Reduce Price to Improve Revenues and Margins
CHOICE 1 OBJECTIVE: ATTRACT CUSTOMERS
CHOICE 2 ISOLATE SEGMENTS: TARGETED COMPETITOR SEGMENT
CHOICE 3 COMPONENT: CHANGE THE BENEFIT PACKAGE
No. | SIC | Year | Notes |
1 | 2043 | 1996 | Post is positioning itself as a value provider. Its brands will be priced at about $3 a box. Private-label brands run $2 to $2.49 a box. |
2 | 2111 | 1992 | The biggest growth has been in deep-discount "subgeneric" brands like PM's Bristol, AB's Montclair and L's Pyramid. They sell for about half the more than $2 retail cost of a pack of full-priced cigarettes. |
3 | 2262 | 2005 | In an effort to overtake Italian and French factories, which have powered the silk-furniture business for decades, Chinese mills have been pouring millions of dollars into new equipment and modern weaving techniques. That is leading to a sharp rise in the quality and variety of Chinese silk used for upholstery – at prices up to 80% less than similar offerings in Europe. Until now, the high price of silk has made it prohibitively expensive for most large manufacturers to make these pieces. The strength of the euro and China's lower labor costs have also helped Chinese mills beat their European counterparts on price. Embroidered silks from China can cost as little as $30 a yard, while similar fabrics from Italy can cost between $150 and $300. |
4 | 2320 | 1991 | P-VH has taken market share from Arrow and others by covering all the price points. It offers medium-priced Van Heusen 417 and Hennessy shirts, ranging from $21 to $36. It offers upper-scale customers Geoffrey Beene, Cezani and Etienne Aigner labels at up to $45. The company is also the nation's largest private-label dress shirt maker. |
5 | 2840 | 1996 | USA Detergents cleaning products are "value-priced": means they cost a bit more than the lowest-priced products, private-label brands. And they're priced about 60% less than premium brands by firms like P&G. |
6 | 3571 | 2003 | In 2002, Cray released a new machine, the Cray X1, which found an immediate market in handling long-range weather forecasting and climate studies. However, rival NEC came out with a model in the same $10 million price range, but with greater speed. |
7 | 3576 | 1999 | The personal digital assistant will retail for $499, about $100 less than what Palm announced last May. |
8 | 3651 | 2005 | Apple Computers Inc. is moving from the high-end and taking clear aim at the low end of its two core markets. Currently, the market is fragmented among dozens of MP3 players that charge roughly $150 for devices that hold 120 songs. What Apple has done is deliberately undercut the competition. The base model of the new shuffle costs $99 and holds 120-plus songs. To get that low price, however, it has designed a bare-bones platter that may not appeal to everyone. Apple's gadget boasts no screen – meaning users can't see or control what they're playing. Apple is betting that there are plenty of low-budget buyers out there who will find the shuffle enough gadget for their need. It also hopes they'll be tempted to move up into a pricier iPod, especially if they get hooked buying music form the company's iTunes music stores. |
9 | 3674 | 1997 | Cyrix's new microprocessors cost much less than Intel chips. A Cyrix 233 MHz chip will cost $320, versus $636 for a comparable Pentium II. |
10 | 3721 | 1987 | Airbus managers are girding for a knock-down-drag-out fight with McDonnell. Airbus strategy is to go for the kill. The A340 won't be commercially successful airplane, but it can really hurt McDonnell. Attack on a weak competitor. |
11 | 3955 | 2001 | Each printer ink kit contains enough ink for about three refills. The color ink kits cost about $25; the black ink kits cost about $20. Compare that with $105 for three color cartridges or $75 for three black cartridges, and you get a good idea of just how much you could save. |
12 | 4512 | 1994 | By charging 25% to 33% less than established carriers along CA routes, Southwest's market share has soared from 4% in 1987 to 47% today. |
13 | 4513 | 2003 | Brand-new Boeing 777s are selling for $165 million–and competing with 10-to15-year-old 737-300s available for $5 million to $8 million and 20-year-old 737-200s at $1.5 million. A wide-body 250-seat Boeing 767-300ER, which sold new for $65 million in 1998, should go for $35 million now. The middleman gets at least $1 million. |
14 | 5331 | 1996 | One price comparison cited by Goldman Sachs last year found that Dollar Tree's prices averaging less than 1/2 those of Kmart for comparable items. |
15 | 6141 | 2006 | Wal-Mart Store Inc. has been selling financial products to low-income customers who many shop in its stores, but don't have relationships with traditional banks. Wal-Mart's prices for the financial services are lower than many competitors. Wal-Mart charges 46 cents for a money order, compared with as much as $1.30 at the post office. The company also charges a maximum of $3 to cash a payroll check; check cashing firms usually charge 2% to 3% of the check's face value. |
16 | 6211 | 1997 | Internet brokers such as E*Trade Group Inc. offer trading to cost-conscious investors at half Schwab's commission. |
17 | 7372 | 2009 | When Westcon complained of high costs for Microsoft's portfolio of business software, a sales rep offered him a new version of Exchange—an e-mail systems software—for a monthly fee, while Microsoft maintained the bulky program and data on its own servers. |
18 | 7514 | 1995 | Thanks to lower overhead costs, Enterprise's rental rates are generally below those of competitors, sometimes as much as 30% under its airport-based rivals. |
19 | 7999 | 2003 | Alpine Meadows ski resort recently added a daily, slightly restricted adult lift ticket for $39, down from $56 last year. Skiers at Alpine last spent $39 for a day pass in the 1989-90 season. Sugar Bowl quickly matched the offer this season. To deal with the heavy volume of skiers its $39 lift pass deal will attract, Alpine will cut off sales and parking (except to season pass holders) when the slopes and parking lot are deemed too crowded. |
20 | 8111 | 2000 | Venture Law Group has been trying to get its lawyers to work fewer hours, on the theory that it can make more money investing in clients than billing them. And it does all this while consciously shunning the biggest and most prestigious corporate clients. |
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