The festive season is about to begin. Given this, sales with bumper discounts have started on e-commerce platforms. Regarding this, you are also getting to see advertisements related to the sale on every public place like social media, TV channels, metro stations, etc. Every offer is also being promoted heavily. In such a situation, it is natural to have a question in the mind how does the price of the goods which we have been seeing for so many days suddenly become so low? Even if it is decreasing, how do companies make a profit from it? After all, what is the reason behind this? Let us know in detail about this in this article, with which strategies these companies make a lot of profit even by selling goods for less money.
Price anchoring trap
Price anchoring trap is a dangerous marketing strategy, in which the customer gets trapped automatically. In this strategy, e-commerce platforms first hook the customer by reducing the price of the product. At this price, the product is sold to only a few customers. After some time, the price of the product is increased slightly. In such a situation, the customer who was hooked by the low price of the product tries to buy it again after the price of the product increases a little.
Let us understand this with a simple example - Suppose that one of your favorite smartphones is sold for 60 thousand rupees on an e-commerce website. However, your budget is up to 35 thousand at the most, so you do not buy that phone. Before the sale, the low price of this phone was promoted a lot, and it is claimed that this phone would be sold for 40 thousand. Now the customer will feel that my budget was 35 thousand, so why not buy a phone worth 40 thousand by adding 5 thousand more?
The story of the price anchoring trap starts from here. When the day of the sale comes and you go to buy the phone, then at that time you have to face some truths. That smartphone is worth 40 thousand but for that, you need a credit card from a particular bank. If you don't have a credit card, the same phone will cost you 48 thousand. Now because you have thought about buying this phone for many days and wasted time, the curiosity to buy that smartphone has increased further. In such a situation, an emotional attachment is also formed with that phone and it feels in the mind that we have come very close to buying our favorite phone.
In such a situation, now the customers are ready to buy a phone worth 48 thousand rupees, but when they go to order, the phone is not ordered. During this time the website starts crashing and many times the product becomes out of stock. When after a while that phone comes back in stock, its price increases to 52 thousand. In such a situation, many customers feel that only 4 thousand has increased. This trend is called FOMO i.e. Fear of Missing Out. Now the customer has to buy the phone for 52 thousand with the help of the advertisement shown for 40 thousand. If we see, there are very few people who can buy this smartphone for 40 thousand.
Now three things come to light from here-
Firstly, sometimes it increases from 52 thousand to 55 thousand.
Secondly, there are complaints that the phone ordered at a lower price gets canceled automatically.
Thirdly, think about it, because of the strategy of price anchoring trap, the customer whose budget to buy a phone was 35 thousand now buys a phone worth 52 thousand.
Well, this is just a strategy through which companies can earn money in e-commerce sales. Apart from this, the companies also produce the product which they target to sell in bulk, in very large quantities. Due to production in bulk, the cost of manufacturing the phone is less, due to which the phone companies sell the phone at a cheaper price. Along with this, the price of smartphones sold at nearby prices has also increased a lot. With which the customer compares and feels that the price of that smartphone is very low.
(PC; Adobe stock)
