Bucking the price trend...

This is an email from Jim my account manager at Printroom. He believes raising my prices will cause more sales.

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Hi Mary. I wanted you to imagine for a moment that I had a wine bar and you visited it. I offered two glasses of wine--one I was selling for 60 cents, the other for 6 dollars. Which glass do you automatically think has the better wine within it?

Now imagine that I let you know both glasses were poured out of the same bottle. If you were a wine drinker, you'd obviously order the 60 cent glass. However, you wouldn't order 10 glasses. If I only offered you the $6 glass, you'd think you were getting the better vintage and I'd maximize my profit.

Online photography sales are a lot like that. Your customers will value your photography more as your price is raised. Fine art is that way, too. It appears to me that photography is a lot more like fine art than it is like produce. (I'll typically buy more artichokes when their price is lower). Your customers are motivated to buy your photographs not because of your price, but because you captured the images they want to own.

If you raised your 4x6 price to $6, I predict you would not only notice more profit, you might notice more sales! I've seen it happen in several Printroom professional accounts. The photographer raises his prices and gets more sales. I'm still amazed when I see it even though I believe I understand the economic model for it.

As your account manager, my job is to help you grow your online sales. I'd strongly encourage you to consider raising prices.

If a $6 4x6 print seems pricey to you, let me assure you, it's not. I normally recommend little league photographs be offered no less than $6. If you raise your 4x6 print price to $6, you increase your sales and your customers still get a table pounding value.

--Jim