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--- Kim Flint <kflint@loopers-delight.com> wrote: > At 09:41 AM 8/26/2003, Greg House wrote: > >Kim wrote: > > > >Whether poor people think it is expensive or not doesn't really > > > >matter, because no matter what price it is they don't ever buy it >anyway. > > > >This sounds like a very cynical take on things. Getting things into the > >"impulse > >purchase", or even the "minimal thought" price ranges certainly DO >increase > >sales...especially for "take it or leave it" type specialty items. > > that's exactly what I said in my original message. I also pointed out >that > the people making impulse buying decisions are not poor people. People >with > money make impulse buys. The thread was about poor people complaining >about > the prices of things they can't afford, and I pointed out that their > complaints fall on deaf ears because they never buy anything anyway. >They > don't. Yes, but there ARE people in the midline. People who have some, but not a whole lot, of disposable income. I think I fall into that category. I can occasionally come up with the cash for a $100-500 purchase, but not real often. I think there are a lot of people in this type situation. I sure know a lot around here. > They do have a lot of time on their hands to complain a lot though. Well the reasons I have so much complaining time are better left offline, but suffice it to say that I'd have a lot LESS time if things worked the way I'd like them to. > >I think this is the reason the Boomerang never really "took off". It >was about > >$200 too expensive. > > the boomerang has stayed in production for a long time and seems to do >just > fine. I see people with them all over the place. Where do you get the > impression it hasn't done well? I base that on the ratio of people I hear talking about how cool the thing is and how many actually have one. I hear lots of people raving on about how cool the thing would be, how they'd love to have it, etc, but in my lifetime, I've known exactly two people that have one. One of those I met through this list. I've heard a number of people say they'd buy one if it didn't cost so much (for what it does). I've said that exact thing myself. If it could be used as a general purpose delay in addition to looping, or if it sold for $250 or less, I'd have had one years ago. As it is, the price alone relegates it to specialty market status. > >Likewise with the EDP. The high entry price restricts it to > >people who REALLY WANT it, and that means it'll never be a big seller. > > Every EDP that has been made was sold at about that price. The new >Echoplex > Plus version seems to be selling fine. Clearly the market did not have a > problem with the price. But how many more could have been made and sold if the price was lower? I can't tell you how many times I've talked to people about loopers and stuff, described the EDP to 'em and watched their face fall when they hear the price. It's like those guys Mark talked to recently. > What happened to you is the market priced you out of the picture. I >guess > your fellow loopers have more money than you, as plenty of them are >willing > to pay more than you've got. Sorry if that makes you feel bad, but that >is > a problem for you and not the Echoplex. I suppose it is. But really, I'd love to see the EDP have more broad market appeal, and I don't think it ever can at the price it sells at. > >If the EDP had been $500 a couple of years ago, I probably would have > >bought one instead of the Repeater that I did buy. Why? Because that's >as > >much money as I had at the time and the Repeater was available at that > >price. The features were cool, but I didn't really even know what I >wanted > >in a looper at that time, I just wanted something a little more >powerful > >then the borrowed DL4 I was using. The extra $200 for the EDP is the > >primary reason I picked the Repeater. > > Great! I hope you enjoy your Repeater. I bought two when they came out. > Meanwhile, all the available Echoplexes at the time sold out at the >higher > price. So why should anybody have cared about your $200 deficit? >Certainly > there is no reason to lower the price of something if you are going to >sell > all of them anyway at the higher price. There were plenty of other factors involved with Electrix's demise then the price of the repeater. If they'd sold 'em at twice the price, they still would have gone under because of their other problems. > In fact, Electrix would have sold the same number of Repeaters if their > price had been higher. Probably, given that their marketing was so incredibly poor. They designed a box for DJs, only half marketed it there, and then found that DJs didn't want the box. Other musicians wanted the box, but most never knew it existed. > I still would have bought two, and somebody else > would have bought yours. They might still be here if they had done that. > They essentially gave money away with each one they sold. They scrapped their entire product line in favor of this one nitch market product. It seems poor planning to toss out the bread and butter before your flagship product is doing really well, much less before it was even released. > No, clearly you don't understand pricing. The Echoplex is priced where >it > is because that is what the market is willing to pay for it. I do understand pricing. It's a balancing act. You price it to maximize profits, without supressing sales. Gibson feels it'll sell enough volume at the current price point. The question is whether it'd sell a lot more units at a lower price (making more net income due to the volume). Clearly Gibson doesn't believe it will. (aside: I wouldn't mind seeing that market survey though, David). My personal hope would be that it would sell more if the price was lower. > They sell fine > at that price. If it cost $1 to make it, the price would still be the >same > because that is what people are obviously happy to pay for it. No, I never said it had anything to do with how much it cost to make it. My observation from talking to people is that a lot of them really like the idea of an advanced looper until they hear the price. At that point they say something like "I think I can probably be happy enough with my DL4" or something like that. > >That doesn't mean I like it that way. It's just sad to me that more >people > >don't see the point, to where it could sell enough to be a > >good selling item. > > I don't know where you guys get this "poor selling" impression. It sells > great, given the size of the market. I certainly wouldn't mind if 100 >times > more units got sold. Then I could get my car. But that requires >expanding > the market, not lowering the price. Better visibility and wider interest >in > looping would do that. Hopefully those things will come. One mechanism for expanding your market, if there's public interest, is in pricing a product where your customers can afford it. Having the price too high supresses sales even if there's interest. As you say, you set it where the market will bear. It's just my opinion that it's a bit high for the market right now. Greg __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com