O "pricing" é uma arte

Primeiro esta história:

"Joe Sixpack is reaching for a brew on the market shelf. There’s a premium beer that costs $2.60, and a bargain brand that’s only $1.80. The premium beer is “better” (whatever that means). Connoisseurs have rated the premium brand 70 out of 100 in quality, while the bargain brand is only a 50. Which should Joe buy? Joel Huber and Christopher Puto, then a professor and grad student at Duke University’s school of business, posed this dilemma to a group of business undergraduates. The students preferred the premium beer by a 2-to-1 margin. Another group choose among three beers, the two above and a third with a rock-bottom price of $1.60 and a quality rating in the basement (40). Not a single student wanted the super-cheap beer. Yet it affected what they did choose. The proportion of students choosing the original bargain beer rose to 47 percent, up from 33 percent. The existence of the super-cheap beer legitimized the bargain beer. In another set of trials, the three choices were the original bargain and premium beers, and a super-premium beer. Like many upscale products, this was much more expensive ($3.40) and only a little better in quality (rated 75). Ten percent of the students said they’d choose the super-premium beer. An astonishing 90 percent chose the premium beer. Now nobody wanted the bargain beer. It was like pulling the strings on a marionette. Huber and Puto found they could make the students want one beer or the other, just by adding a third choice that few or no one wanted."

História que pode ser ilustrada desta forma:

O "pricing" é uma arte que me fascina cada vez mais
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Como os humanos não têm referenciais absolutos de valor, no momento da compra, perante marcas desconhecidas ou novas, fazem comparações com os elementos que têm à mão.
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Entretanto, actualmente estou a meio de um projecto destinado à exportação em que uma nova marca portuguesa pretende aparecer no mercado escolhido como no terceiro cenário e como a cerveja de $2.60. Entrar num segmento 10 vezes mais caro do que aquele em que está habituada a participar, para competir com outras marcas que já lá estão com preços mais altos. E, olhando para trás... consigo recordar mais dois ou três casos em que o mesmo se passou. Escolhem o segmento, escolhem o alvo, o equivalente à cerveja de $3.40, e procuram oferecer um produto ou serviço igual ou superior ao de "$3.40" em termos de especificações.
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Trecho retirado de "Priceless The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It)" de William Poundstone.