Customer Reviews

Power Pricing: How Managing Price Transforms the Bottom Line

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We all know that pricing is important, know how important? Do we know that a 1% price improvement could boost net income by over 25%? How much thought do we put into setting our prices? What tools do we use when we set prices? For most of us, the answers are "too little and too few".

If you're responsible for pricing strategy in a mid-size company but don't consider yourself a pricing specialist, you'll find Power Pricing useful. It covers a lot of ground in a nontrivial way.

Power Pricing starts where it should with an economic analysis of price, costs, and profits. I hesitate to use the word "economic" because it too often means "boring", "incomprehensible", or both. The book is neither, and the economics of pricing is half of what you need to know in order to be a smart pricer.

The other half is understanding how customers respond to prices. The book covers several methods of determining price sensitivity, including conjoint analysis, a technique used by sophisticated companies but rarely understood by those of us who are not technical experts. The book's brief overview is understandable even if you have no technical background.

The first part of the book ends with an interesting chapter on pricing and competitive strategy. It's full of examples which clearly illustrate pricing principles.

The second part of the book introduces specific pricing concepts and techniques. Most of the concepts will be familiar, but the book covers some of them at a higher level of sophistication than most of us are accustomed to using. For example, the chapter on price customization breaks the concept into four methods: sorting by product line, by buyer characteristics, by transaction characteristics, and by distribution channel.

We all know about quantity discounts (called "nonlinear pricing"), but do we think in terms of two-part tariffs or two-block tariffs? The book analyzes both, as well as other techniques for giving quantity discounts.

The chapter on product-line pricing is particularly interesting. Are you willing to sacrifice profit on one item in order to make more profit on another How do you determine which products should be considered together when you set prices? How do you know how much a price change in one product affects the sales of another product? Are base products and their add-ons equally sensitive to price changes?

Another interesting pricing decision involves price bundling. How do you put together successful product and price packages? Although this is one of Power Pricing's weaker chapters, you may find some of the tips useful.

The book's chapter covering time customization of prices is more detailed and interesting. Time customization involves duration of price promotions. If you are trying to get loyal users of a competitive product to try your product, is there a best time to do a price promotion and a best length of time over which to run it?

Power Pricing is an interesting and useful book. It explains some fairly technical, sophisticated material in a manner that is understandable, whether or not you have quantitative training. It generally is easy to read, subject to over-use of the ten-n "power pricer" and phrases in German (one of the authors is German).

R.M. (Erik) Gordon is Director of the Center for Retailing Education and Research, Department of Marketing, Warrington College of Business Administration, University of Florida, Gainesville.

Why does there exist such a variety of pricing schemes for different products and why do we see different prices for the same product, depending on who buys it when, where, and how? This is a branch of microeconomics called price discrimination. Price discrimination questions are among the most directly observable ones for students, particulary those who are unlikley to study more economics or business. I therefore focus on these questions in teaching managerial economics in an organizational management graduate program.

Dolan's and Simon's book is therefore of some interest to me. These two management consultants have written an extremely practical and non-academic book which explores the actual practice of business pricing with greater sophistication than found in most standard applied micreconomics texts or many business marketing texts. The main markets for this book, I suspect, are students, having graduated but still disatisifed with the overly theoretical approach in their microeconomics classes, and business managers, especially in medium to large companies, for whom pricing is a very dynamic and strategic issue.

I doubt this book is used as a main teaching text, nor would I recommend it. Its basic concepts are hardly novel and are found in any microeconomics or marketing text.The presentation of the basic concept of price elasticity is somewhat long and tedious (it is usually done in less than a page in a standard microeconomics text). However, the application of this concept -and illustrations of how businesses can use it practically - makes for a very rich discussion.

What is useful in their book is the variety of examples of actual business settings where practical pricing decisions have to be made which can apply several different concepts. How globalization affects pricing decisions is given considerable attention in this book. I did not find the final section on implementation of priing strategy in organizations as insightful as the middle chapter which is more analytical.

For teaching and learning purposes, this could be a useful back-up resource, if used judiciously with a more standard text.

I work in the small appliance business. Price is one of the largest issues facing our industry. Dolan combines textbook economic theory, practical applications and real world examples to spin an enticing web of price application. This is a must read for : former economics majors who wish they had pursued a graduate degree, marketing people who have pricing authority (or wish they did) and sales people. The underlying message is reinforced by example.. price on customer perceived value. A great "pass around" text for co-workers, its not terribly academic, but you must keep with it in the slow chapters.

Needing literature for my thesis I found this book. Looks promising, but quotes like "global brands coupled with differentiated prices are not possible" immediately dismiss this book as a good source of reliable info. I just have to mention the differing prices of MC Donalds throughout the world, and you know this quote is really worthless. Of course the quote has some meaning for high priced goods, but for almost all fast moving consumer goods this quote is rubbish. I think it would be useful to add to a future version of this book that this remark is more valid for high priced goods.

Second point that I want to make is that the author thinks all producers have factory outlet stores or that distributors don't have a supplier. But this is probably my business administration background asking for a real perspective on prices, instead of just one isolated part. Mr. Dolan please read some distribution channel management literature! There are suppliers and there often is a retail channel that has some power in setting their own prices (especially in EUROPE)It is not clear from what perspective the author is looking.

And last of all, if you write a better version, please change the title, the best thing that I can say about the current title is that it fits the book.

The author discusses and recommends a number of multivariate techniques without having adequate knowledge of them. Throughout the book, the author stresses the importance of applying conjoint analysis. It is obvious that the author tries to build himself up by using terminology and discussing techniques that he knows little about.

The author also rewrites real business events in order to fit his examples. Often he dwells too long on these examples instead of getting to the point.

While the author is a marketing professor, I don't think that he chose a target market. The content is no better than the information that a marketing student will get from an introductory accounting course. In addition, the terminologies that the author kicks around will likely scare marketing managers who lack a marketing education. Postgraduates will likely consider this book a waste of time and money. I have read other books that cover pricing just as well, get to the point quicker, and aren't as full of bull.

I used this book for my job when I was asked to do pricing for a new product. It may not be the best book for that. But it did give me some prespective of what all things I should take into consideration. It helped me prepare a good model which helped compiled thoughts of everyone. I am still working on this pricing excercise and I feel that after a while, I will through away the model, but this books examples, stress on real profit drivers, importance of variable costs helped me concentrate at right drivers in the begninning. I would like to go for better, more practical book with some good mathematical models.

Power Pricing is a book for managers that are responsible for pricing decisions in their organization or in whose business pricing plays a critical role. It presents many sophisticated pricing schemes, modern pricing strategies and up-to-date tools that all help to put pricing problems behind. Many practical examples show that they are more than theory, but have helped companies multiply their profits. Very recommendable and also nice to read.

If you are looking to get serious about developing a pricing strategy...then this is the book to read!

Me parece que este libro da ideas básicas de las estructuras de precio usadas actualmente, sin embargo toca cada tema muy superficialmente y al menos en mi caso tuve necesidad de comprar otro libro sobre el tema con la idea de profundizar mas en las estructuras de precio no lineales.