Today I was talking to a person who’s business is very seasonal where all of his customers usually come around this time of year when the weather gets hot. The interesting thing was because he knows he will get more customers he tends to price his products higher as well. At first I was asking if this was simply due to a supply and demand scenario which made sense to me. However, he said no as it was simply based on the notion that for some reason people are willing to pay the higher prices as during this time of the year if they want to buy something then they will. Therefore, he may as well get more profit.

I was just thinking that must feel a little strange. For example, imagine doing something like offering an E-book where you originally sold it for a certain amount and because you know there is going to be an influx of customers then suddenly you increase the price. Like in this case, it didn’t really require you to do anything more or less. This is one of those things where probably a big shot would say you would be silly not to increase the price if you knew people will pay for it anyways.

However, I tend to think at this day and age information and can easily be found and if people are more aware of a company’s pricing tactic like this that the negative publicity from that is probably not going to be worth the few extra dollars you made. Unless this wasn’t exactly a long term business as you are simply looking to get in and out really fast I suppose. I personally think in a situation where if it doesn’t have anything to do with say an increase cost in doing business that your pricing should be fairly consistent as I know from a consumer point of view the word of mouth can end up costing the business more sales if people perceive it as like price gouging.

Today I got a telemarketing call from my bank in regards to some kind of credit check service for my credit card. While obviously they were trying to sell me a product, the interesting thing was after the person finished their pitch the only thing they said was that all they needed now was consent so that they can activate the service.

Essentially,the person didn’t even tell me about the cost or anything. Of course I asked about it and it seemed like it was a $20 a year service. It makes me wonder how many people actually sit there and say yes to these types of pitches as I would assume it’s one of those scenarios where it must be working for them to do it. Most people probably assume it is a free service huh?

Then again, maybe they did mention the fee but was simply rapid talking it so fast that it kind of bypassed me. Almost like writing a tiny fine print in a service agreement. Whenever people talk so super fast in telemarketing calls like these it stereotypically makes me think they are trying to sell something so it already puts me in a state of mind to not accept it. I would be inclined to say just advertising the service on say their online sites wold be more effective.

Today I was talking to a person how I thought certain companies were charging so much for some basic services that should otherwise be very easy. Sure enough, if you look at some of their competitors the rates are extremely different which then makes you wonder are they just that much better to justify the higher cost? He then threw a very valid point at me as he told me that most likely certain people are actually contracting others to do the work for them. Therefore, because they have to pay them while still making money for themselves this results in a higher price.

That is so true I thought and is often a point that people forget to research when they are doing business with a company. This can be a common thing when it comes to to like site creation, lawyer services or even home renovations. Many times companies will advertise that they can do it all whereas in reality they can’t do it themselves and rely on outside help to do the job. So this is a very simple point to research in an effort to save money as to whether or not the company does everything themselves or if they outsource it to others. If anything, knowing this detail you may be able to simply cut out the middle man and go straight to the people that actually do the work to save money too.

I have been talking to another person lately about starting a venture together and one topic of course was budget. The thing was this is something that doesn’t need a lot of capital in the beginning. However, wen it comes to forming the actual company such as incorporating we were just discussing if we should use say a lawyer or not as those fees can go up to a thousand dollars. In some ways it seems a little crazy as that alone costs more than the resources to start the business.

That makes you wonder in that case would you be inclined to just skip professional services like that and do it yourself? I must say though, for the most part the thought of not doing something correctly made us lean towards just wanting to use like a lawyer. It’s always more complicated when there are more people involved. If this was a solo venture I would be more inclined to just register the items directly and simply paying the government fees. But when there are more people involved I guess you want to try your best to make sure everything is right in the beginning.

Happy new years everyone. It seems like here there is a lot of fees are going up when it comes to provincial stuff such as income taxes and even various things like pubic transportation getting more expensive. Of course this has a lot of people saying how that isn’t good for the economy and such. One thing that this made me think of is the public transportation price and how I remember a quote before of someone saying compared to a car you are getting a bargain for what you pay. Therefore the small increase shouldn’t matter much.

It made me think because if you are trying to lure people into using it more from a financial point of view isn’t it better to make it a lot cheaper as opposed to just a little? I know the argument is usually that people are willing to pay so many dollars for another thing anyways so you would think they shouldn’t be apprehensive if you price it similar except a bit cheaper. I personally think that only really works if what you offer is in a sense exactly the same thing. Example, people that run a barber shop where if everyone else is charging $10 per cut then realistically you can say you can undercut it by just a little. However, saying like because people are willing to pay $12 to watch one movie in the theatres means that people should be contempt to pay $10 to order one movie on their TV as it is a bargain in comparison doesn’t work the same I think.

I would be inclined to say there you would need to make it a lot cheaper as it is not the same. Either way guess people will have to adapt to the increases since these are more of an essential service of sort as opposed a non essential.