What's the secret to online success? Pricing! Back when I started my online publishing venture,
EbookoMatic.com, in 2000 I priced the cost of membership at just $49.95. At this price, memberships sold pretty briskly, but after one year
I wanted more profit. so I raised the cost of membership to $67.00. I had read that prices with a 7 in them outsold other prices. It worked and memberships sold very well.
After making substantial investments to the service I elected one year later to raise prices again. Most high-end quality products seemed to be selling at a magic price point of $97.00, so I followed suit. There was no noticeable drop in monthly revenue. I ran occasional specials on slow months and dropped the price to $72.00 for 72 hours. This always helped achieve short-term sales goals.
Last year I read that if you want to increase profits sharply you need to quadruple your price, so I raised it once again to $117.00. Memberships still sell consistently, and I receive very few requests for refunds. My home page includes a time-delayed pop-up box offering memberships for $92.00 and 10-day free trials upon exit. Most new memberships these days reflect purchases made at the $92.00 price.
Overall, it would appear that raising prices -- when you have a quality product -- has little impact on slowing sales. It would also appear that having some occasional fluctuation in prices -- lowering them for short periods -- can actually increase sales. I suspect the magic price point for
EbookoMatic will be between $92.00 and $117.00, and soon I will probably embrace a recurring low monthly membership fee versus a one-time payment.
As you can see, finding the right price for your product can take months or
even years. You can save yourself a lot of time by employing something called
dynamic pricing.
Using a special and easily installed script, you can offer your product at a variable price. You establish a start and end price and a timeline for that price to gradually rise. Then track the number of sales at each price change to determine the perfect price point.
The best tool I have found for this purpose is Dynamic
Price Generator. It's got a lot going for it:
1. It's inexpensive . . . depending upon when you purchase it.
2. It integrates with PayPal seamlessly and easily.
3. You receive full reseller rights for the script.
You can learn more about dynamic pricing by
clicking here.
Dynamic Price Generator
