Escape the Mundane + Experience the Remarkable

The Cost of Convenience

4 Comments
Marketing

I was in the beverage aisle of Target today and I noticed something interesting:

The packs of RedBull were on sale. But with a non-congruent pricing structure. The two choices on sale were 4 packs and 12 packs, priced at $5.99 and $18.99 respectfully. This got me thinking… how many people fall for this trick? $1.02 more for the convenience of buying one box, instead of 3? Do people not know math anymore?

Illogically Logical

This pricing structure is genius. Target must make a ton of extra cash on people’s inherent laziness to logically think situations like this through. And I’m willing to bet this strategy is carried throughout the store and undoubtedly the bulk of shoppers will not catch this price difference.  (note: I’ve seen this gimmick many times in other stores as well)

Symbolically, this has many underlying themes applicable to your business. As you are pricing your service or products, think about what you could do to cash in on laziness. Or how a little convenience may be consciously or subconsciously worth extra to them. And most importantly, always remember:

Most buyers do not think logically.

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  • http://knitfreedom.blogspot.com Liat Gat

    Reading your blog post has reinforced the idea of being clever about pricing structures for my product. I used to think, “My product is different, this wouldn’t work for me” — I create e-courses teaching knitting. But then I thought I could break the books into segments and sell them individually, or offer to “bundle” it all for one ‘convenient’ price – more than the sum of the pieces. Thanks for helping me think creatively about pricing my products!

    -Liat

  • http://www.bradleygauthier.com Bradley Gauthier

    Great to hear! Thanks Liat!

  • http://www.runwithluke.com Luke

    Hey Bradley, just found your blog. great stuff! This post is a great insight into the dynamics of consumer psychology. It is mind blowing to think that some people would spend extra money when they thought they were saving money.

    I suppose the other option could be that management (the price setters) made a mistake in their “bulk discount pricing.”

    Either way, very interesting!

  • http://www.bradleygauthier.com Bradley Gauthier

    I would be shocked if they accidentally did this…

    Thanks for the comment Luke!