for free from other websites and do not want to pay for the NYT news.
According to Chris Anderson, the author of “Free, the Future of a Radical Price” there are several options available to the companies that are struggling with their pricing strategy. These options range from advertising, cross subsidies, and labor exchange; each of these strategies has their own pros and cons but they each allow a company to monetize their product in the digital world.
Print in a Digital World
Consumers have become accustomed to receiving their news instantly and free. There are thousands of blogs and micro blog sites, such as twitter, that provide consumers with free news faster than ever. It is difficult for a newspaper, such as the New York Times, to keep up with the instantaneous opportunities that the internet provides to consumers. It is no longer acceptable to print one newspaper a day and have it delivered to their doorstep each morning. Consumers are reading their news throughout their day from multiple sources.
In order to keep up with the demand for instant news, the New York Times released a free mobile app that is constantly updated with the latest headlines. Yes, a free mobile app- How does the New York Times pay to keep the app running? Or pay the Journalists Reporting? How has the New York Times monetized a service that is available for free across the internet?
This is where Anderson’s free pricing strategies come into play.
The New York Times utilizes Anderson’s freemium model of pricing. This model gives consumers varying tiers of content; each tier offers more content and accessibility to the user at a greater price. After Downloading the app, users can only access the “Top News” section, a subscription is required to get access to all 25 NYT’s sections. There are three paid versions of the app available for users; each tier gives the user more access to New York Times’ content. The tiers are:
NYTimes.com + Smartphone App:* $3.75 per week (billed every 4 weeks at $15.00)
- NYTimes.com from any computer or device
- NYTimes app for Windows Phone, iPhone and Android-powered phones
NYTimes.com + Tablet App:* $5.00 per week (billed every 4 weeks at $20.00)
- NYTimes.com from any computer or device
- NYTimes app for iPad and Android-powered tablets, plus Times Reader 2.0 and the NYTimes App for the Chrome Web Store
All Digital Access:* $8.75 per week (billed every 4 weeks at $35.00)
- NYTimes.com from any computer or device
- NYTimes app for Windows Phone, iPhone and Android-powered phones
- NYTimes app for iPad and Android-powered tablets, plus Times Reader 2.0 and the NYTimes App for the Chrome Web Store
Digital Sampling
I think that the NYT’s freemium model of pricing fits this industry well. Although consumers can go elsewhere for free news, no other company has the credibility and brand image of the New York Times. People will pay for this reputation rather than get their news from an unreliable source elsewhere. When a consumer reads a New York Times’ article they know the information professional from the industry’s top journalists. This is untrue for many of the websites across the internet.
I think that the freemium model works so well because they are essentially giving consumers a free sample of the newspaper content. Giving users access only to the “Top News” section leaves the consumer wanting more. (This is the same reason a supermarket samples their offerings and a car dealer allows you to test drive a car) Although I think the prices may be a little to high, I think it is intelligent to offer different levels of subscriptions for different devices. Consumers may only use their smartphones to get news or may not own a tablet, in these cases they will not feel as though they are being ripped off because they are only paying for access they need and use. On the other hand, consumers feel as though they are getting a deal when different devices are bundled together.
Excelling in a Digital World
I think that the New York Times could make some improvements to continue future success. They could benefit from selling more ads and earning revenue from large advertisers. The print version of the newspaper survives from advertising revenue and I think the digital version can too. As long as the advertisements do not interfere with the content, I think that the New York Times can increase profits drastically. Clever ad placements and creative strategies can ensure that the ads do not intefere with the consumer’s ability to read articles.
I also think that the subscription rates are too high and the New York Times could benefit from lowering the digital monthly subscription rates. Typically only 1% of app users upgrade to the paid version of an app. This one percent covers the operating cost of the app and the cost to serve the other 99% of the users is negligible. If the New York Times lowered it subscription rates, more people would upgrade and have full access to the newspaper’s content. This revenue supplemented with advertising revenue could help the New York Times succeed in a digital world.
Are you a digital subscriber to the New York Times? What do you think the future holds for the New York Times?
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Sales: Increase Your Prices And Increase Your Sales! Discover The Pricing Strategies That Actually Boost Sales!
Sales: Increase Your Prices And Increase Your Sales! Discover The Pricing Strategies That Actually Boost Sales!
Increase Your Prices and Increase Your Sales!Discover The Pricing Strategies That Actually Boost Sales!”Discover How I Increased My SalesBy 965% In 14 Hours Just By Increasing My Prices And Learn How You Can Do This Too..Let me take you back five years for a moment. While I was working on my online business with about 12 months of experience and one measly website under my belt, I discovered something that was so significant, from the day I found this (by accident might I add) I never did business in the same way again.Because of this one simple fact, my profits immediately, and to this date have been multiplied by 10 times! All at a cost of oh.. lets see.. 60 seconds of my time per day. That’s a pretty painless way to get yourself such a significant increase in the size of your monthly paycheck.So how did it happen and what does it mean for your business? I’ll tell you..Contents:1. An Introduction2. Goals Of This Section3. Pricing Strategies; Getting Started3b. The Bigger Picture3c. Pricing With Regard To Competition3d. Rule 1: Premium Products Sell At Premium Prices3e. Rule 2: Wowing Through Price Is A Bad Move3f. Don’t Be Afraid3g. Time Are Changing3h. Increase Sales by Presenting Choices3i. Rewards For Customers Equals More Cash For You3j. Trials And Lead Generation3k. Banning The Word Cheap3l. Value Added4. Summary5. Goals Of This Section6. Adding Value Explained6a. Cut Off Dates6b. Limited Numbers Done Right6c. Standard Testimonials6d. Testimonials But Better6e. The Ultimate Testimonial6f. The Standard Bonus6g. Bonuses But Smarter6h. Bonuses Done Right6i. A Little Something Extra7. Summary
The 11 ways that consumers are hopeless at math
theatlantic.comAs consumers, we don’t really know exactly what everything should cost, so we rely on parts of our brains that aren’t strictly quantitative. Consequently, our decisions are based on clues and half-thinking that often amount to innumeracy. Here are the 11 ways that consumers are hopeless at math and susceptible to pricing tricks when it comes to shopping.
