Commodity ou Experiência? (parte II)

Há dias, ao ler que os estabelecimentos onde se vende café andam a baixar preços para seduzirem os clientes a regressar ao consumo, escrevi a parte I.
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As curvas de Dolan e Simon são eloquentes para demonstrar o que acontece ao lucro de quem baixa os seus preços... e o que acontece a quem os aumenta, vantagens de quem conhece o Evangelho do Valor.
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Por isso, com a pergunta em mente: "commodity ou experiência?", reflectir sobre o que fez a Starbucks em 2009 com a quebra no consumo, em "Starbucks Price Increase – A Case Study In Analysis":

"Starbucks decided to raise its drink prices by as much as 8% (5 cents to 30 cents), They are doing this just when customers are cutting back on their Starbucks trips and switching to cheaper alternatives from McDonalds and Dunkin Donuts.

The conventional “wisdom” on pricing is, when recession pushes customers to cut back on expenses and switch from your products to cheaper alternatives, you cut your prices to keep the customers. While this is a usually accepted and followed practice, it is neither wisdom nor based on analysis. 

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"when price conscious customers moved out all they are left with are price insensitive customers who prefer their products. Hence it makes sense to charge more for them as long as the loss in profit from further drop in customers is less than the increase in profit from higher price."

Uma grande lição aqui "Pricing Direction For Recessionary Times – Higher" (Vale mesmo a pena ler para reflectir e, quiçá, influenciar decisões futuras. E, nestes tempos em que tantos e tantos portugueses compram private-label... muitas empresas deviam reflectir sobre isto)

E quais os resultados para a Starbucks, passados estes anos:

 BTW:

"As you read this multiple times you will find all kinds of reasons except, “We cater to a somewhat higher-income customer and we price our products based on customer willingness to pay. Besides we don’t expect any push back from these high income segment”.

A key attribute of those practicing value based pricing is never explicitly saying that they are practicing value based pricing. There are always other reasons and you never say pricing at customer willingness to pay. A key part of practicing effective pricing is effective pricing communication and managing customer perception. Failing that you will face backlash as some brands recently did."