Raise Price to Improve Revenues and Margins

CHOICE 1 OBEJCTIVE: RAISE PRICE WITH NO CHANGE IN PERFORMANCE AND COST

CHOICE 2 ISOLATE SEGMENTS: CUSTOMER SEGMENTS WITH HIGH SERVICING COSTS

CHOICE 3 COMPONENT: ADD AN EXTRA FEE ON TOP OF VARIABLE CHARGE

No.	SIC	Year	Notes
1	0	2006	Why do rental-car companies charge so much to put gas in the tank? Rental agencies set the price high to deter clients from bringing back vehicles with an empty tank and thus offset the steep cost of refueling. Rental agencies don't have efficient systems for shipping and storing fuel.
2	3559	2002	Jergins, a Cleveland industrial parts maker, has started charging big premiums for small orders that it used to price like larger orders.
3	4213	2003	In order to compete in the refrigerated trucking industry, Marten Transport is working to improve customer behavior. The company charges customers for wait time and rewards those who have worked to improve efficiency. Companies with notorious inefficiencies can see rate increases of 5 to 20%.
4	4512	1986	Travel by Dana has added a $10 charge each time it books an under-$100 flight, adding a fixed component for under $100 flight.
5	4512	2004	American Airlines will start charging passengers a $250 one-way fee to use frequent-flier miles to convert low-cost international tickets into first-class or business class seats. The nonrefundable fee will apply to discounted and deeply discounted coach-class tickets. Full-fare coach tickets and business-class tickets will be exempt from the fee.
6	4512	2005	Airlines, especially traditional carriers, have stepped up enforcement of fees for unaccompanied minors. These fees, typically $40 each way on a domestic flight for unaccompanied minors, are designed to mitigate the costs of caring for the children before, after and during the flight. However, age limits and fees vary according to provider, with the budget airlines charging less or nothing at all.
7	4513	2003	Delivery area surcharges have been increasingly applied to residential areas by delivery services. These fees can be dictated by type of location such as houses or office buildings or weekend delivery dates.
8	4513	2003	In order to boost revenue after the economic downturn reduced shipping, delivery companies such as UPS and FedEx have boosted delivery fees to some parts of San Diego, Oklahoma City and Miami Beach. Airborne Express also adds a hard-to-reach surcharge. These fees could be applied to up to 60% of areas.
9	4724	1995	American Express continues to charge $10 for reissuing a ticket, $10 for overnight priority mail, $75 for planning a complicated domestic itinerary and $150 for planning a complicated international itinerary.
10	5411	2002	Both Safeway and Albertson's will charge a $9.95 delivery fee regardless of order size. Unlike Webvan, which spent millions to build automated distribution centers, Safeway and Albertson's will use their existing stores. Orders will be filled by clerks pushing shoppping carts through the aisles. At Safeway the carts will be equipped with computer displays showing the requested items.
11	5912	2009	CVS Caremark Corp. is apparently steering its pharmacy-benefits patients to its own drugstores by raising co-payments for some who fill their prescriptions at other pharmacies—and competitors are crying foul. The company sent its patients letters that warned them that their co-payments would rise to 50% of the cost of their drugs from 25% unless they switched their prescriptions to a CVS pharmacy. The letters appear to relate to a program called "Maintenance Choice," under which patients can opt to fill 90-day prescriptions through CVS drugstores for the same cost. Company officials have labeled it a success, saying it boosted CVS's in-store pharmacy sales in the first quarter by 1.2 percentage points. CVS's effort appears to be penalizing patients directly for patronizing competing drugstores.
12	6021	1988	Bank of America will charge its basic checking account customers 30 cents each time they use ATMs to withdraw cash. ATMs used to be free.
13	6021	1995	The cost of using an ATM rose 6% for local networks during the 2-year period and 7% for national networks. First Chicago Corp. began charging some customers $3 to visit a human teller instead of an ATM.
14	6211	1998	To keep costs down, a number of cut-rate cybersites charge extra for customer service that many brokers used to provide as a courtesy.
15	6211	1998	Prudential is levying an annual fee of $50 on clients for the privilege of maintaining a basic account at the firm. The fee is comparable to fees rivals have had for years.
16	6211	2002	Many brokerage firms are tacking on fees to their services as online trading remains low. Charles Schwab added a $3 "order handling fee" to all stock trades. Inactivity fees are also common but the rate and terms vary by broker. Ameritrade charges $15 to clients who don't trade at least four times every six months. Investors with larger accounts can usually have these fees waived. TD Waterhouse is also rewarding active users with cheaper trades. Choice customers who trade less than 18 times per quarter saw their commission jump from $12 to $14.95. Select customer fees remained the same and Premier Select, customers with more than 37 trades pay only $9.95.
17	6324	2002	Health plans are categorizing hospitals according to cost and charging members higher co-payments for their use of more expensive facilities. This "tiering" of services is designed to keep healthcare costs lower. Currently, the plan is an option for employers looking to save money. While hospitals complain that the pricing policy will hurt health-care providers, the HMOs feel that it will encourage competition and a more standardized pricing.
18	6513	2002	Office and apartment landlords have renewed tenant leases on a month-to-month basis, but typically they have hit tenants with additional fees to do this.
19	7514	1998	Some car rental companies tack on a 50 cent charge to cover the cost of making frequent-flier awards.

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