Raise Price to Improve Revenues and Margins
CHOICE 1 OBJECTIVE: RAISE PRICE WITH NO CHANGE IN PERFORMANCE AND COST
CHOICE 2 ISOLATE SEGMENTS: DUE TO A UNIQUE CONVENIENCE
CHOICE 3 COMPONENTS: SET OR RAISE MINIMUM PURCHASE REQUIREMENTS
No. | SIC | Year | Notes |
1 | 4512 | 2001 | Atlantic Coast Airlines is a regional airline that is doing quite well. It has signed a 10-year agreement with Delta and United that presold 100% of its seats, thus ensuring an earnings growth of 20% to 40% for each of the next two years. Atlantic Coast leases, staffs, and flies the planes while United and Delta are responsible for marketing and ticket sales. United and Delta also pay the operating costs (like fuel) and regional carriers get paid even when there aren't any passengers. |
2 | 4812 | 2005 | Verizon Wireless offers a prepaid plan with a low per-minute rate of 10 cents but requires a 99 cent connection fee each day, regardless of whether or not the phone is used. Cingular's plan is similar but a $1 fee is assessed only on days when you make a call. |
3 | 4813 | 1998 | AT&T began charging a minimum of $3 a month to its long-distance customers in an attempt to cover its cost of providing universal phone access, and it is trying to switch some customers to prepaid calling cards. |
4 | 4813 | 2001 | While long-distance rates have declined over the past five years, an assortment of fees and monthly minimums has kept phone bills inflated. Per-minute rates have dropped from an average of 13.5 cents in 1998 to about 12.1 cents in January 2001. |
5 | 4813 | 2003 | Local phone companies still have the advantage because they provide 97% of the DSL going into homes. They also make customers buy local-voice calling plans along with their DSL. |
6 | 5961 | 1995 | Mail-order shoppers usually are charged for shipping according to the total price of their order–not the weight or volume of the package being shipped. So customers who order light products feel cheated. |
7 | 6021 | 1985 | Come January 1, Citibank will charge $6 if a customer's account falls below $1,000 in a given month and charge 25 cents per check or per cash-machine withdrawal. |
8 | 6021 | 1997 | If Citibank customers who are under the $6,000 limit for free checking make only eight transactions a month, they pay only $3 per month. |
9 | 6141 | 2001 | One-fourth of variable rate credit card issuers have a floor on how low interest rates can go. The General Motors MasterCard does not go lower than a prime rate plus 9.9 percent, a minimum of 16.9. |
10 | 6141 | 2003 | Retailers have to accept Visa and MasterCard debit cards, even though they charge fees that are five to six times highter than the rates of smaller, regional payment networks, in order to provide credit card acceptance. |
11 | 6141 | 2009 | Even as rewards points are increasingly losing value, consumers may have to spend more to earn or cash in their rewards. Discover Financial Services recently raised the minimum redemption thresholds on its Miles card to 10,000 miles for a $100 travel credit; before, card holders could start cashing in their miles at 5,000 for a $50 credit. Some of Citi's latest promotions on its travel reward cards — including the Citi Hilton HHonors, Citi Gold/AAdvantage World MasterCard and Citi Platinum Select/AAdvantage World MasterCard — require card holders to meet spending thresholds in order to earn bonus points. Previously, customers would typically have to sign up for the card or make a purchase of any size to get the bonus. |
12 | 6211 | 1998 | Roth IRAs vary in price. Some waive annual fees for investors who keep more than $2500-5000 in a single fund, or $10,000 to $50,000 at the firm. Annual fees range from none to flat rates of $10-$100 to $10 – $12 per fund. |
13 | 6211 | 2001 | Due to low investment activity, many online brokerages are imposing "inactivity fees" on their most inert customers. Datek Online started assessing a $16 quarterly fee on any customer who maintains a brokerage account with less than $5,000 or who hasn't made at least four stock trades in the past six months, beginning in September of 2001. |
14 | 6211 | 2002 | Schwab will raise the minimum fee for broker-assisted trading by 41% and phone trades by 65%. It will charge customers $60 to close their account. |
15 | 6211 | 2004 | E-Trade charges an account maintenance fee of $25 per quarter unless customers' brokerage account balances are at least $5,000, their combined brokerage and bank account balances are at least $20,000 or they have placed two or more trades in the last six months. |
16 | 7371 | 2000 | Snapfish offers a free set of prints with each roll developed for $1.69 for shipping fee. The company takes two weeks to put the photos online. The company also takes a credit card number for customers to get free mailers, and then they are billed another $3.99 if customers don't go to the website within 30 days to view their photos. |
17 | 7513 | 1995 | Dedicated logistics usually include the driver. So we used to price those either by the hour, or on a guaranteed minimum of 40 hours a week, whether the truck moved or not. This put the responsibility on the shipper. |
18 | 7514 | 1995 | National is hoping to penalize people who rent cars at a discounted rate, but return the vehicles before the five days are up, retroactively removing the discount. |
<<Return to Choice 3