Читать книгу Pricing Strategies for Small Business - Andrew Gregson - Страница 31

Ninety-nine percent of small businesses have no way to test their pricing model daily. If you sold pork bellies on the Chicago Exchange, the price would move each day according to the supply from the pig farmers and the demand from the packing houses. But there is no fluid marketplace for hose reels, clothing, or pasta. That marketplace function is undertaken by the business owner and his or her store. This means that knowing the theory of supply and demand is only good enough for the big picture and that uneven levels of local supply and demand will lead to price differences.

But the supply and demand theory is not dead. The availability of technology is having an impact on informing suppliers and customers, and flattening prices for commodity items. For example, a recent Economist article^[2] noted the impact of cell phones on sardine fishermen in South India. Before the advent of cell phones, some 12 percent of the sardine catch was destroyed due to local market gluts. Afterwards, a fisherman with cell phone in hand could find the best price for his catch while at sea and then sail for the port with the highest prices. Prices reached a uniform plateau at 4 percent lower, on average, up and down the coast, and fishermen made 8 percent higher profit.