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Sales and Pricing Advice

by BeckM2
7 replies
Hi,

I'm new to setting pricing and I am hoping to get some advice. I have a printed book that I sell for $280 retail for a niche market. There is one competitor who sells his book for $380. I have no hard data but his book is well received by the niche and I'm trying to break-in to the market.

I have had two people in the niche post reviews (with two more pending).

My real question is about pricing and finding the "correct" price point.

The book has been out for around 6 weeks and I've sold one copy so far at a 30% discount (I'm running an April special at 30% off).

I show the 30% discount on the squeeze page and on the purchase page. So far in April I had around 40 visits to the squeeze page and 12 visits to the purchase page with one sale.

1. How can I tell if my price is too high? In March I had no discount and sold no books, and now at 30% off in April I have sold one book. Yet my sales conversion rate is 1/12 (8%).

2. Is there a good way for me to test pricing without looking silly?

-It is better to drop the price for a month to say, $150 (a 50% discount), and see what happens?

-Or would it be better to run a 50% discount for a month and keep the price at retail? I know that if I drop the price and get sales, then it was the price that was too high, and not a poorly done purchase page.

3. I would even consider dropping the price to $125 for a month to see how things go, but then if I sold 10 books and raised the price back to $175 I think I'd look dumb.

Thank you SO much for any advice.
#advice #pricing #sales
  • Profile picture of the author SEOFocused
    how long your competitor is selling it at current price? if the competitor price is the same as always, then you know your potential clients are ready to buy it at that price so your pricing will be much more attractive to them.

    instead to lowering the price to $150 and see what happens, i would suggest you to keep it at current price and offer 50% discount for a month and see what happens. people are more likely to act if there is a huge discount compared to an already lowered price.

    think about it... cheap product vs huge savings on an expensive product. which one would you go for?
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    • Profile picture of the author YasirYar
      Originally Posted by SEOFocused View Post

      how long your competitor is selling it at current price? if the competitor price is the same as always, then you know your potential clients are ready to buy it at that price so your pricing will be much more attractive to them.

      instead to lowering the price to $150 and see what happens, i would suggest you to keep it at current price and offer 50% discount for a month and see what happens. people are more likely to act if there is a huge discount compared to an already lowered price.

      think about it... cheap product vs huge savings on an expensive product. which one would you go for?


      I think the first step is to check out other competitors. Are you sure there is only one other person on the internet who is offering something very similar to you?

      You will obviously have to price yours lower, since it is lacking the reputation at the moment, but as mentioned above, it should be done in the form of a temporary discount. Once you have a few more reviews, and you have done more marketing, you can probably charge what you are charging currently.

      What is your book about, just out of curiosity? It sounds very expensive to me.
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  • Profile picture of the author Vlom
    Do you have any way to get more trafic ?

    Given that you're selling a high priced product and conversion rate (even if not sure) is 8% it's may be worth trying some paid advertising and split testing the price, it's the only sure way to know imho.

    Best of luck with your book !


    Mehdi
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    • Profile picture of the author Shadowflux
      I agree with the other posters. Just test a few variations and see what happens. The price is high enough that it doesn't fall into the category of "impulse buys" so you may not see astronomical sales numbers. The price is high enough, however, that any sales you do get will be significant.

      Try driving more traffic to your sales page. If you can't beat that conversion rate then you can at least play the numbers and make more sales with more visitors.
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      • Profile picture of the author BeckM2
        Originally Posted by Shadowflux View Post

        I agree with the other posters. Just test a few variations and see what happens. The price is high enough that it doesn't fall into the category of "impulse buys" so you may not see astronomical sales numbers. The price is high enough, however, that any sales you do get will be significant.

        Try driving more traffic to your sales page. If you can't beat that conversion rate then you can at least play the numbers and make more sales with more visitors.
        Yes, the book IS expensive, but again I'm $100 lower than my competitor and I am trying to drive traffic. It's a slow go but it's getting there.

        That being said, what's the best way to split test price -- is it with Google Optimizer?

        I have my website where I have many "normal" website pages (home, about, services, etc). and the book's squeeze page, and a purchase page).

        All targeted traffic is targeted directly to the squeeze page, but people can still get into the site in other ways and navigate to the squeeze page.

        So it's not a dedicated sales website (the fact that I sell the book provides "authority" points to me when I'm getting new clients -- "Hey, I even wrote a book on the subject".

        Thank you all for such good advice and how can I split-test price like this?
        Thanks.
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    • Profile picture of the author BeckM2
      Originally Posted by Vlom View Post

      Do you have any way to get more trafic ?

      Given that you're selling a high priced product and conversion rate (even if not sure) is 8% it's may be worth trying some paid advertising and split testing the price, it's the only sure way to know imho.

      Best of luck with your book !


      Mehdi

      Thanks! I am using AdWords to try to drive some traffic but I've gotten 9 clicks in the month with a 100% bounce rate. But my targeted traffic on a few particular websites does go from sales page to purchase page (20%), but the AdWords driven traffic conversion stinks. Again -- it's really niche so I'm not surprised about the paid traffic. The keywords that would really work for my book are, according to Google , in the basically "too few searches to bother" category.
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  • Profile picture of the author geotargeted
    Where does your competitor get traffic form?
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