When do you price high? When do you price low? Pricing is a big discussion, with a lot of wiggle room for different approaches. Here are a few things to consider to do pricing right, and what to consider to find the best mobile POS system to help you.
Amazon, Walmart, and other big box retailers use enormous economies of scale to offer prices that small businesses can only gaze in awe at. Rather than bleeding your store to compete, take a different pricing approach. Often, a higher price goes with a perception of higher quality. If you aren’t selling staple items like toothpaste, be bold, and don’t undercut your products, and your profits, by aiming too low. That being said, depending on what you’re selling, you may actually be able to make the “low price leader” part of your brand and your business strategy. Just know that there are other options, and that you don’t have to sacrifice everything to do so.
Now, if it’s your own creation that you’re selling, you can adjust here and there to make your pricing hit the sweet spot. If you’re a donut maker, for example, and everybody in your neighborhood offers rock bottom cheap prices for the basic glazed donut, your store can opt to go high, adding quality, and raising your price to signal that you stand out from the pack.
Remember: there’s also the whole store to think of. If your store sells a range of products, you can carry a mix of high-end products, priced competitively, and also basic products, which can be priced a little higher than average, and people will buy, for convenience, and for the overall perception of quality your store has.
Once the product hits the floor, you still have time to experiment and learn. Especially if certain items aren’t moving fast enough, it’s time to consider price breaks, and various promotions to get them moving. There are a lot of approaches that can be leveraged here, especially if you are creating a limited time promotion. Some will work better than others, depending on what it is you’re selling. There is also a certain element of creativity that is needed to make promotions exciting and effective.
One thing to never forget with your promotions and pricing in general, is to track everything! If, for example, you have a summer price for a dress and a winter price for the same dress, you need to be able to see sales numbers so you can keep learning as you go forward, and improve next year. In order to be able to do this in a way that doesn’t make you tear out your hair, you need an integrated payment system, such as can be had with the best mobile POS systems. This way, you’ll be able to integrate your other systems: your inventory system, your accounting software, and more. And of course, having sales reports that allow you to do the learning is absolutely essential. Learn about the Poynt Smart Terminal that Moolah Customers get free for signing up with us!
Pricing, in a way, is where all the success for your small business starts. Be creative, be precise, and be sure to keep track of everything with the proper technology.