渗透定价初学者指南

Raise your hand if you miss Blockbuster. Now, raise your hand if you also high-tailed it to the nearest Redbox when they popped up in front of your local McDonald’s.

When Redbox entered the movie rental market in 2002, they led with an aggressively competitive price of $1.00 per day for DVD rentals and no late fees. It was drastically cheaper than Blockbuster’s rental prices of $2.99 or $4.99 per rental, plus late fees of approximately $1.00 per day.

这是穿透定价的一个示例，标志着大片的末端开始。在2009年，这家曾经很伟大的视频巨头尝试将Redbox与自己的每天租金计划1美元相匹配，但为时已晚。那时，名为Netflix的DVD订阅服务正在获得视频租赁市场的巨大范围。

So, what is penetration pricing exactly? And is it right for your business? Let's find out.

由于该策略要求公司将价格削减几乎低于市场价值，因此通常在高增长阶段使用的新业务来吸收初始损失。这些损失被视为获得市场份额并诱使客户远离竞争对手的必要牺牲。

例如，可以说是一家已建立的Scranton Paper Company Dunder Mifflin，每雷姆以12.00美元的价格出售纸。bob全站app如果新的创业公司Michael Scott Paper Companybob全站app进入Scranton Paper Market，以每雷安4.00美元的价格出售Ream，那么当生产纸的费用为3.50美元时，这将被视为渗透定价。

迈克尔·斯科特（Michael Scotbob全站appt Paper Company）每雷姆（Ream）以4.00美元的价格出售纸张，不可能享受可持续增长。但是，他们可以利用最初的低价来破坏斯克兰顿纸市场，赚取少数客户远离Dunder Mifflin，并提高品牌认可。

If you're thinking about leveraging penetration pricing, there are some key points you need to consider.

What to Have in Mind When Creating a Penetration Pricing Strategy

• 您的产品价格弹性吗？Price-elasticproducts — ones with demand that fluctuate with price changes — can typically play into effective penetration pricing strategies. If your product is released during a crucial launch period, higher prices could hurt sales and limit your growth. In many cases, a low price can provide a foot in the door for new businesses with price-elastic offerings.
• Is your strategy legal?渗透定价和诸如损失领导者定价和掠夺性定价之类的阴暗实践之间的界限通常会被混乱。损失负责人的定价是一种实践，公司销售某些产品亏损，目的是摇摆客户购买其价格更高，更有bob全站app利可图的产品。
  
  Predatory pricing is where a company radically undercuts its market in order to drive out any competition, giving that company a monopoly. Once it's in that position, that company raises prices radically to recoup any losses while maintaining its dominant market position.
  
  Loss leader pricing is illegal in around half of all states in the US, and predatory pricing is flat-out illegal everywhere. If you're going to leverage penetration pricing, make sure everything you're doing is legally sound.
• How much faith do you have in your product or service?A penetration pricing strategy rests on the assumption that consumers will be willing to eventually pay more than the lower price you breach the market at. If you want to leverage the tactic, you need to believe that your value proposition will hold up, down the line.

Advantages of a Penetration Pricing Strategy

• New customers- Everyone will like you … for a minute, at least. Consumers love a good deal, so companies offering penetration pricing are often adored and flocked to when they break onto the scene with steeply discounted offers.
• 长期收益- The economies of scale come into play here. Employing penetration pricing nets a high volume of sales that may offset the lower price tag.
• Market disruption- Offering a product/service at such a low price gives your business a Robin Hood persona. Customers begin to wonder why they’ve been paying so much for the same product or service elsewhere. You win their business and dominate the marketplace, pushing competitors back — or out of the business completely.
• Turnover- This is especially key if you run a retail business. The low price and market disruption mean your product or service flies off the shelves, which benefits retail businesses and distributors.

Disadvantages of a Penetration Pricing Strategy

• Customer dissatisfaction- Eventually, you must raise prices to grow your business. This can cause frustration for customers and bring about retention issues.
• Loss of brand value- When you price and market yourself like a discount brand, you earn a lot of business. But people also start to think of you as a discount brand, causing pushback when you try to price your product or service higher.
• 价格战- 实施渗透定价策略的赌博是您的竞争对手可能会进行报复。定价战会导致整个市场的盈利能力降低，没有人受益。
• Inability to raise prices- 当您尝试提高客户的价格时，他们只是不接受，并将其业务带到其他地方。

Penetration Pricing Examples

Netflix

Do you grumble a bit every time you receive an email that says your Netflix monthly subscription is going up? Me too. But I also close the email and go back to what I was doing without giving it a second thought. Netflix is a great example of penetration pricing done right.

Netflix opened up shop in 1997, five full years before Redbox became a threat to Blockbuster. It took a little while to build buzz, but they used low prices (a subscription fee of as low as a dollar) to distract consumers from the fact they had to wait up to two days to receive their DVDs in the mail. In 2007, they introduced a streaming service, and the rest is history.

Internet and Cable Providers

免费HBO六个月？150个额外的频道？免费DVR？这些只是互联网和有线电视提供商实践渗透定价的几种方式。他们提供的介绍性价格低廉，以吸引客户远离竞争对手。一旦结束了介绍期，价格将逐渐（有时甚至很陡峭）上升，以赶上其余市场。

载脂

这个运动服装品牌为您提供了一件三件套的服装，价值约100美元，价格仅为49.99美元。这比Lululemon或Athleta等其他受欢迎的休闲品牌便宜得多，该品牌的出售一双紧身裤的起价约为100美元。

The hook? Fabletics is a subscription service. You join their VIP program and receive one "outfit" every month unless you hit the "skip a month" feature before the fifth. Prices this low would likely not be sustainable for the brand without the sheer volume of recurring monthly subscription prices and one-off purchases from their members.

Lay's Stax

In 2003, Frito Lay introduced Lay's Stax, a brand of baked potato chips tailored to compete with Pringles brand chips — with a similar shape, texture, taste, and packaging.

Initially, Frito Lay radically undercut its competition by selling cans of Stax for as low as $0.69. Once the chips got some traction, the company raised their price to reflect what its competition was charging.

Costco

Costcoleverages a penetration pricing strategy with its organic grocery products. Generally speaking, the margin on typical groceries isn't particularly high — that's not the case for organic foods, which have more impressive returns. In turn, many grocers sell their organic products with a high mark-up.

Costco, on the other hand, sells organic foods at lower prices — slightly undercutting the market with its own kind of penetration pricing strategy. That said, this is a very specific brand of penetration pricing that not every company can sustainably employ. Since the corporation is as massive as it is, it has more leeway to employ this strategy than a smaller, growing grocer.

Penetration pricing can be an effective pricing strategy for some businesses, but it could just as easily fall flat for others. If you're interested in leveraging the tactic, make sure you understand how it will affect your business plan before implementing it.

Editor's note: This post was originally published inApril 2019and has been updated for comprehensiveness.