Pricing in the Internet Era

The internet has brought about lots of changes in the way businesses perform their functions. One of these changes is the ease and convenience of looking for a product’s price and choosing the one with the lowest price offering. This discussion is about price transparency and its impact on businesses. 

In Module 4, you studied the “product” component of the marketing mix. One category of products you learned about was “shopping” products. A common characteristic of these products is that customers engage in extensive search before choosing and buying them. 

For your initial post in the discussion forum, choose a shopping product from a well-known brand to research and address the following:

1. Identify the customer segment(s) this product is targeting, based on what you learned in previous modules
2. Describe the factors or characteristics about the product that consumers “search” by or consider before choosing the product
3. Based on what you find on the company’s website and other credible web resources, explain the pricing strategy of the product (e.g., psychological pricing, prestige pricing, penetration pricing) 
4. Share whether you think the internet helps or hinders that strategy, considering that customers have easy access to the range of prices for this product. 
5. Is the product available through giant online retailers (e.g., Amazon)? What are the implications of this for the product’s pricing strategy? 
6. If customers have full information about price ranges, why don’t all customers go for the cheapest option for this product?