Pricing Topics

Again and again, I hear and notice people not taking advantage of promotions that are available to them and they are eligible to get it, but don’t take the action that is required in order to actually receive it.When shopping on a site. Familiarize yourself with all elements on the page, so that if there are promotions listed somewhere you know where to look for it. Mostly promotions would be prominent and visable so that the user should see it and get the price outright, but in lots of cases that I know and is well known, it will not be highlighted to the user, the reason is that once a seller lowers a price and it is visible other robotic systems will pick it up and mostly match the price if possible within thier margin, and in order to avoid that retailers may tend to have a better price but require an action either a promo code or to click something to reveal it, or click some button and not even reveal it till the cart.And these could sometimes be real savings. So again familiarize with all elements of a website page so that you are aware of the locations these may be posted. So that when you shop, you will know and assure that you are not missing out on any promotions .

Good luck.

When you see an item heavily discounted online, do you still have to look further or call in to see if there is a better price? the answer is a lot of the times YES.

On the popular items when there is a saving, it will mostly be matched by other retailers too, even on Prime day from Amazon, you may find similar pricing on other sites too.

there are exceptions to this and sometimes only one retailer will have those savings, some times others will have it on a different date in order to compensate from the manufacturer against that day when the competitor had a lower price, After all it is not only the retailer that is looking to gain money from a momentum that customers have and buy for the cheaper price, the vendor is mostly under these specials too.

My advice, even on prime day, you should still do a comparison to other retailers online or by phone.

When doing online shopping it is the best practice to compare pricing in the cart into the checkout page, like this you will see all charges like shipping and tax with a final total to compare.

Most retailers already offer free shipping on most items, but it sometimes depends if you are a member or if the order total is above a certain amount of dollars.

Once you are at checkout you can also in most cases already see a shipping estimate when the products will arrive at you, this is useful information when you are in a rush to get the product quickly.

Plus you have the benefit of detecting if there is better pricing in the cart then originally published, why would that be? As already mentioned there is map enforced pricing by vendors where sometimes it doesn’t apply in the cart, you could also gain from savings that are promoted elsewhere as BOGO savings and you missed it but the 2 items in the cart qualify and the retailer is nice enough to calculate that for you.

Don’t get cought up in the deal hunting, and then finding yourself with empty pockets.

The right way to shop is by compiling a list of item that you are in need for and then go deal hunting, otherwise you will end up buying alot of stuff that you don’t actually need.

Build a wishlist if items or categories that you are currently in the process of getting, work out of that and look for the best pricing from legit retailers.

Going online shopping can be tough
1. searching for the product, finding the right terms to search for.
2. Sifting through the results, for the legit sellers.
3. Reading reviews and questions and answers are a must, comparing the ratting with the amount of reviewers is the wisest thing, a 5 Star from 10 people is nothing to compare to a 4 star from 1000 people.
4. If on Amazon, look for the ranking number , it gives you somewhat of an idea how popular this product is in that category.
5. Seller feedback and number of reviews should always be checked.
6. If purchasing from a site direct , always check the site rattings, u don’t want to fall in to a scan site just because the price is right

As we have written already, that manufacturers may manipulate a pricing structure for items in an online site as they don’t want a pricing war to kick off on their brands.

Some are ok with the following options.

1. freebie giveaways up to a certain amount of dollars or percent of the item.

2. Gift card giveaway to offset the price.

3. Retailer rewards programs.

4. Bundled offers (when you buy another item together with the main controlled price item, you can save on another accessory item dollars or percent.

5. Promo/coupon code offers.

6. Free extended 0% financing options.

7. Mail in rebate, is also a commonly used offering for free items that are fulfilled from the manufacturer of the item. (To me it sounds like a way to gather customer information)

Do you know what map pricing is?
Map stands for M’inimum A’dvertised P’rice, this is a price that the manufacturer puts an advertising limit out to the authorized resellers of their items so that the market price of their items stay competitive.

This does not in a lot of cases mean that you cannot sell for less, you just cannot advertise that lower price online. And yes you may not know but it is a huge possibility that if you call or walk into the store, you can get a better price without even asking for a discount. Yes, it is a fact! There are hundreds of items that are price higher online.

It is not for all items, as there are items that do have stricter policies in place and if the manufacturer would audit or test out the reseller and see that they can get it for cheaper then the demanded price, they would penalize the reseller with no longer shipping the item to them for an extended period of time.

Then you can sometimes bump into hidden online pricing, where you have to take action in order to reveal the actual final price online, some send you an email with a link that gives you a better price or tap for price or even more restrictive is that you can only see the actual price in cart or checkout.


So when doing online shopping there is a lot to be on the lookout for all these pricing techniques as some won’t show up even on google, as there it would also be a violation of the map policy.

It is wise to shop around a lot, and even better to also call in a few stores to check if it could actually be better, especially when you see all retailers stick to a specific price point.

Don’t get cought up with list price.
Some retailers will list thier items with a discount putting the list price on top and writing the amount you save till thier current price, then let me tell you a secret, list price is a blown up value price that in the retail industry is rarely used as the price point of the item.

There are a few price levels a retailer would get on pricesheets from a vendor
1. Msrp, list price (manufacturer suggested retail price)
2. Map price (minimum advertised price)
3. Cost, booknet (this is the amount negotiated with the vendor to sell this product for the retailer)

Msrp is a price that some use for calculation basis for the cost or so.

Map price is the price that if map is enforced all authorized resllers would stick to that price, except if there is a rebate or deal allowed by the vendor going on at that time.

So back to our first point , map price is the price point where this item would be officially, while this is the case some online stores will always list the list price and price at regular map pricing just to show the customer a savings, while there is non and all authorized dealers are priced on the same price point.

Don’t get fooled when you see a discount posted on a site, make your proper research by using Google shopping or other comparison sites to see how others are priced.