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Discounting is not selling

Great retail campaigns and lead generation has more to do with creating value (return on investment) than cutting prices.

If customers are not buying your products, its far more likely to be because they are not aware of any differences, or value the benefit being promoted. Instead of talking down your price perhaps its time you start talking up the value and ROI.

The combination being a mature, affluent and stable country with, at the same time a relatively small and isolated population base makes Australia one of the most competitive retail markets in the world. Little wonder that modern marketing and advertising can often quickly spiral into aggressive price gouging and corrosive discounting.

Retailers must apply “Price logic” to protect their brand and product value. It needs to be recognised that uncontrolled and wide spread price discounting is often a predictable result of traditionally product led industries. Technology now means that product advantages are short lived and matched quickly by competitors. This creates commoditisation, parity marketing and poor offer differentiation.

Price based retailing and continual discount advertising builds commoditisation. In the absence of any other measure consumers are often literally forced to resort to price as a decision maker. In this regard discounting is serving to reduce segmentation, undermine differentials, brand value and reducing selling capacity. Value is never about the price! But if your advertising is primarily focussed on being cheaper, you are also telling your customers that the product and service is the same.

VMD has extensive retail experience and proven sales success across a broad range of industries and product categories covering the most simple products such as $10 Contact Lens to a $55 million dollar media contract. If you’d like to hear more about implementing pragmatic marketing strategies that secure premium priced sales for your business contact us now.

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