What's the secret to online success?
Pricing! Back when I started my online publishing venture, EbookoMatic.com,
in 2000 I priced the cost of membership at just $49.95. At this
price, memberships sold pretty briskly, but after one year I wanted
more profit. so I raised the cost of membership to $67.00. I had
read that prices with a 7 in them outsold other prices. It worked
and memberships sold very well.
After making substantial investments to the service I elected one
year later to raise prices again. Most high-end quality products
seemed to be selling at a magic price point of $97.00, so I followed
suit. There was no noticeable drop in monthly revenue. I ran
occasional specials on slow months and dropped the price to $72.00
for 72 hours. This always helped achieve short-term sales goals.
Last year I read that if you want to increase profits sharply you
need to quadruple your price, so I raised it once again to $117.00.
Memberships still sell consistently, and I receive very few requests
for refunds. My home page includes a time-delayed pop-up box
offering memberships for $92.00 and 10-day free trials upon exit.
Most new memberships these days reflect purchases made at the $92.00
price.
Overall, it would appear that raising prices -- when you have a
quality product -- has little impact on slowing sales. It would also
appear that having some occasional fluctuation in prices -- lowering
them for short periods -- can actually increase sales. I suspect the
magic price point for EbookoMatic
will be between $92.00 and $117.00, and soon I will probably embrace
a recurring low monthly membership fee versus a one-time payment.
As you can see, finding the right price for your product can take
months or even years. You can save yourself a lot of time by
employing something called dynamic pricing.
Using a special and easily installed
script, you can offer your product at a variable price. You
establish a start and end price and a timeline for that price to
gradually rise. Then track the number of sales at each price change
to determine the perfect price point. The best tool I have found for
this purpose is Dynamic
Price Generator. It's got a lot going for it:
1. It's inexpensive . . . depending
upon when you purchase it.
2. It integrates with PayPal
seamlessly and easily.
3. You receive full reseller rights
for the script.
You can learn more about dynamic
pricing by clicking here.
