Many times companies sell items below cost as a way to attract people into the store in hopes that they would buy other items which would offset the monetary loss. For a lot of frugal shoppers they will only buy those items and shop elsewhere for other great deals. What was interesting is how I was reading there are actually more people nowadays that are knowledgeable about these types of business strategies to the point where they insist in buying more than just the loss leader items.
The reasoning is they know if the company never makes a profit, then they will eventually go under. Therefore, they want the company to stick sound and continue to have great sales where buying more from them is a way to help ensure that happens. That is actually common when it comes to free mobile apps such as video games I noticed where even if it is free to play people will often want to spend money in hopes to support the company to continue.
In many ways it’s almost like tipping companies except you are actually getting more. Do you feel bad only buying loss leaders and heavily discounted items from businesses? It makes me wonder if a company could actually make more money like with the game example as theoretically more people would actually try the game and become a potential paying customer versus making it expensive at the start.
I know there have literally been restaurants that actually allow the customers to simply pay what they feel the service was worth too. Like there, many people often pay more if they enjoyed it.